Lycos Anti-Spam Site Compromised [Updated] 520
An anonymous reader writes "Lycos, shortly after producing a screen saver to fight spammers using a DoS-style attack appears to have been hacked. Attempting to download the screen saver from lycos results in this message 'Yes, attacking spammers is wrong, you know this, you shouldn't be doing it. Your ip address and request have been logged and will be reported to your ISP for further action.' Or maybe it's just a joke -- can you ever tell?" Update: 12/01 15:07 GMT by T : According to Lycos, the defacement reports were actually just a hoax.
This is getting really messy.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Attack! (Score:1, Insightful)
"Fighting" spammers (Score:4, Insightful)
The "technological" solution to spam has shown itself to be totally ineffective. The solution which has worked to not only put a small dent in the daily dose of spam but also enrich the general public has been to take the spammers to court and eventually to jail when necessary.
Spam is like selling kids crack cocaine. No one wants that kind of shit in the neighborhood, but the only people willing to "take back the streets" are ninnies and other gang members.
Works both ways... (Score:2, Insightful)
Well if it was not a joke then.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Raise Your Hands, People... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, didn't think so.
If something like this is ever going to work, it's going to have to be a lot more underground, just like the spammers.
p
Stupidest idea ever. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the stupidest idea ever. I hope several someones end up suing Lycos over this, it's just moronic.
-All- security measures should be predicated upon the sentiment expressed in Hippocrates' _Epidemics_ (-not- the Oath, that's a popular misconception) - '. . . first, do no harm'.
An alternative perhaps (Score:4, Insightful)
What I don't think is a good idea is a company deciding who deserves to be DDoSed. In that sense, it is little better than MyDoom, which also attacked unpopular companies.
Personally, I think we should try to take down companies that use spam for advertising legally, rather than using a DDoS. But I might not have the popular view, you never know.
Re:"Fighting" spammers (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh.
Define "worked."
My inbox is seeing *more* spam, not less, compared with three years ago.
If we're going to be jailing people, we need to be jailing more than one token high-profile spammer every year. Just like a legitimate business, don't you think these douchebags have vice-presidents who run their ops when they're in the clink? Of course they do...
Jailing them -- at least on this scale -- isn't going to help. We need asset seizure, BIG TIME.
The first grandma who gets her computer seized because it's a zombie box sending spam is going to be massively bad PR for the spammers (dirty little thieves, they are, targeting grandmas like that) and Microsoft (worthless insecure OS...).
Seriously, give it a try. But for the love of all things holy, DON'T JUST PUT THREE TOP DOGS IN JAIL IN THE COURSE OF TWO YEARS. THAT ISN'T WORKING!
p
People still download screensavers? (Score:5, Insightful)
It used to be all the rage... yes, starting with AfterDark decades ago, and finally culminating in WebShots a few years ago. But does anyone really do this nowadays? Seriously?
Maybe if it showed a random "babe/hunk of the day" while doing its nasty work it would be downloaded by more people...
Fighting Fire with fire (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with spammers is a hopelessly outdated protocol for sending and relaying e-mail on the one hand, and on the other, governments failing to produce adequate legislation to combat spammers, scammers, and the like on the Internet.
Then think that most companies and business-oriented lobby groups fight hard to keep e-mail available as a direct marketing medium, the same way they would thoroughly object to a ban on telephone-based telemarketing.
We don't need a bunch of cowboys arming themselves with guns and taking out everyone they see as a danger to society/Internet, we need decent, solid legislation, and government commitment to take out spammers.
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Fighting" spammers (Score:5, Insightful)
Heck, even people in the infosec community have enough trouble keeping up with spammers from a defensive corporate security aspect, more less waiting for the government to do enough research to put together a law that may or may not be valid by the time it is voted on and put into action.
Unfortunetly I think the spammers know this, and the best we can hope for is maybe stiffer fines. Then again with the money most of the big guys make off "email marketing", chances are they can afford a good enough lawyer to get them off the hook or a fine that will barely dent their pocket.
Let's not forget the fact that laws are only valid for US spammers. You get a spammer using zombies or even servers in a country that could care less about American policy and laws, and all we have to fall back on is "technology' to aide us.
Other Theories (Score:1, Insightful)
"...is bad, you know this" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Works for me (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you know for sure it is the one you think it is?
Do you know for sure what your system is doing?
If the site had been compromised, how do you know that file is the one which was originally hosted there?
Re:"Fighting" spammers (Score:5, Insightful)
And dont tell me its not Americans that are responsible ... how comes all the adverts are for American companies?
Follow the money. If American banks had their licence removed if they passed money to spammers, there would be no spam.
Re:Attack! (Score:5, Insightful)
Spam is a huge amount of traffic on the net, that is my problem with it. Turning clueless lycos users into antispambots will not DECREASE the traffic on the net but increase it. Also, if joe blow user gets a screen saver that DDOSs a.b.c.d and said spammer goes out of business resulting in cox cable giving my grandma a cable modem at a.b.c.d do you really think J Blow user is going to know to get his screensaver updated or are a large chunk of them going to run the initial screensaver as long as they ran Win 98 unpatched (forever)
Re:Other Theories (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Stupidest idea ever. (Score:2, Insightful)
They *chose* to buy a computer, *knowing* the risks of viruses, spyware, etc.
They *chose* to put that computer on a broadband connection.
They *chose* not to keep their virus protection software up-to-date.
They *chose* not to place the computer behind a firewall.
They *chose* to leave the computer out there like a sitting duck, just waiting for an infection to come along and pWn the box.
It doesn't make it any less low that there are scum who would take advantage of this situation, but...
If someone without proper education is caught operating a motor vehicle, that person is subject to severe penalty.
People with your attitude are the problem with society. WHY CAN'T PEOPLE JUST TAKE SOME FUCKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR OWN ACTIONS? If you fuck up out of ignorance, well, tough shit. Learn. And then don't fuck up next time.
p
hopefully it's written better than that (Score:5, Insightful)
The spammer's response is a strong indication that it's a pretty good idea, and one they really don't like and see as an actual threat to them.
main cost of spam != bandwidth (Score:2, Insightful)
It could have been worse (Score:3, Insightful)
What next? Users attack hardware vendors for not releasing drivers for graphics cards? Political parties make screensavers which overload the web servers of the opposition? We do not want to go there.
I guess this time they should consider themselves lucky that someone didn't manage to remove positive control over the screensavers from Lycos, effectively turning their DDoS zombie network into a tool for spammers. It would have been such a sweet irony of the very network of DDoS-agents created to thwart spammers would be turned into a spamming network.
There we go again... (Score:3, Insightful)
() technical ( ) legislative () market-based (x) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
(x) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
(x) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
(x) Users of email will not put up with it
(x) Microsoft will not put up with it
(x) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
(x) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
(x) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
(x) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
(x) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with Microsoft
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with Yahoo
(x) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
(x) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
(x) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
(x) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
(x) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
(x) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
(x) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid company for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
Re:like i was gonna install it anway (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Attack! (Score:3, Insightful)
(I'm not saying I think this is a good idea - but reading the article before making bogus critical claims would seem like a wise plan to me.)
Re:Attack! (Score:3, Insightful)
What should be done is to simply put pressure on the ISPs hosting these spammers, and cut them off by blocking their mail-servers and even web-servers used to sell their goods.
The "spam attack" was a PR-stunt by Lycos (first tested in Sweden), which apparently back-fired now.
Re:obligatory (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Fighting" spammers (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with going after hosts is that it's a reactionary measure. Remember:
Re:"Fighting" spammers (Score:1, Insightful)
fraud is and has been illegal for a LONG time.
so is hacking someones computer (granted that is a slightly newer law ie 1992 i beleive)
we dont need spam laws, we need enforcement of the basic laws we already have. fraud is illegal, so is stealing other people's resources (zombies, open relays, etc)
technology doesnt move any faster than the law, because much of the law is based on simple principle, ie the fraud example, it is immaterial whether it happens in person or through a random computer protocol known as smtp, it is still fraud.
most spam is already borderline legal to begin with, the tactics the spammers use have already crossed that line into illegalness.
and american policy has little to do with it, most spammers are in the US. it makes no difference if the email went outside the US before hitting a victim inside the US. second, most countries have laws regarding fraud.
Re:"Fighting" spammers (Score:5, Insightful)
It's been said on Radio Four that the biggest change ever to happen in the English courts was the one Joseph Swan [wikipedia.org] made. That's far from saying anything is old-fashioned -- what it really means is we got the law about right years ago. Just because someone's using a computer doesn't mean the old rulebook doesn't apply. Freakin' think about what these guys are doing and try to metaphorise it into pre-computer terms. In the Olden Days, the nearest thing to "botnet spamming" would be breaking into my house, stealing my envelopes and stamps, and posting fraudulent and unsolicited messages to people {including some you looked up in my address book}.
Using someone else's computer without consent is quite clearly simple trespass. That's a civil offence. If you discover that your computer has been misused by someone else, you can sue them for trespass to chattels. Simple trespass becomes aggravated trespass -- a criminal offence -- if the intention is to commit another criminal offence {such as fraud, drug dealing, breach of copyright or trading in counterfeit goods}. It's also quite likely that whoever trespassed with your computer either used force {breaking and entering} or deception {burglary artifice} in order to access it. If they turned your computer into part of a botnet then they are quite probably guilty of aiding and abetting other criminal offences. You're probably in the clear because ignorance of the fact is a defence.
The only thorny question now is, what about the fact that someone can be around the other side of the world as they are committing these offences? For the answer, we need to think about what would happen if somebody was standing on a boundary line between two jurisdictions committing an offence. Also, if someone commits an offence in one country which is also an offence in another country, then they can be extradited to stand trial in that other country {unless they would face the death penalty abroad but not at home; in which the Home Secretary / Minister of the Interior / analogous government person would usually intervene}.
What we certainly don't need are more laws.
Re:obligatory (Score:3, Insightful)
An alternative and legal idea (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the problems with spam is all the companies selling software that 'sends ten million emails a day'. Given that this is hardly likely to be for legitimate use (does your company have 10 million subscribers?) heres a way to hurt their pockets.
Go to google
Search for bulk email software
Click once on every google ad on the RHS.
Repeat each day.
Every click costs the spam (sorry *direct marketing*) company maybe $0.05. If everyone on slashdot did it, these companies would be hit bigtime. Their ad budgets would be used up, and their conversion rate would be zero.
Its not going to rid us of spam, but it IS one way to fuck up the assholes that make this stuff so easy.
Re:Lad Vampire unaffected (Score:1, Insightful)
The recent years while the internet more commercialised I did see more and more kind of war/abuse stuff happening, while the "good guys" forbid any kind of aggresive self regulation with the argument that it will only harm all. People did tell you, you should not fake your email address becase of nettiquette, you should not hack a spammer webserver because that is against personal/proerty/other rights of that person. Okay, did it work? Look at your inbox and count the spam, surf the web and check how much scum you caught, create a webpage and wait until you get a cease and decist letter. Well, I dont propose to drive to spammers and kick there asses (short sighted), however I propose to do this virtually where it hurts them most, in their pockets. People will always be stupid IMHO, e.g. there will be always people who send out spam or abuse the internet like any other medium to make doddgy money, there wil lbe always people who click on spam links or want to believe in wonder diets or other things they simply want to believe because it sounds great. What personally makes wonder is the domination of doddgy idiots in fellowship with "good guys" who live in a pre-1990-internet ponyriding world and that this is a kind of accepted culture in this millenium. I personally think it is time to drastically rethink the way of how to regulate the internet.
So such a tool as LadVampire or a "Lycos screensaver" are a nice vent and I would like to see more of them. Why not paying back and see if selfregulation works? Please dont tell me this is bad as long as you don't have other ideas. One idea could be stronger government regulation, but I am not sure if this is something I would prefer over a self regulation.
Re:hopefully it's written better than that (Score:2, Insightful)
Wonderfull, now, seeing the level of security of Lycos' servers (probably including the one that controls the antispambots), what we have is a huge DDOS weapon, ready to be used by any able hacker...
I want people to stop calling it a 'screensaver' (Score:3, Insightful)
I downloaded this yesterday. What does it do apart from use up spammers bandwidth? It keeps essentialy the same non changing image up on the screen. Er no thanks. My shiny new 19" TFT isn't going anywhere near that.
I know CRTs can now cope with static images, but TFTs can't.
Your Ignorance (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because you don't understand something does NOT make you 'deserving' of harm.
You need to get it thru your head ( and others like you ) that the common man DOES NOT understand the risks NOR SHOULD THEY. They are USERS not TECHIES...
Until you require people pass a test to have a PC, then you can not expect the user to have any knowledge about it.
Would you expect a TV watcher to understand how their TV works? All the digital and analog components? How the electrons are formed and manipulated on their way to the screen? If they don't, they might see something offensive.. got to hold them responsible for lack of specific technical knowledge beyond their normal life.
Or how about nuclear power generation, because they might get shocked by the power..
Get over yourself... You are what gives us all a bad name.
Man, I shouldn't feed the trolls....
Re:Attack! (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing that totally bugs me is that ISPs are not cracking down more on zombies. The terms of service should state that the ISP can read your outgoing mail if you send more than 500 emails a day. They can then shut down your connection if you are sending spam. If all of the zombies were cut off, spam would likely be reduced by 80%.
I downloaded and installed the screensaver a Monday night. I like it. I certainly do not think that this is the perfect solution. But at least is may accomplish something! Every other spam tactic that I have seen to stop the source has amounted to a big fat nothing. Filtering you mail still works, but is a pain.
News forgery (Score:4, Insightful)
This looks like news forgery to me. Is there any indication of a security breach at Lycos? All we seem to have is "an anonymous reader" telling Slashdot that the screensaver was compromised, and at least one blog repeating what has been said on Slashdot. Maybe this is just another PR stunt by Lycos, or a spammer trolling Slashdot?
With Lycos relying on Javascript to get their message out, I sure won't waste my time trying to decipher it. If they can tell me where the spammer websites are, I'll be happy to evaluate their opinion and take appropriate action against those sites myself, after careful consideration. Lend Lycos my hardware and IP address, so that they can mastermind a DDoS attack disguised as me? Certainly not.
Re:There we go again... (Score:3, Insightful)
If they're true, they're relevant. If they aren't true, they aren't relevant. That's pretty much the whole story.
Well let's take a look at these one by one. We must bundle "mailing lists...", "users of email...", "...two weeks...", "Anyone..." and "dishonesty..." because the first three are all results of the dishonesty thing. We can target their mail server if it's on a fixed IP or at least in a fixed netblock, but the URL in the spam could go anywhere. If you ddos a site linked from the email using an automated tool, and find out it is actually a totally unrelated website that they just wanted ddos'd because it's a competitor, you're going to feel like a real asshole, aren't you?
The only ones I don't agree with are the "Microsoft..." (they have nothing to say about it) and "Countermeasures..." since phasing it in gradually will work fine. I also agree that the "Armies..." is applicable because that's the real reason that this won't work. Until we find a way to stop PCs from turning into spam reflectors, we're going to have a spam problem, no matter what else we do to solve the problem.
Re:No surprise (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a very ineffective way of solving the problem. You remove the symptoms but not the root cause of the problem. You still have more than a million computers constantly trying to infect/crack other computers. And it's taking up a majority of the bandwidth on many networks.
The point is to go after the ISP's and make them responsible, but only in part. The ultimate responsiblity relies on the end user who owns the infected computer. It should be the ISP's responsibility to notify/contain those computers that are causing the damage.
When Code Red was first on the scene, there were reports of several ISP's who suspended certain accounts pending proof that the customers computers had been cleaned and updated to prevent reinfection.
If this practice by the ISP had become more main stream then many of the problems today would at least be reduced.
Re:Attack! (Score:5, Insightful)
My ISP blocks 25 by default. If you contact tech support and request that it be enabled they bump you to tier3 support, who quiz you breifly to ensure you are capable of securing it and then open it for you. Not a bad deal all together. The quiz is really just a checklist:
1) You know port 25 is for a mailserver right?
2) Do you know how to configure your mailserver so it won't be an open relay?
3) Promise you won't send spam.
4) Port 25 is now open.
Works for me
-nB
Their Achille's Heel is showing (Score:3, Insightful)
Spamming is prevalent because it is literally free of cost to the spammers. This tool threatens to raise the cost of spamming end via excessive bandwidth demands at the spammer server end. If the cost of spamming became prohibitive then spam would be extinct and they would not have the resources to retain hackers to carry out their malicious efforts like deceptive URLs and hijacking innocent PCs as spam boxes.
The Lycos tool makes that threat very real. The spammers know this and they have focused their attack on the tool.
If they take legal action arguing that attacks on their ISPs was damaging their liveliehood, the same can be said of spammers' attacks on our inboxes and compromised PCs. When you accuse someone by pointing at them, there are always three fingers pointing back towards you.
Legislative actions are ineffective thanks to lobbying efforts from direct marketing organizations of which spammers are a member. The CANSPAM accomplishes nothing and trumps more aggressive state laws. If the government cannot provide relief, then the private sector will seek alternatives without their help.
It was only inevitable that this happened.
Begun, the spam war has.