Spam, Spam, Spam

Spam is the bane of the Internet and we all spend time building rules and junking these unwanted pest. So it was good news to read that Alan Ralsky, "Godfather of spam" has been sent to jail along with his team for some 4 years for wire fraud, mail fraud, and violations of the CAN-SPAM act.

Ralsky conned many into investing in IPO stocks which in turn boosted their stock price and enabled the owners to quickly exit and forward tens of thousands of dollars from Hong Kong to the Standard Federal Bank in Troy, Michigan. In July 2005 over $1.5 million was transferred! The operation was sophisticated with operations in New York, Brazil, California, Hong Kong, and Dayton, Ohio.

It is claimed Ralsky earned more than $2.6 million between May 1 and December 1, 2005. alone, but the feds were closing in. A three-year investigation by the FBI, the US Postal Inspection Service, and the Internal Revenue Service (with a little help from the SEC) untangled the conspiracy. In 2007, the government moved to indict the entire conspiracy.

The only issue is that someone no doubt will step up to fill Ralsky’s shoes.

Spam and Facebook

The two areas we hear most about with respect to the Internet are spam/junk email and social networking sites. To some the later is a godsend to others they are both pains.

One of the major social sites - Facebook believed that they can walk on water got their advertising concept Beacon wrong and misunderstanding the market and and worst of all their users. They presumed users would not object to their details being shared on purchases made on partner websites to Facebook friends via News Feeds. The backlash caused the social networking destination to quickly respond, "Users must click on 'OK' in a new initial notification on their Facebook home page before the first Beacon story is published to their friends from each participating site."

London Online 2007 claims that nearly 400 people have already joined the Facebook group for the show and requested visitors to join and start making connections in advance of the conference? We found the group just above ‘Vote Crystal Sexy Lady Contest 2007’ with 260 members and below ‘Get "Lady In Red" by Chris De Burgh to Number 1 in the UK in 2007 Campaign!’ with 700 members. Glancing through the profiles of the 435 people in the group we found only 3 people we knew. Maybe we don’t know many people or maybe the people we know haven’t go the ‘me too’ bug.

The dreaded junk mail maybe closer to being dealt a blow.


Mr. Kirsh was an M.I.T.-trained engineer, who has a strong track record of technology innovation which has made him a fortune of over $240 million. He has now created Abaca who claim that they can filter out 99 percent of all spam, and supports the claim with a money-back guarantee.

Abaca turn the normal spam blocking approach on its head, profiling the recipient of e-mail rather than the sender. Abaca, recognize that the ratio of spam to legitimate e-mail is individually unique and that it is also a singular identifier that a spammer cannot manipulate easily. By assessing the combined reputations of the recipients of any individual message, the Abaca system determines the “spaminess” of a particular message. Mr. Kirsch asserts this provides a high degree of accuracy in deciding whether the message is spam.