DoS Assaults Underway Against Spam Blocklists

Hiawatha writes "The same sort of denial of service attacks that drove spam blocklist Osirusoft off the Internet are battering many other blocklist services as well." Apparently spammers aren't going to sit by and let people try to ignore their unwanted pitches.

Best defense is a good offense

[Lead Butthead]

So when do we get to launch our DDoS against the spammers again?

MOD PARENT DOWN.

[Anonymous Coward]

Althought he presents a valid arguement, WE DONT WANT TO HEAR THAT!

Try as they may...

[grasshoppa]

Apparently spammers aren't going to sit by and let people try to ignore their unwanted pitches.Too bad my users and I are behind a trained spamassassin, then, eh?

Solution

[alphax45]

Why don't we just offer all the main spammers a free seminar on some small island in the south pacific or somewhere where no one will care, then when they all get there..

NUKE IT!!!

Problem solved :)

Impressive

[3terrabyte]

"We're usually under attack from 5,000 to 10,000 servers at once," Linford said, with incoming data flows as large as 100 million bytes per second. "They're extremely large attacks that would bring down just about anything." But Spamhaus, with 16 servers scattered through 10 countries, has been able to ride it out, Linford said.

Impressive.
Hopefully there isn't a slashdot story linking to them any time soon!

Re:justice

[grasshoppa]

Spammers HAVE to have a weaknes. .

I find most people, when a hammer is liberally applied to the head, find their weakness to be blunt objects.

They tend to dislike them.

Re:Best defense is a good offense

[dewdrops]

So when do we get to launch our DDoS against the spammers again?

Let's send them tons of unwanted emails advertising p0rn and herbal supplements.

MOD PARENT SIDEWAYS

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone appears to want to direct mod power today, so why not?

MOD THE PARENT

[Anonymous Coward]

Just Mod the damn thing.

"Trojan arses"???

[phillymjs]

From the article: In a technique called a "distributed denial of service attack," vandals exploit security flaws to plant programs, called "Trojan arses," on thousands of Internet-connected computers. They then order the Trojan arse programs to spew useless data at a targeted machine.

The mental image of a bunch of Greek soldiers pouring from the sphincter of a huge, wooden butt is just too funny for words.

~Philly

Mitnick's at it again.

[FesterDaFelcher]

I bet its Kevin!

The Internet has you!!

[ph43thon]

the internet has become self-aware.. these aren't trojans and virii that we see.. (well, they are, but) we're seeing the Internot wake up. It's practicing by attacking blacklists.. since they prevent full unfettered emailing. Network Packets have become the flowing nuerons of it's killer Internett brain.. all these random SoBigs and Slammer.Dongs are multiplying to the point where sentient behaviour must emerge!!!!

HAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA@@@@#!!&nbsp ; you beloNG TO THE INTERRRNOTT@@!!

Yes

[FreeUser]

This is the silliest thing I ever expected to read in a spam story...

pamcop's Haight theorizes that the increasingly sophisticated attacks suggest a link with organized crime, but admits he hasn't a shred of evidence.

Anyone else have a wilder guess?

Yes. It's Aliens launching a denial of service attack in advance of their assimilation of the human race. This is clear and obvious to the most casual observer, although I don't have a shred of evidence to support this notion.

These attacks must be stopped!

[teamhasnoi]

Otherwise, we are going to be a nation of skinny, refinanced, gargantuan penises that want to show you something on our webcams!

Re:Mitnick's at it again.

[AntiOrganic]

No way, it's so obviously Jonny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie [imdb.com].

better yet

[Anonymous Coward]

just turn it into a survival-type tv show, where each contestant has to fight over the use of ONE computer terminal.

and don't forget to place a lot of weapons caches all around the island.

the real way to solve this

[Flunitrazepam]

If people would only take a few minutes out of their day to READ spam rather than just trying to block it en mass, spammers wouldn't have to resort to this!

Re:Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Idaho?!?

U-da-ho, sucker!!

Re:Why does he think it's spammers?

[NanoGator]

"Anyone who needs to point out someone elses political leanings in order to denigrate them generally has a soft spot for Chairman Mao."

Heh I read that as "...generally has a soft spot for Charmin".

Maybe I just don't have enough caffeiene in my system right now, but that made for an amusing interpretation.

I think it's cool...

[ryanvm]

I think this is cool. An epic battle between good and evil rages on the Internet. It's sort of like a Lord of the Rings for geeks. Oh wait, Lord of the Rings is for geeks.

Re:ever tried to get off SPEWS?

[dark-br]

Well maybe the DDOSers have a newgroup where the blacklist manteiners can post asking for it to stop and be either a) ignored or b) ridiculed. :P

Re:Why does he think it's spammers?

[222]

This wouldn't be a problem if everyone just started setting the "Evil bit" on their spam packets....

Re:Question for moderators?

[Alizarin Erythrosin]

considering that we might as well get a laugh out of their demise, nuking an island full of spammers is a perfectly fine idea

Plus, we'd get to see that really cool looking mushroom cloud.

Re:MOD PARENT SIDEWAYS

[Illbay]

I hate "Mods" myself. I've always been a "Rocker".

Re:Why does he think it's spammers?

[mrex]

I doubt there is a secret spammer/script kiddy consipracy here.

You doubt there are script kiddie spammers, or script kiddies working for spammers?

In that case, you sound like the kind of investor I need to develop this great idea I had for an anti-gravity machine.

Re:ever tried to get off SPEWS?

[SpacePunk]

The jackasses are elitists. They are stil upset that the 'unwashed masses' are using their precious internet.

Re:ever tried to get off SPEWS?

[randyest]

Haha, that's a good one!

Oh, wait, pebs [slashdot.org]! I know, tell that "SCO [slashdot.org] from [slashdot.org] it [slashdot.org]" joke again!

That's a great one, especially over and over again!

Remember how you kept posting that joke, and like, getting modded +5 Funny, over and over again on the same joke, but then you found out that Funny mods don't count toward your karma, and you were all pissed and stuff, because you learned that? That was awesome! Heh.

Re:ever tried to get off SPEWS?

[pebs]

Oh wow.. Thanks for paying attention, I forgot about that one.. I didn't realize I got modded +5 Funny or that I posted it a total of 3 times. If it got +5 three times in a row, it must've been funny. Next SCO article I'll have to post it again.

I have to give some credit to this guy [slashdot.org] who gave me the idea for the joke.

BTW I'm well aware that Funny mods don't get karma :P

#!/