A couple of interesting scandal-related stories today: first off, as Wired and others are reporting, some excellent research by an expert with the company SecureWorks has found the spammer behind the recent barrage of unsolicited Ron Paul emails. Still unknown: who hired him.
Stewart’s detective work identified the botnet as part of a criminal operation in Eastern Europe called Reactor Mailer that offers spammers a convenient web interface to manage their illegal campaigns. The Ron Paul spam was managed by a spammer-for-hire who goes by the handle “nenastnyj.”
The political messaging was a departure for nenastnyj, and for the Reactor Mailer network, which is normally hired out by scammers offering fake watches, work at home opportunity and male enlargement products.
Was an over-eager supporter footing the bill? Or was someone managing a convoluted scheme to discredit Paul? Next, on to the Democratic side of the race, where a Hillary Clinton county chair in Iowa has lost her volunteer job for forwarding around an email accusing Obama of being a Muslim manchurian candidate bent on fomenting an Islamic revolt in the U.S. Thanks to Salon for the tip.
– cpd