The country's deputy minister of communications, Andrey Korotkov, recorded a message urging Kushnir to stop what he was doing, and Golden Telecom, one of the country's larger Internet Service Providers, set up a computer that dialed ALC's telephone numbers continuously, playing Korotkov's message.

The company's website also became the target of DDOS attacks, and its phone numbers were posted anywhere and everywhere on the Russian-language web, as contacts for anything from sex to cheap real estate.

[citation needed] On Sunday July 24, 2005, Kushnir was killed in the three-room apartment he shared with his mother on Sadovaya-Karetnaya Street in central Moscow.

Lending credence to this theory, he was last seen alive as he was leaving the Hungry Duck in the company of three women who may have administered the fatal beating when he woke prematurely from his spiked drink.

His spam, and others, had also led to many servers blocking all emails from the .ru domain, hindering Russian users' ability to connect with the rest of the world.

In August 2005, Russian media reported the Moscow criminal investigation directorate detained four people it claimed were involved in the homicide.