The Monthly Lupine Awards
for MMF - May 1997
The following table lists the number of "Make Money Fast" (MMF) chain
letter articles I have canceled at my site, news.msfc.nasa.gov, by
article header From address, for the month of May, 1997, ranked by number
of articles, and only listing the top 40. The numbers could vary
significantly from site to site; other people cancel these things as
well, and some sites (such as AOL) do not honor cancels at all.
Please note that forged and/or mangled names and addresses are common.
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The Golden Lupine award goes to:
Rank Posts
---- -----
1 4785 "ayala20"
hinda ann kolansky
This is currently the number one MMFer of 1997. A user of Prodigy,
last MMF received on May 2.
I wonder how easy it is to post 4785 messages from Prodigy in two days.
Some typical header info:
Path: ...!in1.uu.net!192.207.105.50!prodigy.com!not-for-mail
From: hinda ann kolansky
Organization: Prodigy Services Corp
Message-ID: <5kcpt6$5sm$13@newssvr07-int.news.prodigy.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: port85.frst3.prodigy.net
All of these I saw were of the "fairest most honest way to share"
variety. A suspect:
5) hinda kolansky
49-35 167 st
flushing ny 11365 usa
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The Silver Lupine award goes to:
Rank Posts
---- -----
2 2793 Liberty...
Liberty
I have yet to find out this person's name. These were "retired attorney"
MMFs. Started out posting from Earthlink, then moved to ix.netcom.com,
and was ToS'ed from there about May 7. This is probably the same person
who took the Platinum Lupine Award in April posting as:
Brian
jones@usa.net
k_jones@usa.net
...and maybe others.
Typical header info:
Path: ...!howland.erols.net!ix.netcom.com!news
From: Liberty...
Subject: Ms. Liberty
Organization: Motivate yourself
Message-ID: <5kp9h4$maa@sjx-ixn3.ix.netcom.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: whx-ca7-07.ix.netcom.com
X-NETCOM-Date: Wed May 07 12:04:04 AM PDT 1997
On all of these, the last two names on the list are:
5. Hinda Ann Kolansky
49-35 167 st
Flusing, NY 11365
USA
6. Liberty
22647 Ventura Blvd., #1005
Woodland Hills, CA 91364
USA
Liberty's address intrigues me because it shows up in the "pole position"
on some other MMF's. Perhaps 22647 Ventura Boulevard is the site of a
large home for retired attorneys. 8-)
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The Bronze Lupine award goes to:
Rank Posts
---- -----
3 2132 [spammer@ibernet.es]
This major pest is using morphing From addresses like these:
B2JKD@VJF66.V11K3 550OK@AU1YH.TGVRP 5MVA8@M0P9X.VV294
Q9K2E@OYU1J.TFNX1 QRZ4A@DXOP9.ZNR35 ZOI5V@RCT1K.A3HRR
This junks up my NoCeM notices but otherwise doesn't get him/her
anywhere. In general, there is only one instance of each From address,
and infrequently two, but there are a few that repeated 20-50 times.
These are all usually "retired attorney" MMF's, but I think I've seen
other variants. All of these have the same 5 names listed:
1. Ron van Hoof
14 Moshier St.
Greenwich, CT 06831
USA
2. Richard Blanchette
Pob 455
Palisade, Colorado
81520
USA
3. Caroline Mowinckel
Molnar Utca 21
2 Em Nr-10
H-1056 Budapest
Hungary
4. Odd Hilsen
Avda Espana 93
Sitio de Calahonda
Mijas Costa - Malaga
Spain
5. Peter Kjoge
Camino de la Condesa 9, 5-A
E-29640 Fuengirola
Spain
Some of the more recent posts have the last two names interchanged.
Typical header info:
Path: ...!in3.uu.net!194.179.1.100!minerva.ibernet.es!diana.ibernet.es!not-for-mail
From: ZOI5V@RCT1K.A3HRR
Subject: Everybody wants some
Date: 23 MAY 1997 23:20:56 +0200
Organization: Unisource Espana NEWS SERVER
Message-ID: <5m5762$14j$22@diana.ibernet.es>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 195.76.99.223
This spam continues into June. I have attempted to contact ibernet.es,
as has Henning Weede, but neither one of us has received a reply. The
MMF itself is in English. I don't know Spanish.
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The rest of the top 40:
Rank Posts
---- -----
4 544 Andrew
5 504 Trakker1
6 455 Peter Sung
7 402 yousef jeledan
8 396 "Jose"
9 351 "Glenn"
10 335 zdragic@aol.com (ZDragic)
11 309 cre8or000@aol.com
12 300 insider@usit.net
13 271 jims@erols.com (Jim)
14 259 "John Doe"
15 258 Keith Malbrue
16 241 bbeli10899@aol.com (BBeli10899)
17 235 jaidenfx@aol.com (JaidenFX)
17 235 SJD
18 225 scrabbie@aol.com (Scrabbie)
19 216 e067599@orca.cc.metu.edu.tr (yilmaz akalin)
20 210 "Black Knight"
21 208 Tanya Boleware
22 206 MDS
23 205 "Johnny G. Gulo"
24 199 ceigenhe@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (ceigenheer)
25 198 sotws@aol.com (Sotws)
26 194 "bukweet"
26 194 "Bill Dever"
27 192 sfaulk@postoffice.worldnet.att.net
28 190 steelsrc@sprynet.com (louis sant)
29 189 Snipes
30 185 Nick Kim
31 184 nbdy@hotmail.com
32 183 "Rick Slaven"
33 182 Sigurd@phil.phil.ccu.edu.tw (std 682125007)
34 173 "wrumph"
34 173 "ajd1000"
35 172 "Suzy"
36 171 @sun.zju.edu.cn
37 170 johnk@mail.utep.edu (john t. kaudaissy)
37 170 777@bastrop.net
38 169 stan@btl.net
39 168 "Antonio Sanchez Pintos"
"T.O.N.Y."
40 166 abravi@aol.com (Abravi)
40 166 "P.A. Williams"
Peter A Williams
--------------------------------------
Total articles canceled: 48194
Total unique Froms: 1516 (counting the ibernet.es spammer as 1)
There are 44640 minutes in May, so the Barnum Rate was a sucker every
29.5 minutes, and there were approximately 1.08 cancels issued per
minute, a considerable decrease from April (1.52 cancels/minute).
I have compiled a list of the most MMF-ridden newsgroups in May 1997.
Please note that this list is affected by many factors, such as:
1. I don't get (or want) a full feed here, and a lot of the newsgroups
listed are mostly leakage or crossposts.
2. I don't cancel articles in moderated newsgroups and certain others
(such as news.admin.*).
3. Crossposts are listed as if they were multiple posts, unlike the
Lupine Awards list above.
4. The activities of other third-party cancelers are not compensated
for.
With that in mind, here are the top 40 "MMF magnets."
rank arts newsgroup
---- ---- ---------
1 197 alt.business
2 194 alt.business.misc
3 191 alt.business.home.pc
4 175 alt.2600
5 167 alt.business.multi-level
6 153 ab.jobs
7 136 alt.alien.visitors
8 135 alt.activism
9 134 ab.general
10 129 alt.business.home
11 128 alt.3d
12 126 alt.0d
13 116 alt.1d
14 115 alt.bbs.internet
14 115 alt.amazon-women.admirers
15 113 alt.sex
16 112 alt.america.online
17 111 alt.alcohol
18 110 alt.adoption
19 107 misc.entrepreneurs
19 107 alt.3d.studio
20 105 alt.alien.research
20 105 alt.acting
21 104 alt.abortion.inequity
22 103 alt.bbs.ads
22 103 a.bsu.programming
23 98 alt.alt
23 98 alt.abuse.recovery
24 97 alt.astrology
25 96 alt.2600.crackz
25 96 a.bsu.talk
26 95 alt.acme.exploding.newsgroup
27 93 alt.beer
27 93 alt.bbs
28 92 alt.anything
28 92 alt.aapg.general
29 91 alt.aapg.announce
30 90 alt.agriculture.misc
30 90 3b
31 89 5col.forsale
32 87 alt.activism.death-penalty
33 85 news.newusers.questions
33 85 alt.ads
33 85 alt.2600.codez
33 85 ab.politics
34 84 abg.amiga
35 83 alt.backrubs
35 83 alt.abuse.offender.recovery
35 83 alt.2600hz
36 82 alt.atheism
36 82 alt.agriculture.fruit
37 81 alt.activism.d
38 80 alt.best.of.internet
38 80 alt.autos
38 80 alt.aldus.pagemaker
38 80 abg.biete
38 80 3b.config
39 79 alt.2600.cardz
39 79 acadia.bulletin-board
40 78 alt.sex.anal
40 78 alt.baldspot
40 78 alt.alt.alt.alt.alt
40 78 alt.3d.misc
(Somehow, alt.sex.anal seems like an appropriate place for MMF.)
Notes and conclusions:
1. From my vantage point, MMF seems to be on the decrease. However, I
strongly suspect that we have not "turned the corner"; rather, other
cancelers have gotten into the act.
2. There are now a lot of "indirect" MMF's. These merely cite a URL
containing an MMF. I don't have a general way to check for these.
3. As an experimental service, you (the general public) can email any
MMF's you find on Usenet to:
chainsaw@news.msfc.nasa.gov
Please, only one MMF to a message, and don't send me multiple copies of
an MMF. You will not receive a reply. I will use this information to
tweak my MMF detector. I won't necessarily cancel the articles you
send. Subject to discontinuation without notice, some restrictions
apply. 8-)
--
J. Porter Clark, d/b/a
+--+
|oo| The Unknown News Administrator
| | news@news.msfc.nasa.gov
`^^'
