From: dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM)
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 11:37:58 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Money-making ideas for Igor Chudov
In-Reply-To: <199611110436.WAA15563@manifold.algebra.com>
Message-ID: <Pso9wD37w165w@bwalk.dm.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


"Igor 'FUCK MNE HARDER' Chudov @ home" <ichudov@algebra.com> writes:

> manifold::~==>premail -t cypherpunks@toad.com
> Chain: haystack;jam
> Subject: I urgently need a lot of money.
>
> Please share your money-making secrets, I am in a desperate need
> for cash.

For shame! Igor Chewed-off disgraces his Chewish Mommy by even asking. Isn't
propensity for "gesheft" genetic? Here's another money-making idea for Igor:

Igor obtains a list of e-mail addresses of people interested in equity-related
investments (e.g. by watching misc.invest.* and sending the posters / those who
voted for their creation unsolicited e-mail; or by posting anonymous ads,
inviting the readers to reply to a reply block in order to receive 3 free
promotional issues of an investment advice newsletter; or even by starting up
his own private financial derivatives mailing list). Igor divides the mailing
list into 2^3=8 parts, and gives them exotic Russian-sounding names: Aleksej,
Boris, Vasilij, Grigorij, Dmitrij, Elena, Zhenja, Zoya.

Igor then uses an anonymous remailer to spam everyone on his mailing list with
the 8 variants of the following message: "Congratulations! You have won 3 free
issued of the _Boris Investment Newsletter, published in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by a
proud holder of a Master's Degree in Financial Engineering from the Moscow
State University. I predict that within the next month Adobe stock will go up."

Instead of "Boris", Igor will substitute one of the 8 newsletter names; instead
of Adobe, he can use any volatile stock that's as likely to go up as down; and
the predicted stock price movement will be "up" in the first four newsletters
and "down" in the other four.

One month later the stock in question is either up or down. Without loss of
generality, suppose that it's gone down. Aleksej, Boris, Vasilij, and
Grigorij's investment advice was wrong, they disappear from the face of the
earth, and the former recipients of their newsletters don't get bothered any
more. (Or they could be recycled for future scams; or they could be send the
remaining 2 issues of worthless advice, as promised.) On the other hand
Dmitrij, Elena, Zhenja, and Zoya guessed right, so this time they send out a
new investment newsletter via the anonymous remailers:

"Congratulations! You continue to receive the free investment advice newsletter
from Zoya in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Last month I correctly predicted that Adobe will
have gone down. If you're smart, you've shorted Adobe's stock and made lots of
money by now. This month I predict that Cisco will go _down as well."

Again, Dmitrij and Elena predict that some other volatile stock goes up, while
Zhenja and Zoya predict that it goes down. Suppose D&E are right. Igor leaves
the Zh.&Z. partitions alone. One month later D&E's subscribers get letter #3:

"Congratulations! You continue to receive the free investment advice newsletter
from Elena in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Two months ago I predicted that Adobe would go
down. I hope you sold it short. Last month I predicted that Cisco would go up.
I hope you bought it. This month I predict that Lucent will go _up."

One month later one of the two is right, so its recipients get the fourth and
final e-mail from an anonymous remailer, this time using a reply block:

"I've given you three free stock tips over the last 3 months which probably
made you a lot of money. Now that you've seen my track record, you'll want to
continue receiving my free advice, but the free promotion is over. Please send
$20 in untraceable digital cash to this reply block to receive 6 future
issues."

Quite a few people would risk the $20, but that would be the last they hear
from Igor. :-)

(Alternatively, he can even e-mail 6 more issues of worthless advice to those
who caughed up the $20, so they can't complain. It would be hard to prosecute
Igor without proving that all 8 newsletters were published by the same person
who's been giving contradictory advice to different people.)

"Credibility is expendable." - John Gilmore

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps