A couple days ago, Alexey Tolstokozhev, a Russian spammer was found murdered. The crime scene investigators have ruled it as a probable mob hit (due to the placement of bullets). Alexey was not just any spammer, as it turns out he may be responsible for up to 30% of all viagra and "enlargement" spam. While I certainly don't condone murdering anyone, the money quote is too good to pass up:
"Violent murders is a clear sign that spam becomes a serious criminal activity" - the officials say. "Easy money attracts criminals, which bring their own version of "justice" with them."
Remember the recent proposal to issue Letters of Marque and Reprisal for Osama bin Laden? This vigilante method certainly adds a new, although, arguably expected twist to it... and it is just slightly more effective than CAN-SPAM. You see, spammers like Alexey are hardly operating legitimate businesses, as they pay black-hat hackers for access to zombie botnets -- which are destructive and harmful to the productivity and well-being of everything connected to the Internet. For an explanation of botnets, be sure to check out: Online Criminal Gangs Battle With Botnets Storm worm botnet more powerful than top supercomputers The Economics of Malware What do Botnets and GPGPUs have in common? The Commercial Malware Industry (pdf)
Update: despite being a popular story on Slashdot and Digg, it appears that this story is actually a hoax/rebranded occurrence of a murder from two years ago. Be sure to check out the above details on botnets.
