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http://en.rian.ru/russia/20101027/161100322.html
09:26 27/10/2010
The Russian government may allocate 161 million rubles ($5.28 million) in 2011 for the development of a national operating system in a bid to reduce the country's dependence on Microsoft, a Russian business daily said on Wednesday.
A further 490 million rubles could be invested in the project from 2011-2013, Vedemosti daily said, citing a draft federal target program.
The project will allow the government to regulate the security of information systems, said Alexander Chachava, president of information technology company Leta Group.
The target program does not include earlier mentioned plans for the development of a national Internet search engine, aimed at stimulating the development of domestic technology.
Instead the draft outlines funding for the development of an internal governmental search engine, which would allow officials to search for documents on ministry databases.
However, specialists told the paper that the project to develop a national search engine is not dead and could find another source of funding.
MOSCOW, October 27 (RIA Novosti)
Moscow police prosecute world's biggest spammer
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20101027/161101221.html
11:39 27/10/2010
Moscow police have filed a criminal case against businessman Igor Gusev, listed as the world's biggest spammer.
This is the first time a spammer has been convicted in Russia.
His company Despmedia has been sending spam e-mails advertising fake pharmaceutical products to users in the United States, Canada and other countries through a partner program Glavmed.com, the Kommersant newspaper reported.
The company has had a turnover of $120 million since 2007, the paper said. Gusev himself has received $2 million in revenues.
He is believed to be outside Russia at the moment, police said.
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) last year closed down one of the biggest spam websites spamdot.biz, reportedly run by Glavmed.com.
According to the Russian Association of Electronic Communications (RAEK), Russia's economy lost 14.1 billion rubles ($462 million) due to spam in 2009, while the spammers made 3.7 billion rubles ($123 million) during the same year.
Spam amounts to 20 percent of Russia's market for Internet advertising, RAEK said, while spam e-mails are estimated to account for up to 70 percent of all e-mails sent.
Russia is in fourth place on the global list in e-mail spam. The United States, China and India make up the top three, said Andrei Nikishin, Director of Content Filtering, Research and Development at security firm Kaspersky Lab.
Relaying spam in Russia is forbidden under a state law, but it prescribes no criminal conviction for spam distributors.
The first spammers to face criminal prosecution were two siblings in the United States, who were convicted of sending hundreds of thousands of e-mails advertising penny stocks and low mortgage rates in 2005.
MOSCOW, October 27 (RIA Novosti)
Noticed less spam lately?
http://www.todayonline.com/World/EDC101027-0000136/Noticed-less-spam-lately
11:55 AM Oct 27, 2010
MOSCOW - Since late last month, the world supply of Viagra ads and other email spam has dropped by an estimated one-fifth. You may not have noticed - with 200 billion spam messages in circulation each day, there is still plenty to go around.
Yesterday, police officials in Russia here announced a criminal investigation of a suspected spam kingpin, Igor Gusev. They said he had probably fled the country.
The Moscow police said Gusev, 31, was a central figure in the operations of SpamIt.com, which paid spammers to promote online pharmacies, sometimes quite lewdly. SpamIt.com suddenly stopped operating on Sept 27. With less financial incentive to send their junk mail, spammers curtailed their activity by an estimated 50 billion messages a day.
Moscow police officials said they had charged Gusev of operating a pharmacy without a licence and of failing to register a business. Yesterday, they searched his apartment and office in Moscow, Specific, computer-crime related charges may follow after police examine the contents of removable hard drives, flash cards and laptops found during the search.
Gusev's lawyer yesterday claimed his client was not the owner of SpamIt.com and had never sent spam email. THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://rt.com/Top_News/2010-10-27/spammer-viagra-criminal-investigation.html/print
27 October, 2010, 08:31
Russian police have opened a criminal case against Igor Gusev, the director of an online pharmacy who is considered to be the world's top spammer.
Russian daily newspaper Kommersant reported on Wednesday that Moscow police are hunting for Gusev, director of Despmedia, on charges of illegal entrepreneurship and tax evasion. If he is found guilty he could face up to five years in prison.
Investigators have already searched the suspect’s home and office. They reportedly found a batch of pharmaceutical goods imported from India. According to investigator Evdokiya Utenkova, some of the documents discovered during the search may help officers find Gusev. The investigators are preparing to approach Interpol over the case.
Kommersant reports that Gusev’s company, Despmedia, was allegedly involved in the sale of counterfeit pharmaceutical products, like generic Viagra, in the US, Canada and other countries through spam emails. Sales over the last three and a half years are estimated to total around US$ 120 million. The market players cannot recall criminal investigations against spammers. However, the paper points out that in 2009, Russia's economy lost around half a billion US dollars in sales through spam.
Another prolific Russian spammer Vardan Kushnir was killed in 2007 in Moscow. Kushnir was the head of English learning centers called the Center for American English, the New York English Centre and the Centre for Spoken English. These enterprises sent millions of spam emails every day. Kushnir said spam is what email was made for.
Russian law prohibits using spam as an advertising method, but does not consider it a crime, which makes it difficult to call spammers in the country to account.
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