Get back at the spammers!!!

Third_Echelon

Nice idea by Lycos to get one back on the spammers:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4051553.stm

Screensaver tackles spam websites

Net users are getting the chance to fight back against spam websites

Internet portal Lycos has made a screensaver that endlessly requests data from sites that sell the goods and services mentioned in spam e-mail.

Lycos hopes will it make the monthly bandwidth bills of spammers soar by keeping their servers running flat out.

The net firm estimates that if enough people sign up and download the tool, spammers could end up paying to send out terabytes of data.


"We've never really solved the big problem of spam which is that its so damn cheap and easy to do," said Malte Pollmann, spokesman for Lycos Europe.

"In the past we have built up the spam filtering systems for our users," he said, "but now we are going to go one step further."

"We've found a way to make it much higher cost for spammers by putting a load on their servers."

By getting thousands of people to download and use the screensaver, Lycos hopes to get spamming websites constantly running at almost full capacity.

Mr Pollmann said there was no intention to stop the spam websites working by subjecting them with too much data to cope with.

He said the screensaver had been carefully written to ensure that the amount of traffic it generated from each user did not overload the web.

"Every single user will contribute three to four megabytes per day," he said, "about one MP3 file."

But, he said, if enough people sign up spamming websites could be force to pay for gigabytes of traffic every single day.

Lycos did not want to use e-mail to fight back, said Mr Pollmann.

"That would be fighting one bad thing with another bad thing," he said.

The sites being targeted are those mentioned in spam e-mail messages and which sell the goods and services on offer.

Typically these sites are different to those that used to send out spam e-mail and they typically only get a few thousand visitors per day.

The list of sites that the screensaver will target is taken from real-time blacklists generated by organisations such as Spamcop. To limit the chance of mistakes being made, Lycos is using people to ensure that the sites are selling spam goods.

As these sites rarely use advertising to offset hosting costs, the burden of high-bandwidth bills could make spam too expensive, said Mr Pollmann.

Sites will also slow down under the weight of data requests. Early results show that response times of some sites have deteriorated by up to 85%.

Users do not have to be registered users of Lycos to download and use the screensaver.

While working, the screensaver shows the websites that are being bothered with requests for data.

The screensaver is due to be launched across Europe on 1 December and before now has only been trialled in Sweden.

Despite the soft launch, Mr Pollmann said that the screensaver had been downloaded more than 20,000 times in the last four days.

"There's a huge user demand to not only filter spam day-by-day but to do something more," he said "Before now users have never had the chance to be a bit more offensive."

Chalk

wouldnt this be classes as a dDOS attack?

couldnt the users get in trouble if the victims of the attacks lodged complaints with/against there isp?

aidan_walsh

Mr Pollmann said there was no intention to stop the spam websites working by subjecting them with too much data to cope with.

He said the screensaver had been carefully written to ensure that the amount of traffic it generated from each user did not overload the web.

"Every single user will contribute three to four megabytes per day," he said, "about one MP3 file."

But, he said, if enough people sign up spamming websites could be force to pay for gigabytes of traffic every single day.

It looks like its been coded carefully to avoid an actual DOS taking place, but at the same time hit them hard enough to ensure that the amount of traffic they have to pay for increases.

Chalk

yeah just thought about it a bit more and relaised that if there just trying to increase there bandwith charges not tske the site down it could work quite well

Capt'n Midnight

I've an idea - I'll setup a site and spam people with a scheme to make money by advertising, and if you send me $10 I'll give you a sure fire method of attracting traffice.

Also many of these guys change ISP's frequently - register a domain somewhere and the web space elsewhere... I reckon the spammers will figure out a workaround fairly soon

stuey

my fear about spammer is the same about my fear of hackers. The person who makes a code will always be beaten by the hacker. Thats my fear with spammers. They will unfortuantly figure out a way to get back at us. Thee b*stards.

60% of all internet traffic is spam!!!!!!

Mutant_Fruit

it'll never work. All it takes is for the spammer to change IP address, and their problem is solved. How fast can the screen saver update the addresses it spams, and how fast can the new ones be found!

Third_Echelon

Even so, the fact that they'd have to do this would p1ss them off enough that it would have an affect on them...

I know it'd p1ss me off big time, if i had to change ip addresses on a constant basis :eek:

Capt'n Midnight

Third_Echelon wrote:

Even so, the fact that they'd have to do this would p1ss them off enough that it would have an affect on them...

I know it'd p1ss me off big time, if i had to change ip addresses on a constant basis :eek:

google for dynamic dns
I would not like to share a port with someone spaming a web site - as some of the bandwidth wasted could otherwise be used by me.

The problem is you can annoy the script kiddie spammers until the figure a work around. The pro's will probably like this since it cuts down on the competition.

Maybe make it part of ISP policy to charge a larger fee for sales sites that are supported by email or pop-ups on third party sites and an extrotionate fee if the emails are sent by zombies. This means the sales sites can be fined in court without changing any laws. It's the principle of going after the person who buys the stolen goods - with no market there would be no thieves/spammers.