Ministro russo viene spammato, reagisce con spam 'telefonico'

Stanco di ricevere via e-mail messaggi pubblicitari "non richiesti" dall'American Language Center, una scuola di lingue con sede a Mosca, il Ministro delle Comunicazioni Andrei Korotkov ha deciso di passare al contrattacco:

"Spammers last week got on the wrong side of the wrong man, and quickly found themselves with a taste of their own medicine."



(...)



"With the brainstorming help of the Group Against Harmful Programs, a recently created anti-spam (and anti-virus) organization, whose members include Internet providers Russia Online and Rambler.ru, Korotkov decided he would fight unsolicited e-mails with unsolicited phone calls -- fighting fire with fire, as it were.



The plan they hatched called for Korotkov to record an audio message to be volleyed nonstop to the telephone numbers listed in the language center's own spam messages.



"They wanted to joke us around, so we decided to joke them around, too," Korotkov said flatly.



ROL and Rambler, whose own networks suffer from the volume of spam, volunteered their equipment to the goal of teaching spammers some boundaries.



The American Language Center was thus pelted with 1,000 automated phone calls in a single morning.



As the center's office near Oktyabrskaya metro station was serenaded with frenzied, incessant rings, anyone who picked up the receiver heard the Big Brother voice of Korotkov, wagging a cautionary finger and alluding to the dire consequences of further offenses:



"I want to warn you that if you continue your illegal activity, then the necessary measures will be taken not just by me," the Korotkov voice intoned, after giving his name and ministerial affiliation.



Efforts would be made, he said, "to make it impossible for you to get in the way of e-mail users and to make your life complicated."

Insomma, davvero un bel tipetto, questo ministro: peccato che, al di là del singolo episodio, in Russia la legislazione in materia sia fortemente carente e non lasci praticamente difesa contro gli spammers - almeno ai comuni mortali.



Link: articolo completo sul Moscow Times.