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Spammergate: The Fall of an Empire - 1.4 billions e-mail addresses leaked.
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Spammergate: The Fall of an Empire - 1.4 billions e-mail addresses leaked.

Have people seen this?

https://mackeeper.com/blog/post/339-spammergate-the-fall-of-an-empire

1.4 billions e-mail addresses, IPs, names etc leaked because of a faulty R-sync backup.

Comments

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran
    edited March 2017

    myhken said: faulty R-sync backup

    Yeah, well, that's what you get for trusting open source software. I knew "free" was too good to be true!

    Is this really that significant I wonder? 1.4bn email addresses? I think I could probably scrape (literally) together a few million in an hour if I had to...doesn't make delivering viagro promos to them any easier. They say "1.4bn + full name + in some cases physical address". Let's leave that last part out for a sec (because your library has tons of this info in phone books)...email address and full name? They often go together anyway.

    Sounds like I'll be having even more lovely young Russian women coming to my inbox looking for love now. Ah, I remember the days before the Internet, before I knew I was such a potent object of female desire...

    BTW, isn't MacKeeper kinda...spammy themselves? My corporate firewall blocks them as "undesirable software".

  • MadSpriteMadSprite Member
    edited March 2017

    @raindog308 said:

    myhken said: faulty R-sync backup

    Yeah, well, that's what you get for trusting open source software. I knew "free" was too good to be true!

    Is this really that significant I wonder? 1.4bn email addresses? I think I could probably scrape (literally) together a few million in an hour if I had to...doesn't make delivering viagro promos to them any easier. They say "1.4bn + full name + in some cases physical address". Let's leave that last part out for a sec (because your library has tons of this info in phone books)...email address and full name? They often go together anyway.

    The fault was not because of r-sync, it was because of a bad mis-configured setting of not putting a password on it.

    1.4bn addresses that are possibly updated and validated. Makes it really valuable since they can fine tune their emails to bypass filters almost daily.

  • YuraYura Member

    Spam is a solved problem.™

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    What amazes me is just how few are responsible compared to how many have to deal with it in some way.

    Thanked by 1ucxo
  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    jarland said: What amazes me is just how few are responsible compared to how many have to deal with it in some way.

    Yeah, but other than that, LowEndTalk is fun.

    Thanked by 2jar OnraHost_Zack
  • It is quite easy to get 1B email addresses. The Adobe leak from a few years back was pretty huge, add them up all together and you have a very fat email address list.

    Great for sticking into social networks.

    Thanked by 1doughmanes
  • NekkiNekki Veteran

    ricardo said: Great for sticking into social networks.

    Please define 'great' in this context for me.

  • Nekki said: 'great'

    For anyone interested in harvesting information for marketing (~email spammers). A huge list of emails is one thing, but having information specific to an individual is of more value.

    It also verifies that the email user is more likely still active, if they have accounts elsewhere tied to it.

    It really sums up how care-free people are with putting out their information. On the bright side, at least their spam can be targeted.

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    I'll admit I enjoy targeted spam 100x more than the traditional "nothing that has ever had anything to do with me." At least it feels like someone put effort into it, and I appreciate someone who cares about their work, even if their work makes them a dick.

    Thanked by 2Corey netomx
  • HxxxHxxx Member

    That was no accident lol...

  • Only pen and piece of paper save the World.

  • And once more we see the "basic law of security" to be true: There are two opponents, one of which, lousy software design and development, is at least theoretically a solvable problem. The other one, human stupidity and ignorance, however stays unsolvable.

    Thanked by 2Nuntius pomelow
  • @bsdguy said:
    And once more we see the "basic law of security" to be true: There are two opponents, one of which, lousy software design and development, is at least theoretically a solvable problem. The other one, human stupidity and ignorance, however stays unsolvable.

    Absolutely true. Hope some day the machines can manage themself ...

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    @Nuntius said:

    @bsdguy said:
    And once more we see the "basic law of security" to be true: There are two opponents, one of which, lousy software design and development, is at least theoretically a solvable problem. The other one, human stupidity and ignorance, however stays unsolvable.

    Absolutely true. Hope some day the machines can manage themself ...

    There was a movie about that...

    Thanked by 2Nuntius netomx
  • WSSWSS Member

    @jarland said:

    @Nuntius said:

    @bsdguy said:
    And once more we see the "basic law of security" to be true: There are two opponents, one of which, lousy software design and development, is at least theoretically a solvable problem. The other one, human stupidity and ignorance, however stays unsolvable.

    Absolutely true. Hope some day the machines can manage themself ...

    There was a movie about that...

    Middle Men?

    Thanked by 1jar
  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    jarland said: I'll admit I enjoy targeted spam 100x more than the traditional "nothing that has ever had anything to do with me." At least it feels like someone put effort into it, and I appreciate someone who cares about their work, even if their work makes them a dick.

    I sense a new social network possibility. Every person helps the other get on the right personalized spam lists. People can like spam messages, and the best ones are shared. But you can only share spam messages with people you don't know, and only by the thousand. I could call it SpamBook. Or SpamChat. MySpam. SpammedIn. AdultSpamFinder. AshelySpamison.

    BRB gonna file an IPO and then get going looking for fiverr dev gigs...

    Thanked by 1vedran
  • The important information from the link above is that the average worth of an email for cold spam is around 0.1cents.

  • deadbeef said: 0.1cents

    Higher than what I'd have thought.

    raindog308 said: I sense a new social network possibility. Every person helps the other get on the right personalized spam lists. People can like spam messages, and the best ones are shared. But you can only share spam messages with people you don't know, and only by the thousand.

    Sounds like Reddit.

    Thanked by 2raindog308 netomx
  • @ricardo said:

    deadbeef said: 0.1cents

    Higher than what I'd have thought.

    I was a bit surprised as well. I remember in similar incidents many years ago that at the time, it was worth 0.01cents each. I guess I forgot to factor in the ...inflation :D

  • They were clearly determined to get that spam delivered, it seems like mail servers would have to limit open connections or (perhaps better) delay the sending of emails by 10-20 seconds until they can determine whether it's this slowloris type approach.

    The ol' cat and mouse, but with huge sums of money at stake, lots of shit information and possible jail terms. Hopefully they've left some cash for their family tucked away somewhere.

  • YuraYura Member

    @ricardo said:
    Hopefully they've left some cash for their family tucked away somewhere.

    Their kids are left with so many viagra pills to have centuries long boners.

  • @bsdguy said:
    And once more we see the "basic law of security" to be true: There are two opponents, one of which, lousy software design and development, is at least theoretically a solvable problem. The other one, human stupidity and ignorance, however stays unsolvable.

    lousy software design and development comes from product demand that grows out of human stupidity and ignorance, which means, i think, our opponent is insurmountable. we'll still be desperately waiting on our antivirus scans to run when the whole world gets hacked..

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