Australia - you can keep him

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Much angst has been expended in the Canadian media that Dale Begg-Smith, 21 year old Canadian born gold medalist at the Winter Olympics, declared for Australia in his late teens as their regime facilitated his dot-com business. He also claimed funding favouritism by the sports authorities towards French-Canadians. The Toronto Star reports:
"The French-Canadian guys get so much funding," Begg-Smith told the Vancouver Province last year. "You're better and they're getting the funding and I'm like, 'Why?' In business, I deal with all that crap. In sports, you shouldn't have to deal with that."
His internet ventures have made him a millionaire and driver of a $300,000 Lamborghini but was after his win he was evasive as to the nature of his business. Now we know what that business actually is.

He's a spammer. His companies are accused of facilitating spyware. Here he is discussing his software on a computing bulletin board.

There have been calls for the IOC to yank his medal - but disgusting as it is activities like this are (generally) legal. Hopefully the exposure his gold medal brings on the industry will lead to better measures against these "entrepreneurs" who take advantage of lax security models in programs like Internet Explorer. Which is why everybody should get Firefox.

His website is mysteriously down. However, the Wayback Machine is most helpful here.

Fret no more Canada - celebrate Marc-Andre Moreau's fourth place instead.

Comments

Eagle said…
Hey, thanks for all that stuff. The BBC neglected to mention any of it.
Mon Feb 20, 05:26:00 am GMT-5
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