200 WELL AIMED silver bullets would take care of 80 per cent of the world's spam, according to the anti-spam organisation Spamhaus. According to security outfit, Spamhaus there are only 200 people that are responsible for most of the spam in the world.

The worst is a "multi-aliased spammer" known variously as Alex or Alexey who lives in the Ukraine. Alex is alleged to work with Russian spam bandits called Pavka/Artofit, which use spam bots to churn out junk.

Leo Kuvayev, number two on the list, who also worked with Pavka/Artofit, has been in hiding after a Massachusetts court handed down $37 million in fines in October 2005 against him for his operations in the US.

Other names include Michael Lindsay of iMedia Networks who Spamhaus says runs a "full-fledged spam-hosting operation" and Jeffrey Peters who runs a fake Russian ISP for spam operations.

Four of the top ten spammers are from Russia, and one from the Ukraine works. Two are from the US, with the others from Israel, Hong Kong, and Canada.

It's alleged. [This report now seems to have disappeared. Ed.] µ