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Russia’s most prolific internet spammer, thought to have flooded the online message accounts of nearly all the country’s e-mail users, has been found bludgeoned to death in his Moscow apartment. The body of 35-year-old, Vardan Kushnir, who ran the American Language Centre and masterminded its global spamming operation, was recovered from his home in the early hours of Sunday morning, after he was reportedly struck over the head ten times with a blunt object. Investigators contacted by Russian newspaper, Moskovsky Komsomolets, dismissed nation wide speculation Kushnir’s death was a revenge attack for spamming, and said he was most likely the victim of a disturbed robbery attempt. The newspaper also claimed that the unknown killer or killers had rummaged through Kushnir’s possessions, with CCTV imagery expected to uncover whether any other items were stolen besides a laptop computer and a digital camera. Andrei Kashutin, managing director of IT Dvizheniye, an industry association of 7,000 IT students, told the Moscow Times how Kushnir had become the country’s most notorious spammer; sending out thousands of e-mails about English classes at his American language school. “Anybody who regularly uses e-mail has come across their spam,” Kashutin said, adding it was unlikely the attempted murder was from a disgruntled e-mail user, “especially if it happened in his own apartment." Yet Russian press and Moscow Web forums took a more cynical approach towards Kushnir’s death, with some claiming it was a stunt to attract more attention to his company, while others said it was the “ultimate solution” to the problem of internet spam. A glance at press cuttings from Russian newspapers shows the country that hosts an average of 10 to 20 violent murders each day is remaining unremorseful. “The Spammer had it coming,” declared one daily title, compared to the typically tight writing of a Russian tabloid, which told its readers’ how “Spam is deadly.” One Russian internet columnist quick to comment on the death of Kushnir said internet users from Moscow to Israel to Canada greeted the news jubilantly. “Indeed, the deceased must have been the most hated person among 17.6 million Internet users in Russia, whom he continuously spammed over the last few years, sending out tons of email ads for his language courses,” wrote Anton Nossik in her column for Mosnews. “These feelings are shared by many among the 20 million Russian-speaking Internet users outside the country, whom he also plagued with unsolicited ads, both text and graphical: despite limiting its offers to Muscovites only, the American Language Center did send mail to locations as remote as California, Canada or the office network of the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, in Israel.” Last year, Russia’s deputy minister for communications tried to thwart Kushnir’s spamming operations, deemed almost legal in the face of inadequate legislation, by bombarding his American language Centre with nuisance phone calls. Kushnir, or any of his employees answering incoming calls, heard a recorded message with the minister, Andrei Korotkov, stating his name and rank before declaring: “I want to warn you that if you continue your illegal activity, then the necessary measures will be taken and not just by me.” Under its current format, Russia’s Criminal Code does however deal with computer crime as three separate offences, namely database tampering, unauthorised access to systems and networks and creation of harmful software. Many Russian internet users have resorted to using anti-spam software that employs a blanket ban on any incoming mail from the .ru domain name, after ISPs adopted similar measures to protect its customers from mass spamming. Jul 28, 2005 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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