Hands across the sea continent

This is hilarious, and depressing: you may find tech-libertarians annoying, but just think yourself lucky we got Paul "Van der" Staines, and not this guy. Dmitri Golubov, for it is he, was nailed in 2005 for running a massive credit-card phishing operation (in that case he was probably behind some percentage of the spamwave I spent part of that year trying to keep out of AFOE's comments); now he's starting the Internet Party of Ukraine.

Well, if he's a spammer he's presumably competent. Here's their platform:

Golubov and the Internet Party are running on a platform of rooting out public corruption and reducing bureaucracy. Other parts of its platform include the "computerization of the entire country,"

Dunno what that means, but it's probably rather like Patricia Hewitt's promise in December, 2003 to deliver "online services" to every household in Britain - this blog existed then, and anyone with a BT landline could at least get dialup. Else something more like the J.G. Ballard character whose "attempts to streamline all the furniture in the dayroom unsettled the other patients". But I doubt a Cybersyn-like real-time planned economy is on the cards.

"free computer courses and foreign languages at the expense of the budget,"

And ponies.

"the creation of offshore zones in certain regions of Ukraine," and the organization of Ukraine as a "tax free paradise with the aim to attract money from all over the world."

Of course...does anyone know if that'll get him an invite to CPAC?