Four Chinese indicted for sending more than 10 million spam messages

2011-01-05 16:47:51 GMT+7 (ICT)

BEIJING (BNO NEWS) -- Four Chinese men have been indicted in Beijing on charges for sending more than 10 million spam messages, according to a report from the Beijing News newspaper on Wednesday.

Beijing News, citing Xicheng district prosecutors, reported that the spam messages were sent between November 2008 and early 2010. The men have been charged with operating bulk texting services without authorization.

According to prosecutors, the spam text messages contained promotional ads for real estate projects, private tutoring and information for fake invoice trading and credit cards services. The report said the operators charged about 300 yuan (45.3 dollars) for sending 10,000 messages.

China has no specific law against spam but telecom service providers are required to have a license, which the men did not have. They claimed they did not know that a license was required.

If the men, who were identified by the newspaper as Zhou, Shao, Xu and Xiang, are found guilty, they could face up to 5 years in prison.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2011-01-05

Only 10 million?

Only 10 million?

It seems to have been SMS spam. For e-mail spam 10 million is less than a day's work for sure.

Chinese authorities only have a problem with spammers addressing targets in China. For spammers addressing targets in the rest of the world they get a pat on back with a "well done comrade". It is no coincidence that the most popular spam servers all are located in China!

Chinese authorities only have a problem with spammers addressing targets in China. For spammers addressing targets in the rest of the world they get a pat on back with a "well done comrade". It is no coincidence that the most popular spam servers all are located in China!

Any links to prove your statement or is it hearsay ?

LaoPo

Chinese authorities only have a problem with spammers addressing targets in China. For spammers addressing targets in the rest of the world they get a pat on back with a "well done comrade". It is no coincidence that the most popular spam servers all are located in China!

Any links to prove your statement or is it hearsay ?

LaoPo

It is general knowledge. See for example http://www.projecthoneypot.org/list_of_ips.php?t=s&by=15 (you may have to select "Total spams (email)" from the drop box to get the total spam view). Note that the 7 IP's in the middle listed as unknown are actually also in China (you can check it with a simple whois yourself).

In addition to spam, nearly all brute force attempts on my servers now come from China. I would love to pull the plug on the whole country.