Spammer gets a dose of his own "Medicine" (1 Viewer)

[Rob FM]

I searched, but didn't see this posted yet.
~Rob
A couple of weeks ago the Detroit Free Press ran an article detailing the exploits of a Michigan based "spam king." The article told how Alan Ralsky controls 190 email servers, used to pump out 650,000 spam emails per server per hour. Ralsky's spamming netted enough money for him to recently buy an 8,000 sq ft house in an affluent Detroit suburb. Although the reporter didn't give out Ralsky's address, "which I found in Oakland County real estate records," he (intentionally?) hinted where to find it.
Readers over at /. took up the invitation when the Free Press article was mentioned on their site and quickly uncovered Ralsky's current address. Soon the spammer was signed up for any ads, catalogs and brochures they could find. An update to the original story has Ralsky whining:
"They've signed me up for every advertising campaign and mailing list there is," he told me. "These people are out of their minds. They're harassing me."
Apparently he has hired an attorney and is looking into suing people who signed him up for all the junk mail. I really doubt if he'll be able find a sympathetic judge and jury. Ralsky summed it up best in the original story.
"Isn't technology great?"

 

[Dave Poehlman]

What a sleezeball! This guy deserves every piece of junk mail he gets.

I'm off to send him a 100% natural breast enlargement right now!

Move over Rod Stewart, I've got a new arch-enemy!

 

[Jay Taylor]

I wonder if he's interested in stuffing envelopes?

 

[Rob FM]

Yes, I keep all those little "suscription" flyers just for this guy. I got this story from Arstechnia here
EDIT: Arstechnia link no longer valid :frowning:

 

[LarryDavenport]

I am so sick of spam. Everyday I cone in to work and have to delete over 100 messages to get to the 9 or 10 that are work related. And I have to delete another 50 from my personal account. I am all for free speech and free email, but I would do about anything to get rid of spam (and pop up ads).

 

[Aaron Copeland]

I have one e-mail address that I use for all my internet logins and purchases and a few others that are only for personal correspondence. The one that I freely give out receives over 6000 spam e-mails per month. Fortunately, most of it goes straight into the trash thanks to filters, but it's still damned annoying.

 

[Todd Hochard]

over 6000 spam e-mails per month

Damn. How many porn sites do you have to be signed onto, to get to that level?

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

My personal e-mail doesn't get much spam but MailWasher seems to be effective at sending back a convincing bounce message. I'm trying it now on two other accounts that get a lot of spam and we'll see if it works for them.

 

[Aaron Copeland]

Damn. How many porn sites do you have to be signed onto, to get to that level?

Well, while I do get a bit of porn spam, the vast majority of it is other stuff. Just to give you an idea of the amount of spam this particular address receives I took a screen shot of some of my spam from today. The shot encompasses spam from 12:01 AM to 9:46 AM. This was a semi-slow day for spam:
Lots of spam!

 

[David Ely]

Aaron,
That screenshot is .... well .... incredible.
But look on the bright side, you can enlarge your breasts NATURALLY

 

[Anders Englund]

There is one thing that annoys me more than spam: That's the one time you actually get something you might like (like 5 DVDs for $1 if you join some club)... and after filling out the forms, you find out that it only applies to US residents.
--Anders

 

[MikeH1]

Oh wow Aaron thats a lot of Spam. And I thought I got a lot.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I've had the same email address at work for many years. Usually I get around 100 spam emails per day on this account. My "junk senders" list in MS Exchange has several hundred entries, yet new spamming domains pop up every day. It's a never-ending battle.

 

[D. Scott MacDonald]

I was recently a different type of spam victim, when a spammer sent some spam plus an attached virus to a whole list of people and used my email address (with fictitious name) as the return address. So I received a bunch of nasty emails from people thinking that I sent the spam. Fortunately they didn't add me to any new lists (that I know of).

 

[Frederick]

Going on vacation is the worst. If I'm gone for a week and don't check my email, I have hundreds of spam messages that I have to wade through before I can get to anything business related. I think I have some AOL CD's that I can send this clown ...

Lately I've been receiving emails with viruses attached to them, but fortunately our email system is pretty good at catching them. I get around two messages a month telling me that a file attachment has been deleted from an email because it contained a virus...

Freddy C.

 

[Bill_D]

It's about time they got a taste of their own medicine.

I fight back in a little less conspicuous way. I really appreciate the banks, magazine, mortgage and other 5 zillion companies that send me info on their great deals. I really do. So, in return, I take their pre-paid envelopes and send them some deals that I think they might be interested in.

Just the other day I sent Bank One the ad from the local Kroger advertising 5 navel oranges for a $1. Why waste that pre-paid postage. They should come on down and get some oranges.

 

[Dave Poehlman]

Just the other day I sent Bank One the ad from the local Kroger advertising 5 navel oranges for a $1. Why waste that pre-paid postage. They should come on down and get some oranges.

Great idea.
Yahoo's spamguard is great. Why isn't this service offered to standard email accounts?

 

[Marc_Sulinski]

On the topic of AOL cds, check out this website:
http://www.nomoreaolcds.com

 

[Marc S Kessler]

I read about a web site that has methods for replying to spam and gumming up the works of the spammer. Check out www.cexx.org

 

[Rob FM]

Ha-ha, some good replies guys!