Lycos Anti-Spam Screensaver Brings Down Spam Sites 715
ChairmanMeow writes "According to BBC News, the screensaver released by Lycos Europe that targets spam websites has been a bit too successful at targeting spam sites, bringing down two sites, with a third responding intermittently, and raising concerns that the screensaver amounts to a DDoS attack against spam sites. Of course, spammers deserve to be punished, but will DDoS attacks against spam websites help to curb the problem of spam?" While the screensaver allegedly throttles back when a site slows, it would seem it's being a bit overzealous.
Anyone Thinking about a Mozilla Plugin? (Score:3, Interesting)
DDOS? Or manual takedown? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Is It Right? (Score:3, Interesting)
-nB
What I think will happen (Score:3, Interesting)
Not a DDOS (Score:5, Interesting)
Rather, it's a bunch of people coordinating their requests for information. At worst, it's civil disobedience (though not directed at government) or an organized, peaceful protest.
I had a similar idea a while back, where people supportive of a cause could voluntarily elect to permit their computers to engage in simultaneous activity coordinated from a single point. It's cool to see this.
Re:Hmm. (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, but you'd have to make that mass-murderer. Which means all the difference, I'd say.
A spammer targets millions of people who have to put up with their junk in their mailboxes and on their networks.
A DDOS attack is thousands of people targeting a single individual.
Besides, if thousands of people are independently of each other voluntarily accessing these particular sites, then there's no crime in that. (AFAIK, you can't be convicted of 'conspiracy to disable an internet server through requests')
I don't generally condone vigilante justice, but this is no more criminal behaviour than what thousands of Slashdotters engage in every day. Only with a different aim.
Re:Bad? No way. (Score:4, Interesting)
Jaysyn
A new DDOS attack (Score:2, Interesting)
Who died and made Lycos vigilante of the Net? (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey, I like the idea of punishing spammers, but Lycos is playing a game that's very dangerous. They're doing DOS-attacks (by proxy) on servers, and where I live that's actually a crime. While sending lots of unwanted e-mail will get you a slap on the wrist, DOS'ing a machine without written consent actually gets you jailtime. Where is the liability here when someone installs this screensaver? Is the end-user responsible for the DOS, or is Lycos responsible?
Another point on this is that this only brings more traffic to the Internet. I know, what's a few measily packets when people are leeching torrents like mad, but still. While this effectively disables spammers for a while, remember that you can't fight fire with fire (or SYN with SYN in this case).
And what about machines that accidentally get on the list of machines to be abused? Hey, I know that in theory only bad guys get on the list, but I've had enough customers actually get on an RBL while they don't spam.
This is dangerous ground we're walking here, and sooner or later someone is going to call their lawyer. The ISP that provides internet access for the spammer perhaps, or perhaps even the spammer who knows that where he lives sending spam is nothing compared to DOS.
Re:I honestly don't care (Score:2, Interesting)
What Lycos is doing is at best stupid, and at worst illegal. There are better ways to fight spam.
Re:Worrying (Score:3, Interesting)
They are being blackholed... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Quick! (Score:3, Interesting)
"Welcome to Art Of Sense Studio by Alvi Siren.
Special note: We are an innocent victim of Lycos anti-spam program and our lawyers preparing a lawsuit against it."
Does anyone have any SPAM from these guys to debunk that claim?
Jaysyn
A few bits of info.. (Score:5, Interesting)
It is about time we (the collective geeks) do something real about spam. Sure I have SA and all that installed but it is a pain, cost us money (time and hardware). Spammers should be shot. Spammers website should be hacked and cracked and trashed. The companys that knowingly host them should get the same. Their are no laws or police that can fix this chaos we call the Internet. It is up the the users to handle the shitheads.
It is time to declare ALL OUT WAR SPAMMERS. Let our motto be "Victory or....NO CARRIER!!!"
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bad? No way. (Score:3, Interesting)
No you are wrong. If you alter the Location directive to point to a page other than the page requested, *most* clients will follow it.
Re:Hmm. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Bad? No way. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Bad? No way. (Score:1, Interesting)
If you had bothered to read any of the many articles that were posted about what Lycos were doing, you would know how the spammers are being identified.
All you have done is shown us all that you shouldn't be allowed near anything more complicated than a stick.
I just hope you are unemployed and not fucking up some poor companies systems with your complete lack of conscious thought and cognitive skills. What a fucking tard!
Re:A few bits of info.. (Score:3, Interesting)
The only people who can 'do' something about spam are the ones who run the backbone. When they decide doing the "wink wink nudge nudge" game of loudly proclaiming their hatred of spam and signing pink contracts with the spammers isn't profitable anymore spam will end. If all of the major providers started enforcing their published AUP/TOS against their downstream customers spam would vanish in short order. Yes a few examples would have to be made, China and Korea would probably be booted off the network for a week or two, but it would end. Windows zombies would start getting detected and shutdown in hours instead of the current weeks to never. In short, spam is condoned at the highest levels of the network and will continue until that changes.
> Spammers should be shot.
Ok, I can't officially endorse that unless their country of residence passes a death penalty on spammers or something. But as in my original post, I certainly dream of seeing spammers with holes in their heads and lots of gibs flying through the air.
> Spammers website should be hacked and cracked and trashed.
So long as it doesn't involve an attack against the network in general, I can't find an ethical problem with that.
> The companys that knowingly host them should get the same.
So long as it were organized, sorta like the old Usenet Death Penalty, no problem. Just so long as there is protection of the innocent and not a general smash and burn of any provider who gets a spammer loose on their system.
Re:Why stop with spammers? (Score:3, Interesting)
"If DDOSing a site you don't like becomes generally acceptable behavior, the net is in some serious trouble."
Keep in mind that this isn't about sites that we don't like, or sites that offend us--it attacks the sites that CRIMINALS use to perpetrate their CRIMES. Theft of service and fraud are pretty obvious, but I can't believe that most spamming isn't tied into organised crime these days.
As for the 'net being founded on people generally playing nice together (with some minor checks and balances), well that's what has led to spammers having as much power and as big of a market as they do. They have abused that basic premise, to the point that the net we once knew and loved has been destroyed.
Internet Lawless ??? (Score:2, Interesting)
By signing onto the Internet, the spamming companies agreed to join a transnational network that was effectively above the laws of any one nation.
My Friend, there is another transnational network that have existed way before Internet. In your country, I think it was AT&T who built it (not sure). This network, even if transnational, was not "lawless". The IP adress is now what was the telephone number, but you are still under the constraints of the law, the law of your country and if you are not american, the law of your country plus the law of the country you communicate with...
Interresting reading to finally iron this perception that there is a "cyberspace", different from the "meatspace".
I think most geeks that can't get a girlfriend would love to have a different world, where they can do all those wonderfull things that could finally impress some girls... Sorry my friend, there is no such world.
I don't get how you could get rated Insightful...
The Internet might have been wild in his early age, but as he goes mainstream, the legal crowd will order rules, with time passing, until it is fully ruled under national laws...
Interresting reading for you my friend (In english, I'm not too cruel with you, you see !)
HERE [theregister.co.uk]
Note : I'm not against US, like the author, but his point is still valid. Meatspace rules, Cyberspace is an illusion...
Why I think it is an awesome idea (Score:2, Interesting)
I read the reports here and there about a spammer getting jailed/fined/lynched, but my inbox still fills up. I'll bet that for each spammer that is jailed/fined/lynched, you have 5 new spammers filling the void. What is being done to stop this? Not a lot. Spamming is still a HUGE moneymaking opportunity with relatively few barriers to entry, and it is "legal"(as long as you cover your bases).
IMO, the best thing about this tool is that it will allow the common man to "get back" at spammers. I think people have lost their patience. They don't want to wait months for the next half-baked, loophole-laden piece of legislation that the spammers in other countries will just laugh at.
Another facet of this discussion is enforcement (at least in the US). Many sites say that it will open you up to legal trouble, which may be true by the letter of the law. But consider this - very few spam that I receive are "can-spam" compliant. This, coupled with the fact that the US is the biggest source of spam, indicates that the US Government is having trouble enforcing a law that it made specifically against spam. IANAL, but I don't think there is a federal law against DDoS'ing. I'm not saying it's OK to DDoS, I'm just saying that I think you'll be struck by lightning 3 times before you get nailed for DDoS'ing a spammer.
And about the DoS at the user-level... If Lycos only directs a user to DoS spammers in countries outside of the users' own country, does the spammer have any recourse other than to complain to the DOS'ers ISP?