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Spammers on the Run
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Aug 15, 2005 12:23 PM
from the canned-spam dept.
from the canned-spam dept.
ericald writes "An interesting
update from Blue Security, the group that introduces the Blue Frog initiative to fight spam, claims that during the past few days at least one spammer had frequently deleted domains he owned as a result of their system.
In another update in their blog
they report they have already recruited over 21,000 users.
It's about time spammers start feeling the heat! I'm just surprised they show results so soon."
Related Stories
[+]
Technology: Blue Security Reborn As Social Action Enabler 29 comments
griswaldo writes "Wired News writes about the re-birth of the ill-fated Blue Security as a social action company. According to the article, founders of the former anti-spam company that made headlines after incurring the wrath of a Russian spam king have set up a company called Collactive that provides tools to organize grassroots action on political and social web sites. The article mentions a global warming initiative called WorldCoolers and, for the Slashdot YRO crowd, the Privacy Alert Network that kicked off by letting people comment on Homeland Security's latest crazy idea."
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Spammers fate (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Spammers fate (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Spammers fate (Score:3, Insightful)
He can declare bankruptcy. However that won't matter much. Bankruptcy just turns your bills and assets to the courts. The court then decides how to pay your bills for you. First the lawyers get paid (of course), then all court judgments get paid, next secured loans, then unsecured loans. (I'm likely to have missed something in there) The court can sell anything (often with exceptions like your house, but this varies from state to state) to raise funds.
Bankruptcy isn't a free way to get rid of deb
Re:Spammers fate (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Realistic View? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Realistic View? (Score:5, Insightful)
Public ISPs, universities and government centers do not (and can not) take this route. So these orgs must take another path towards dealing with international spam.
Filtering works. Greylisting works. These technologies help a great deal against the zombie armies everyone said would be unstoppable spam sources.
I am glad you have a solution which works for you (and to some extent, I agree with your soultion), but I would hate for the balkanization of the Internet to come about due to the misbehavior of a few rotten apples. I think there must be a better way.
Cheers,
-- RLJ
Parent
Re:Spammers fate (Score:3, Interesting)
But wouldn't it be better to make spam unprofitable [paulgraham.com] by creating better spam filters? This way so very few people even see the spam that no company will even invest in this sort of marketing anymore.
Re:Spammers fate (Score:5, Insightful)
However, it will not make spam unprofitable. To make it unprofitable, the costs of sending spam must be higher than the money you get from it. So in some way, we need to increase the costs of sending spam, or reduce profits.
The cost of sending spam is essentially zero. Sure, you may have to switch ISP once in a while, register some new domains, invest in some CDs with email-addresses, buy some software or consultants to infect machines, etc... But it really doesn't matter. Even with todays hostility towards spammers, the cost is still essentially zero.
The profits of spam is:
- price_of_whatever_you_sell * number_of_email_addresses * some_really_low_fraction
where really_low_fraction is the number of idiots who fall for your scam.Bayesian filtering doesn't address either costs or profits. It does not make sending spam more expensive, and it does not change the some_really_low_fraction, because the idiots who respond to spam wouldn't be using bayesian filtering anyway.
So Bayesian filtering is nice for the end-users who just want to get through their mail, but it doesn't really help solve the problem of making spam unprofitable.
Parent
Re:Spammers fate (Score:4, Insightful)
Part of the problem is the legal framework, unsolicited mass mailing needs to become 'more illegal'. Paying someone else to spam needs to be targeted, if a company in the US pays someone in Uzbekistan to send spam, that company in the US has to suffer. Follow the money.
Blacklisting entire countries is a different approach, once strong anti-spam laws are in place in some of the main jurisdictions, recalcitrant areas can be *persuaded* to adopt/enforce similar measures by blacklisting. That blacklisting has to be done at the ISP level though, not by law.
Parent
Re:Spammers fate (Score:5, Insightful)
I know we're living in the era where corporations and employers believe they have the right to do anything they want. But while refusing to employ someone on hearsay is within an employer's rights, there's a chance of shooting yourself in the foot and actually hiring the guy who was smart enough to cover his tracks, rather than the silly, average person whose box was "owned" and spammed without thier knowledge.
Oh but we all know that search engines are infalliable and are the best way to screen a potential employee, right? Come on. If I can steal your identity and borrow money in your name, how hard can it be to spam in your name? Frankly this would not be an employer worth working for.
Parent
Re:Spammers fate (Score:4, Insightful)
I dunno.. If I was a greazy marketing type I would love to find someone who was a greasy as myself and this kind of Google information would be perfect. And you have a hard time using the word illegally on any of this since you would have to have proof. How many spammers have been convicted?
Parent
Re:Spammers fate (Score:3, Insightful)
spammers know how to deliver messages and are thus very hireable. plus...while we know who these vermin are...and the marketing companies/employers know who they are...john q. public doesn't know.
so what preventative is there to not hiring spammers?
and don't get me wrong...i detest spammers and report/fight th
Re:Spammers fate (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course it's successful. Any biological system obeys a gaussian or normal distribution. This includes patterns of behaviour in a population. There is always a bunch of people on the edge of this curve who will buy anything. The gullible, the impulsive, the mentally handicapped, the bipolars in their manic phase. If you spam enough people, you will hit enough of this extreme population to make a "business" out of it. What sucks is that the entire rest of the population who are not at all interested in the "product" will also have been spammed at this point.
But the spammers don't care, all they want is cash. I wouldn't be able to live with myself knowing I did this for a living, but the spammers obviously have no problem with it.
If the spammers were smart they would have a list of gullible people by now and target their population more intensly, to save on effort. You might as well bleed em dry, right?
Parent
Re:Spammers fate (Score:3, Insightful)
It's more than that. Everybody wants cash. But spammers are psychopaths who see themselves as more valuable than all other humanity put together, and do not care if the $1000 they earn by spamming actually costs others $1,000,000.
The world is much better off if they were locked up permanently or dead.
Similarly, any company which hires such people is probably also better off missing.
Re:Spammers fate (Score:3, Insightful)
Med school, biostatistics and epidemiology classes and years of experience dealing with biological systems like "human beings"? There may be a few exceptions, but as generalities go, it's a pretty fair statement. We are all somewhere on the Gauss curve. Most of us are in the middle.
In fact, central tendency is so strong we even look for it instinctively. Why do you think th
Re:Spammers fate (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Spammers fate (Score:3, Insightful)
Because somebody who has as little morals and ethics as spammers do will extend their beliefs into other aspects of life. A spammer wouldn't think twice about stealing from their employer if they think they wouldn't get caught. A spammer wouldn't hesitate to get the company in trouble over some shady deal if it means personal profit for them. When you hire a spammer, you can guarantee some sort of damage will be done due to thi
That's funny. I'm still getting spam. (Score:5, Insightful)
The odd thing is, I'm still receiving as much spam as I've always received. No matter how many tens of thousands of users they sign up for this process, I fear this is going to be a very small drop in a very large bucket.
Re:That's funny. I'm still getting spam. (Score:4, Funny)
feh.
Parent
Blue Security (Score:5, Informative)
Basically, they DDOS spammers websites in hopes that they will shut them down.
Re:Blue Security (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Blue Security (Score:4, Interesting)
Those are lauded in all of the history books as an application of peaceful economic pressure.
Peaceful, yes; lawful, no.
Parent
Running out of hiding places (Score:3, Insightful)
Give everyone in the world email for a week and then see all the government action we desperately crave
Anti-Blue Frog (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Anti-Blue Frog (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Anti-Blue Frog (Score:5, Funny)
You misspelled "best".
Parent
Re:Anti-Blue Frog (Score:3, Funny)
-jcr
Re:Anti-Blue Frog (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that spelled ``best''?
Seriously, the grandparent post refered to this as a DDOS. If the spammer sends me an email, he's certainly got no right to complain if he gets one back. If he gets enough back to shut down his website, well, he shouldn't have sent so much spam, should he? My understanding is that Blue Frog tries to send an unsubscribe message for every spammed address (their website is slashdotted)? If so, the spammers have already announced their willingness to get that message, and it is obviously legal.
Parent
Re:Anti-Blue Frog (Score:3, Insightful)
Spammers arent unreachable targets either
Re:Anti-Blue Frog (Score:3, Insightful)
Stands to reason that you got modded Troll. I mean, what kind of person stands in front of an angry lynch mob and says "now now, don't you think a few hours of community service would be more appropriate?".
I understand your reasonable view. Killing someone for spam is not an alternative. But this is not the time or place.
(Grabs pitchfork and torch again and resumes up and down motion).
"Yeah, burn the spammers, burn e
Re:Anti-Blue Frog (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Anti-Blue Frog (Score:4, Informative)
TechNewsWorld? Ah, one of those ECT publications. They have such esteemed writers as Maureen O'Gara on their payroll. Their publications are barely news and frequently contain some form of troll or flamebait to get them posted on Slashdot.
If you thought ZDnet was crap, ECT makes them smell like roses.
Parent
System Requirements? (Score:4, Insightful)
System Requirement
Windows 2000/2003/XP
Ok so I'm out, last windows I read email on was Win95 or maybe Win98, some bullshit virus or another screwed me over, I ain't "done email" on Windows of any type since. Oddly enough, I haven't had any viruses, spyware, adware, or malware since then either.
So while I applaud efforts to reduce spam, efforts that requre Windows seems silly at best and are efforts I can't join in on. Even my wife no longer reads email on Windows, the last time her Windows PC slowed to a crawl due to spyware instead of spending 3 or 4 hours googling for the latest cleaners and finding out what new and not at all entertaining spyware she had, I said "fuck this' gave her my new and as yet unpacked Mac Mini and she hasn't had any spyware problems since. Ripped her PC apart and installed Linux on it to replace my laptop as my main "work" pc.
Foot, meet bullet (Score:5, Funny)
An interesting update from Spammers-R-Us, Inc [...] In another update in their blog, they report they have already gotten over 21,000 Slashdotters to hit the Blue Frog site. It's about time spamfighters started feeling the heat! I'm just surprised they show the results within 20 posts on the thread!
- with apologies to the original article poster :)
A better idea (Score:5, Funny)
Make them run using Postfix? (Score:5, Informative)
smtpd_recipient_restrictions =
permit_sasl_authenticated,
reject_non_fqdn_sender,
reject_non_fqdn_recipient,
reject_unknown_sender_domain,
reject_unknown_recipient_domain,
reject_unauth_pipelining,
permit_mynetworks,
reject_unauth_destination,
reject_rbl_client ombie.dnsbl.sorbs.net,
reject_rbl_client relays.ordb.org,
reject_rbl_client opm.blitzed.org,
reject_rbl_client list.dsbl.org,
reject_rbl_client sbl.spamhaus.org,
permit
We are also using SpamAssassinn / razor / clamav using amavisd-new. The main mail account used for everything from clients webmaster@ mail to contact@ are getting numerous spam daily, yet only three or perhaps four a month get delivered... and those are added to our body_checks.txt which is publicly available for download [linuxreviews.org] by anyone, including spammers who I have a feeling makes spammers think twice and clean us off their list when they find themselves listed there using search engines etc.
This gives me an idea... (Score:4, Funny)
Kill profits by consuming resources (Score:5, Insightful)
In contrast, a bot that visits a spammer's site consumes the spammer's valuable resources in far greater amounts that is consumed by the original spam e-mail (spam emails often being under 10kB and sent via low-cost zombies vs. 50kB or 100kB for most web pages begin hosted on the spammer's e-commerce site).
Re:Kill profits by consuming resources (Score:3, Funny)
And, as far as I can see, the most important resource consumed is the spammer's time to sort the replies to his/her which MAY BE LEGITIMATE.
Doesn't sound that familiar?
Maybe spammers will use some modified version of spamassassin to filter for replies to their spam
False "Results" (Score:3)
Correlation is not causation!
Spammers have been rotating through domain names for years now. You can watch it on a week-by-week basis, as a whole series of domains with the same nameservers takes responses for the same spam months on end. Even when the spammers change nameservice, they tend to do it in predictable ways.
In one week's time Blue Security has manages to slightly ruffle the feathers of a total of THREE distinct spam operations. Big whoop.
Re:what do they do? (Score:5, Informative)
I see this as having two major effects. First, it keeps the spam away from you. Second, it informs the spammer that nobody read his spam. Spammers *depend* on human beings reading their spam. As long as nobody reads it, nobody buys.
Parent
Re:what do they do? (Score:5, Funny)
You really don't know? Geneticists have engineered a breed of frogs that subsist entirely on Spam. An interesting side effect is their attractive blue coloration.
Parent
Re:what do they do? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:what do they do? (Score:5, Informative)
Spamming is cheap, and virtually without risk. Essentially, this is a legal way to shift reality so that it's more risky to pay a spammer for your advertising.
Yes it's legal. No, it's not spamming the spammers. They only get one complaint per spam recieved. You'd do it yourself, given the time to do so. Meanwhile, you've explicitly installed a piece of software to do it for you. If that breaks their server, well they probably shouldn't be sending so much goddamn spam.
Parent
Re:Excuse me... (Score:3, Interesting)
This may not work. I don't know.
The thing here is that there are basically 3 types of SPAM.
1) Annoying mails from a legitimate company that you may or may not have explicitly told them they could spam you, or you are just being punished for being their customer. The difference here is that they _DO_ comply with opting out.
2) Annoying mails from a semi-legitimate company that will
Re:Excuse me... (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you take a look at the Blue Security site and see how their technology works? The spammers are not getting spammed in return...the Blue Frog program essentially sends an automated "Opt Out" to the spammers; if they fail to respond and the recipient continues to receive mail from that spammer then Blue Frog submits complaints to the MERCHANT SITE.
I would hardly call any of this vigilantism. One spam - one opt-out request. Continue to ignore those requests? Complaint to the merchant payi
Re:Excuse me... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Excuse me... (Score:3, Insightful)
So you're a spammer. End of conversation. FOAD.
Re:Good old detective work for a chance? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Don't give it out... (Score:3, Insightful)
I also run mail lists, which adds to this problem
But running my own server with mimedefang + spamassassin makes life somewhat like it was pre-1994.