Make Love, Not Spam: Fight the spammers back

snappieT

A brilliant idea from Lycos. When your computer hits screensaver mode, it starts downloading software and messages etc. from spammers. You don't see the crap, you only lose 4MB per day MAX and the spammers pay for your download. Original article and link follow:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If you have been online for a couple of years, you would have encountered Spam mails. If you are a heavy online user, it might even have reached levels to make you angry. Also, if you Blog… you get additional headaches in the form of Spam Comments on the Blogs.

Lycos now have something for you. No, they are not releasing another spam controlling utility. However, they are offering you a chance to get back at spammers. Critics are still arguing on the legality of the offering, but it appears that thousands of users have taken this chance to prove a point.

Lycos is offering a free screensaver available for Windows Operating System and MacOS. What they do is keep an updated database of websites, which are promoted through Spam mails. The screensaver uses a little bandwidth from the user’s computer to download data from those sites in the background. It is done in such a manner that the web servers running the guilty websites get enough web traffic to slow them down considerably without actually bringing them down. In the end, the spammers pay for the bandwidth used by the web servers and make a potential loss.

Lycos clarifies that none of the sites targeted are hit badly enough that they would go down. Because that would amount to illegal DDoS attack. The concept is being termed as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. The screensaver uses little bandwidth on the user side as Lycos claim daily usage would not go above 4megs. Moreover, the combined effort might really help in the long term.

In the short term, it gives users like you and me temporary satisfaction of doing our bit. However, companies like F-Secure are warning users that using the screensaver might lead to possible legal problems.

In addition, Lycos is also accepting user feedback on the list of websites they get through Spam. Moreover, users can even hit a spam site from the website without actually downloading the screensaver. Innovative? Yes. It takes the concept of Seti and World Community Grid to completely new levels!

Check out: Make Love Not Spam
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Download: http://makelovenotspam.com/intl/mlns.html?lang=en&region=uk

Mutant_Fruit

its been in at least two threads in this very forum already...

Capt'n Midnight

SlashDot reckon it's been compromised already..
SANS reckon that it could be used to launch a third party DDoS attack on an innocent party.
And the install has advertising in it.

More of a PR excersise than an attempt to stop spam.
eg: the laws on buying stolen goods are there to remove the market for them.
Using existing laws of trespass etc. should be enough to punish those who distrbute spam bots. And the existing anti-spam laws should be directed at the sites selling the stuff since they supply the money.

Be interesting to see how many PC's out there end up as spam bot as well as having the Lycos app running...

ISP could also throttle this by using tarpits on mail ports...

Chalk

http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/groupware/story/0,10801,97990,00.html?source=x10

lycos are idiots :rolleyes:
the spammers have turned there sites into refreshes for lycos homepage and the softwares site