Screensaver program out for clogging Spam Bandwidth 11-30-04

[dmcowen674]

12-3-2004 Lycos halts Anti-Spam project - Thanks AMDxBorg for providing the info and link

11-30-2004 Lycos Offers Spam-Server Attack Program

MADRID, Spain - At the risk of breaching Internet civility, a European Web portal is offering its visitors a weapon against spam: a screensaver program that tries to choke spam servers by flooding them with junk traffic.

As of Tuesday, about 65,000 people have signed up for the controversial tool from the German-based Lycos Europe, whose sites get 20 million users monthly.

The company insists the technique is legal ? it says the culprit servers are simply choked a bit, not completely asphyxiated

Still, computer experts are worried.

"You don't stop a bad thing by being bad yourself," said David Farber, former chief technologist at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. "The idea of somebody coming and hitting you and you hitting back, you both end up very hurt. It just aggrevates an already serious problem."

When a computer with the free Lycos screensaver is idle, the program sends junk commands to Web sites identified by Lycos as selling products pitched in spam. When done in masse, this eats up precious bandwidth, causing the sites to overload and slow down.

Denning believes any impact on spamming will be minor at best. Though spam sites have to pay for bandwidth required for the extra traffic, she said, "the cost off adding extra bandwidth may be worth the reward that comes from spamming."
=====================================================
Very interesting indeed. Dr. Farber was one of the first to speak on my behalf.

The Bandwidth argument is what the State tried to use. Will spammers now be facing 59 cents a second for Bandwidth charges? Or will this charge be charged back to Internet users somehow?

Controversial - Do you agree or disagree with this method?

 

[Soggysocks]

Well......................I did download it and ran it for about 3 minutes.


But, after watching it ....I came to reallize...that It was just like a Denial of service attack....Kinda.


Could be some serious issuses here. :frown:

As a member of Spywareinfo forums and strong advocate of the cause, it probably wouldn't be a
good Idea to run the screen saver.

 

[Unforgiven]

as much as i dislike spam, i dont think coordinated attacks on any site/domain should be allowed or supported. if this is allowed, it opens a whole other can of worms and the last thing we need is more internet traffic to slow things down even further.

 

[kamper]

I completely disagree, I think this is despicable. A large part of the spam problem is simply the bandwidth that it takes up in the internet as a whole. This will only add to the problem. The internet is not a toy that you can just throw stuff around in whenever you feel like it.

I'm assuming that once the counter-spammers are deployed Lycos can't remotely control them (if they can then it's basically just a form of spyware that people shouldn't be using). What happens when a spammer's ip changes and his old one gets assigned to an innocent person? What happens when someone incorrectly identifies a spam server? You've essentially got a whole lot of loose cannons that are controlled by a large group of people (and groups of people are hard to control).

We don't allow people to punish other types of criminals on their own. If the courts decide they are criminals then they are dealt with in an agreed upon manner according to the laws of the country. If the courts don't decide to shut spammers down then they are legally free to spam as much as they want (not that I think in any way that what they are doing is right). The correct response is to protect people by developping technologies that either filter spam or, better yet, update the email system so that it isn't so open to abuse. There are new technologies in the works that verify senders properly.

Whatever is done, fighting an irresponsible abuse of the system with another equally irresponsible one is not the right solution.

Edit: more ranting :|
I hope an appropriate internet authority is able to legally bar Lycos from pulling this shlt. The same way that ICANN beat on Verisign for that redirecting of unused .com and .net domains.

Edit2: Alright, it appears that the screen saver spams based on a realtime list that is controlled by Lycos so there shouldn't be too much spamming of innocent people. Still doesn't mean I agree though.

 

[networkman]

Right or wrong, I just find the whole thing amusing.

 

[lobadobadingdong]

I ain't doing it, but I don't have a spam problem either.

sbc yahoo spam filter, and domain blocking = bliss.

(I currently only get between 1-2 spam messages a month)

 

[Soggysocks]

Originally posted by: lobadobadingdong
I ain't doing it, but I don't have a spam problem either.

sbc yahoo spam filter, and domain blocking = bliss.

(I currently only get between 1-2 spam messages a month)

Aren't You the lucky one :disgust:

 

[n0cmonkey]

Link I was reading over.

It's crap. Whether they bring the site down or not it is an attempted DoS. Let Lycos know how you feel about it, there isn't an official authority that will stop them. Only users.

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Link I was reading over.

It's crap. Whether they bring the site down or not it is an attempted DoS. Let Lycos know how you feel about it, there isn't an official authority that will stop them. Only users.

How exactly do we give Lycos an earful? Is there an official place we can bitch?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: kamper

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Link I was reading over.

It's crap. Whether they bring the site down or not it is an attempted DoS. Let Lycos know how you feel about it, there isn't an official authority that will stop them. Only users.

How exactly do we give Lycos an earful? Is there an official place we can bitch?

I'm not sure.

Registrant: Make this info private
Lycos, Inc (23765114O)
100 Fifth Ave
Waltham, MA 02451
US
Phone: 781-370-2700
Fax: 999 999 9999

 

[amdxborg]

Spam Sites Crippled by Lycos Screensaver DDoS Story on NetCraft...

 

[amdxborg]

Lycos Screensaver Site Changed, Now Says "Stay Tuned" Story on NetCraft...

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: amdxborg
Lycos Screensaver Site Changed, Now Says "Stay Tuned" Story on NetCraft...

Thanks for the Update.

 

[JarrodH]

Originally posted by: kamper
How exactly do we give Lycos an earful? Is there an official place we can bitch?

Report Abuse to Lycos Feedback Form
http://help.lycos.com/LycosHel...ycos_watchdog_form.htm

I would start here. Their abuse page. Lycos is wrong in doing this. Its not legal for you or I to get zombie computers to DDOS microsoft.com or lycos.com but its ok for them? I doubt the spammers would sue, but someone should make Lycos responsible for this.

An example: If the attack is aimed at an IP address, what about the poor fool who gets that IP next. People will probably be still running the client. Also, spammers use zombie computers a lot (on home broadband systems) so an innocent person could be getting attacked at the moment. Further, spammers can make it look like the email is coming out of another domain. Is Lycos going to attack people at random?

Would it be ok for them to direct this traffic at one of their competitors? Say google or yahoo?

 

[dmcowen674]

12-3-2004 Lycos Europe Pauses Anti-spam Efforts

Lycos Europe's controversial anti-spam efforts had a bumpy first week, with various availability problems, some of which may have been caused by the same spammers the site targeted with distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

The company earlier this week launched a campaign that offered users screen saver software, "Make Love, Not Spam," to fight back at spammers. The distributed computing application activates when the user's machine is not being used, continuously generating traffic on the sites of alleged spammers, slowing them down and making them more difficult to operate.

The effort has been widely criticized for crossing the line from combating an illegal activity -- spam -- to supporting and even enabling a different one -- DDoS attacks.

Net monitoring site Netcraft reports that some major Internet backbones, including Global Crossing, are preventing access to the site, which would make the site inaccessible in certain areas.

According to security company F-Secure, the cause may be at least partly attributable to redirected traffic from Lycos' own DDoS attacks. At least one of the alleged spammers' sites that were targeted redirected all its traffic back to the "Make Love Not Spam" site, according to F-Secure.

F-Secure also reported that the site has been the victim of defacements. F-Secure received reports from several users that the www.makelovenotspam.com site had been altered to read "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." The title of the page was changed to read "using bots to attack people is just wrong."

 

[amdxborg]

Lycos Ends AntiSpam Effort, Denies Downing Spam Sites Story on NetCraft... :Q

Lycos Europe says it is officially ending its MakeLoveNotSpam anti-spam campaign, saying the controversial campaign has accomplished its objectives. The company also said traffic from users of the MakeLoveNotSpam screensaver wasn't responsible for outages at two spammer sites targeted during the attacks.

"Lycos has decided to close down its Make Love, Not Spam website," said spokesperson Malte Pollmann. "The aim of the campaign was to ignite a debate about anti-spam measures. We feel that we have achieved this through our activity and will now continue that debate with others in the email industry. We hope that this will lead to further new and innovative solutions to the problem of spam."

The company also says a published list of sites affected by traffic from the screensaver represented "historic data" and not ongoing activity. Netcraft used the list as a guide in analyzing the screensaver's impact, monitoring three sites which Lycos cited as being hardest hit by its campaign. Our analysis found two of the three sites cited by MakeLoveNotSpam were not available, and attributed this status to traffic generated by the screensaver. Lycos Europe says its attacks on those particular sites had already ceased.