July 26, 2007 at 19:39Former spammer gave details of his business
- Transfer
He began to engage in spamming business at the age of 17, as soon as he graduated from high school. For five years, he built a whole spamming empire, and at the peak of his power, his profit reached $ 10-15 thousand per week. Money had to be stored in cardboard boxes in twenty-dollar bills.
A former spammer who fully secured his future and retired at age 22, chose to introduce himself as Ed. In the old days, Ed was known as SpammerX. Remaining anonymous, Ed did dare to speak at the IronPort Systems Security Conference recently held in London, where he revealed interesting details of his unusual profession.
Ed's career was built on human greed and intemperance. People with these weaknesses were “customers” of mailing lists. They were the ones who bought medicines from advertising and paid for miraculous recipes for quick enrichment.
“Yes, I know I'm going to hell,” Ed says. “But actually I'm a good guy, believe me.” However, Ed was not always like that. A few years ago, he sent targeted pharmaceutical spam to a database of people who use antidepressants and sedatives (sedatives) - about nine million of these poor people in America alone. That is, he specifically calculated the weakest customers, potential victims. Based on the base of addicts who are treated for gambling addiction, Ed sent out casino ads.
In general, as the former spammer now admits, he "personified what people most hate on the Internet."
He spent ten hours a day, seven days a week, studying anti-spam filters. “The better I knew about spam, the more money I made,” Ed says.
The business scheme as a whole looked like this. First, Ed found an online store that sold a particular product. Then he acquired a list of mailing addresses - a hot commodity on the black market. Then he registered the domain name, put the site to which the link was put in spam emails, and from here a redirect was already carried out on the affiliate program. If one of the customers made a purchase, then the reward of the partner reached 50%. Although the efficiency of mailings was low (less than 1%), but sometimes it jumped even up to 30%. This was once, when advertising a specific product for adults - photographs of dressed women bursting balloons.
To rent spam, Ed rented botnets and paid to hacker owners for the duration of the lease.
Over the last year of his activity, Ed earned $ 480 thousand, but the work completely exhausted him. Ed admits that he had virtually no personal life. The fact is that the work of the spammer was considered humiliating and dirty. Ed couldn't even tell the girl what he was doing. He even wrote a book about his sad fate , again, anonymously.
A similar story:
P2P technology brought bankrupt pirates to bankruptcy
A former spammer who fully secured his future and retired at age 22, chose to introduce himself as Ed. In the old days, Ed was known as SpammerX. Remaining anonymous, Ed did dare to speak at the IronPort Systems Security Conference recently held in London, where he revealed interesting details of his unusual profession.
Ed's career was built on human greed and intemperance. People with these weaknesses were “customers” of mailing lists. They were the ones who bought medicines from advertising and paid for miraculous recipes for quick enrichment.
“Yes, I know I'm going to hell,” Ed says. “But actually I'm a good guy, believe me.” However, Ed was not always like that. A few years ago, he sent targeted pharmaceutical spam to a database of people who use antidepressants and sedatives (sedatives) - about nine million of these poor people in America alone. That is, he specifically calculated the weakest customers, potential victims. Based on the base of addicts who are treated for gambling addiction, Ed sent out casino ads.
In general, as the former spammer now admits, he "personified what people most hate on the Internet."
He spent ten hours a day, seven days a week, studying anti-spam filters. “The better I knew about spam, the more money I made,” Ed says.
The business scheme as a whole looked like this. First, Ed found an online store that sold a particular product. Then he acquired a list of mailing addresses - a hot commodity on the black market. Then he registered the domain name, put the site to which the link was put in spam emails, and from here a redirect was already carried out on the affiliate program. If one of the customers made a purchase, then the reward of the partner reached 50%. Although the efficiency of mailings was low (less than 1%), but sometimes it jumped even up to 30%. This was once, when advertising a specific product for adults - photographs of dressed women bursting balloons.
To rent spam, Ed rented botnets and paid to hacker owners for the duration of the lease.
Over the last year of his activity, Ed earned $ 480 thousand, but the work completely exhausted him. Ed admits that he had virtually no personal life. The fact is that the work of the spammer was considered humiliating and dirty. Ed couldn't even tell the girl what he was doing. He even wrote a book about his sad fate , again, anonymously.
A similar story:
P2P technology brought bankrupt pirates to bankruptcy