It's a small, small, small world! [Olympian Dale Begg-Smith on Geek/Talk]

[Czar]

This is unbelievable.

I was just watching Australia's first gold medal win in the Torino Winter Olympics and noticed a name that rang a bell. The gold medal winner of the Men's Moguls event was one Dale Begg-Smith, formerly of Canada.

Since this was our country's first gold of these games, Begg-Smith has been receiving a lot of coverage. One of the most intriguing points that has been mentioned is that he is apparently a self-made IT millionaire. That's when the name started to ring an even louder bell.

Dale, in an interview, mentioned that he has a company that helps companies to manage their ad campaigns. Strangely, he said that his company doesn't have a name or a website, but that it works as a team of programmers in the background. He possibly said this so that the press wouldn't pick up on the fact that his company has attracted a questionable reputation within the marketplace. That's right, our Aussie gold medallist is the same Dale Begg-Smith who used to run AdsCPM.com. The same Dale Begg-Smith who used to be a member of Geek/Talk, before being banned back in 2002.

Here's an earlier thread featuring comments from the soon-to-be superstar:
http://www.geekvillage.com/forums/sh...ght=begg-smith

How funny is that!

[Larwee]

That is really interesting. There are a few banned Geek/Talk members who have ended up making news headlines.

Now that he has won a gold medal he will receive a lot of attention and the news media might look more deeply into his online marketing company and report about it. That might be some good material.

Here is something about Dale Begg-Smith. Maybe they will show that car of his on television.

http://www.nbcolympics.com/athletes/...b_oll=Headline

[Larwee]

Here is a video link of Dale Begg-Smith in action.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...38020009328138

[Czar]

Fascinatingly, late night coverage of the achievement has focused as much on Dale's reclusive manner and his young millionaire/whiz kid status as it has his Olympic victory. As such, it may not be too long until a savvy reporter stumbles across this thread and performs a search for the term "AdsCPM" on Geek/Talk, which will reveal a huge backlog of publisher complaints, reports of non-payment and claims of the network being friendly towards spyware players.

It's unfortunate that this victory couldn't be sweeter for those Aussies who are familiar with how many members of this community were burnt by his company.

[Jan]

Wow! Unbelievable He sure was very cool, calm and collected in the interviews I saw of him though. The Aussie crowd was more excited than he was.

AUSSIE! AUSSIE! AUSSIE OI! OI! OI!

[Eadgbe]

From Yahoo News: "...After winning, he chose his words carefully.

He didn't want to talk about his internet ad-tracking business and refused even to give the name of the operation.

"I don't know," he said, when asked repeatedly to name the business he started when he was 13 with his older brother, Jason, also a moguls skier who didn't qualify for the final Wednesday.

"It was like, so long ago. I haven't been doing much on that the last couple years."

Begg-Smith said he did the work to make money to fund his ski career, but has since all but shut it down to focus on skiing. The domain name he owns, adscpm.com, comes up as "under construction," meaning it's not operating right now.

He said his business has never dealt with any specific kind of advertising, only the technology to track how often the ads were being seen.

It was up to his customers to decide what kind of ads they wanted to use, he said. When pressed further, he snapped, "I don't know why we're talking about the company. I just won Olympic gold."..." [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060216/...5bnN1YmNhdA--]

It seems this guy has something to hide.

Google tells me the name of his company is AdsCPM, who wrote FreeScratchAndWin. More info on that here: http://sw.freedom.net/portal/swporta...cratch_and_win

Very interesting. How deep is the rabbit hole?

Only a matter of time before the media finds out I guess.

[Steve_S]

1. Change the title of this thread: Begin the thread title with his last name followed by his defunct spyware/porn company name so the SE can pick it up.

2. You have a unique twist to this story. That would be the owner of GV is an Aussie and so is the alleged purveyor of nasty things. The media LOVES this kind of local twist. Send the links to the media and start with your local Media. Call them if they are close. Don't ASK for attribution. They already understand how the "game" is played. Simply point them to our data.

Good luck with the "ink" and great find.

[Sashman]

Originally Posted by Czar

As such, it may not be too long until a savvy reporter stumbles across this thread and performs a search for the term "AdsCPM" on Geek/Talk, which will reveal a huge backlog of publisher complaints, reports of non-payment and claims of the network being friendly towards spyware players.

AdsCPM actually ran and hosted http://www3.adscpm.com/FreeMP3Music.exe which apparantly a good deal of his pops called via a prompted download. FreeMP3Music.exe comes loaded with one of the nastier AdWares (LOP) which is difficult to remove http://www.spywareinfo.com/articles/lop/.

FreeScratchAndWin also installed lop/rnd and in it's earlier iteration dealt with xzoomy. It has it's own parasite designation (http://research.sunbelt-software.com...&threatid=5475) and eadgbe appears to be correct that it is affiliated with adscpm somehow. Here is an old domain registration for scratchandwin.com : http://www.shoalhaven.net.au/sis/tec...ages/8279.html.

Xzoomy.com, which is actively running also has the contact info (Mike Cass) domains@adscpm.com. Xzoomy.com was apparently involved in some autodownload via exploit activity (no prompt download). Here is a nice article explaining what they did : http://www.xeromag.com/vx2.html.

[Sashman]

Hehe, too funny. Here is a guest book entry from Dale to a webmaster of a site dedicated to cheating mobile phone companies.

http://guestbook.hostconnect.net/?sh...bn=guestbook_2

Search for prodesigning@hotmail.com ..

[Sashman]

http://www.torino2006.org/ENG/Olympi...eng160258.html

As for the way chosen to finance himself, here it is: the ex Canadian founded an on-line marketing company that has been quoted at (in fact) 40 million dollars. The company (AdsCPM, the third biggest company of this type in the world), with headquarters in New York, was initially concerned with search engines and pop-ups for at least 5000 websites. It even seems that, having invented a pop-up system, started selling the pop-up blocking system: which is, to sum it up, even more genial.

Sanford Wallace got in trouble with the FTC for doing just this. You cannot create a problem such as AdWare with pops gallore and then create or sell a solution for it. I'm also curious as to what 'type' of company they are referring to. 3rd biggest malware company?

[Steve_S]

"YOU" have "ink"

May all your visits be happpy ones. This is really outstanding research and I'm so very proud of each and every one of you.

Sometimes it's helpfull to cross check old data and look at current data:

Whois history for AdsCPM.com since I can "step back"

Current:

Domain name: adscpm.com

Registrant Contact:
AdsCPM.COM
Steve Richards ()
+1.4166024015
Fax: +1.0000000000
19 Pembroke St.
Toronto, ONTARIO M5A2N6
CA

Administrative Contact:
AdsCPM.COM
Steve Richards ()
+1.4166024015
Fax: +1.0000000000
19 Pembroke St.
Toronto, ONTARIO M5A2N6
CA

Technical Contact:
AdsCPM.COM
Steve Richards ()
+1.4166024015
Fax: +1.0000000000
19 Pembroke St.
Toronto, ONTARIO M5A2N6
CA

Status: Locked

Name Servers:
dns1.name-services.com
dns2.name-services.com
dns3.name-services.com
dns4.name-services.com
dns5.name-services.com

Previous:

from 2003:

CPM Media, Inc. (TLHFTWTLKD)
PO Box 8978
Moscow, ID 83843
US

Domain Name: ADSCPM.COM

Administrative Contact:
CPM Media, Inc. (ILUKLNUONO)
PO Box 8978
Moscow, ID 83843
US
208-301-2570

Record expires on 21-Jul-2004.
Record created on 07-Apr-2003.

Domain servers in listed order:

NS2.CPM-MEDIA.COM 206.161.193.82
NS1.CPM-MEDIA.COM

From: 2004:

Registrant Contact:
CPM Media, Inc.
Viktor Litov ()
+1.3015293442
Fax: +1.0000000000
P.O. Box 2121
Montgomery Village, MD 20886
US

Administrative Contact:
CPM Media, Inc.
Viktor Litov ()
+1.3015293442
Fax: +1.0000000000
P.O. Box 2121
Montgomery Village, MD 20886
US

Technical Contact:
CPM Media, Inc.
Viktor Litov ()
+1.3015293442
Fax: +1.0000000000
P.O. Box 2121
Montgomery Village, MD 20886
US

Billing Contact:
CPM Media, Inc.
Viktor Litov ()
+1.3015293442
Fax: +1.0000000000
P.O. Box 2121
Montgomery Village, MD 20886
US

Status: registrar-lock

Name Servers:
NS1.CPM-MEDIA.COM
NS2.CPM-MEDIA.COM

[Steve_S]

Opps...forgot a key piece of data which is time sensative.

I'm not sure if all of these sites are "kosher" with the GV rules but perhaps in the interest of "Journalisim" please consider letting them display

The dedicated server which currently hosts AdsCPM.com ALSO hosts:

21 domains found on 69.28.210.140
Showing all 21.

Website
www.0dp.com
www.123expressview.com
www.Adscpm.com
www.Adslimitless.com
www.Adultexpressview.com
www.Advolt.com
www.Cpm-media.com
www.Datecal.com
www.Decknews.com
www.Free-scratch-cards.com
www.Freescratchandwin.com
www.Kill-pop-ups.com
www.Popnugget.com
www.Rebateshoppers.com
www.Searchblend.com
www.Searchprogress.com
www.Softtechltd.com
www.Websearchtv.com
www.Wfgtech.com
www.Xzoomy.com

[Sashman]

Steve,

Care to share how you are viewing old registrar information?

[Larwee]

Sashman, there might be a free service that I am not aware of. However the information is available here for a fee http://www.whois.sc/whois-history

[Steve_S]

Scott,

I just posted ALL the domains which are hosted on the AdsCPM.com dedicated server which obviously provides a cross check to your and others outstanding research.

This data and a step back in whois records is provided by whois.sc and you must pay $$$ for this data.

I have a request: We have a VERY VERY rare opportunity to "shame" a Spyware distributor since it's hooked up to the Olympics which provides a very rare current topics "hook" for the media. In this light, I have Bloged it with lots of attribution but perhaps each and every one of you could notify the Media and if you run a blog, then write about it.

Thank you