Washington Post Blog Shuts Down 75% of Online Spam 335
ESCquire writes "Apparently, the Washington Post Blog 'Security Fix' managed to shut down McColo, a US-based hosting provider facilitating more than 75 percent of global spam. " Now how long before the void is filled by another ISP?
Slashdot can shut down spammers, too (Score:5, Funny)
Just give us an IP address linked in the summary. That's all we ned.
good job! (Score:5, Funny)
First they shut down McCain, now McColo. Next up: McDonalds?
Oblig. (Score:5, Funny)
http://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt [craphound.com]
Sigh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:good job! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not Just Spam (Score:3, Funny)
Your post advocates a
( ) 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
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
(x) 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
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
(x) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) 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
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
(x) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
(x) Asshats
( ) 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
(x) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
(x) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
(x) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) 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:
(x) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your
house down!
Re:As long as there is money in it... (Score:3, Funny)
No offense, but that's when gmail is working.
I wonder what made them turn? (Score:5, Funny)
This is their AUP from 2005 (Mccolo.com)
Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)
All Maxis' Commerce colocation or dedicated server customers are bound by the following Acceptable Use Policy. This document may be updated from time to time. Please consult this site periodically for the most recent revision of this document.
No Maxis' Commerce customer shall:
Do anything illegal or anything that adversely affects Maxis' Commerce legal interests. The following list is non-exclusive, and should not be considered license to commit other illegal activities not specified below. All illegal activity is prohibited, and Maxis Commerce will cooperate fully with any law enforcement officials and/or agencies investigating and/or prosecuting such activities.
Cracking/Hacking - attempts to access accounts or systems other than the userâ(TM)s own accounts or systems or an account or system that the user has been explicitly authorized to access is illegal under federal and state law.
Child pornography - as defined by U.S. law. This is strictly prohibited and dealt with quickly and harshly.
Interstate gambling - because Internet traffic generally ignores state and country boundaries, any Internet based gambling site is restricted by Federal Inter-state gambling regulations.
Pyramid schemes or fraud - are illegal under a number of Federal, State and Local laws.
Theft of services - attempts to utilize services that are not contracted for is considered theft and will be dealt with as such.
Harassment - use of Maxis' Commerce network to harass or threaten (in the legal sense of those terms) any other person is prohibited.
Please consult an attorney if you are unsure of the legal status of your activities.
Do anything that threatens the integrity of Maxis' Commerce network or the utilization there of by other persons.
Denial of Service (DOS) attacks - no customer will commit a DOS attack against any Maxis Commerce customerâ(TM)s host, or any other host on the Internet. Similarly, no Maxis Commerce customer will willfully or negligently allow incitement of others to attack any host on Maxis' Commerce network, or any other host on the Internet.
Blacklists - No customer shall do anything that could get any portion of Maxis' Commerce IP space (or address space announced by Maxis Commerce on behalf of Customer) put on blacklists such the RBL (Realtime Black List) as maintained by MAPS (http://www.mail-abuse.com) or other similar organizations, or perform activities that would cause portions of the Internet to block mail or refuse to route traffic to any portion of Maxis' Commerce IP space (or address space announced by Maxis Commerce on behalf of Customer).
Perform actions that cause unusual load on Maxis' Commerce servers (for example, mail servers, web servers, usenet servers, name servers, etc.), that cause slowness or denial of service to other Maxis Commerce customers.
Do anything that threatens the Internet or any other network.
No customer shall take actions that cause any portion of the Internet, or the Internet as a whole, to become unusable to any other portion of the Internet, or the Internet as a whole.
No customer shall take actions that degrade the usefulness of the Internet, or any portion of the Internet, either through network degradation, flooding of usenet or email or so on.
Spam - No customer shall send unsolicited commercial email, unsolicited mass mailings, spam or flood usenet newsgroups, or anything of that sort. If you have questions about what is allowed and what is not, please email abuse@mccolo.com for clarification.
No spam may originate from Maxis Commerce IP space.
No spam may advertise sites or services located on Maxis Commerce IP space (even if the spam originates elsewhere).
No Maxis Commerce customer shall use third party mail servers to relay spam. This is considered a DOS attack on the third party and will be treated as such.
No customer shall participate in pyramid schemes
OMFG!! (Score:5, Funny)
Holy generic viagra batman! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Oblig. (Score:5, Funny)
More like:
Your post advocates a
(x) technical (x) legislative (x) market-based (x) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won'... Holy crap how did you do that? 75% of all spam!? So much for it being botnets causing it! Congratulations!
Re:Have no fear! (Score:3, Funny)
It'll make you rock hard, but then it will crumble after a few months.
Re:As long as there is money in it... (Score:5, Funny)
the spam will flow. It's the old "balloon dog" effect. Squeeze it in one place and it balloons in another. The ONLY way to attack this problem is to go after the advertisers who are willing to use spam as a medium to sell product.
I think we need to go after the clowns making the balloon animals!
God, I hate clowns...
Re:Not Just Spam (Score:4, Funny)
If you see a man getting beat by another man, do you just stand by and wait for the police to show-up 30 minutes later to collect the body?
Well lets not get ahead of our self here. Depends on why the other man is kicking his ass. If the one getting his ass kicked is known child molester and the one doing the ass kicking clams that he has molested his daughter, I would be more inclined to pop open a cold beer watch the show. In the case of a known spammer I might be even willing to lend a hand.
Hell, I was at a fight a few weeks ago that I paid 50 bucks to see....
IAAL (Score:2, Funny)
I have been retained as the attorney for the Hormel Foods, LLC. I feel that you shutting down 75% of global spam violates free trade. Please cease and desist from shutting down global spam or Hormel will have no other option but to sue for punitive damages.
Re:How much spam? (Score:2, Funny)
Zero. I stopped using email and can't say I miss it.
Re:Have no fear! (Score:4, Funny)
For erections lasting more than 4 months, see a mason.
Re:is it morally right to DDoS spaming ISPs? (Score:1, Funny)
as the title says. if it gets them "off the air" is this a public service or a criminal act (or both)?
Would you have preferred they said "out of the tubes"?
Re:Not Just Spam (Score:5, Funny)
When seconds count, the police are just minutes away
Re:Slashdot can shut down spammers, too (Score:5, Funny)
Killjoy.
We can dream can't we?
Re:Hosting Child porn? (Score:4, Funny)
Pedophiles tend to be gullible and desperate
citation needed
Re:Hosting Child porn? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Not Just Spam (Score:3, Funny)
(x) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
No one will be able to fund the guy or collect money from someone who owns a building? Um, okay.
Re:Hosting Child porn? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Spam graph way down (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hosting Child porn? (Score:3, Funny)
No, it's merely a way of showing that you confuse Wikipedia with reality, and are unable to express yourself in your own words.