Support NeoGAF

[Ripclawe]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4061375.stm

A plan to bump up the bandwidth bills of spammers seems to be getting out of control.
Earlier this week Lycos Europe released a screensaver that bombards spam websites with data to try to increase the cost of running such sites.

But analysis shows that, in some cases, spam websites are being completely overwhelmed by the traffic being directed their way.

The Lycos plan has also come under fire for encouraging vigilantism.

Attack pattern

Lycos Europe's "Make love not spam" campaign was intended as a way for users to fight back against the avalanche of junk mail messages coming their way.

Participants were encouraged to download the Lycos screensaver which, when their PC was idle, would then send lots of data traffic to websites that peddle the goods and services mentioned in spam messages.

Lycos said the idea was to get the spam sites running at 95% capacity and generate big bandwidth bills for the spammers behind the sites.

The screensaver has reportedly been downloaded more than 90,000 times since it was launched.

But monitoring firm Netcraft has analysed response times for three of the sites the screensaver targets and has found that the campaign is being too successful.


Some sites are being knocked out by the anti-spam campaign
Two of the sites being bombarded by data have been completely knocked offline. One other site has been responding to requests only intermittently as it struggles to cope with the traffic the screensaver is pointing its way.

The downing of the sites could dent Lycos claims that what it is doing does not amount to a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS). In such attacks thousands of computers bombard sites with data in an attempt to overwhelm them

 

[Phoenix]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4061375.stm

Where's my tiny violin.... I weep for the spammers They do a denial of service on my inbox, I think it only fitting they get a denial of service attack from other people.

 

[Mainline]

haha awesome idea

 

[AstroLad]

"Sting to Nab Pedophiles Too Successful"

 

[ManDudeChild]

Where's my tiny violin.... I weep for the spammers They do a denial of service on my inbox, I think it only fitting they get a denial of service attack from other people.

IAWTP.

They deserve what they get ... and much more. Spyware and all that bullshit.

 

[kumanoki]

Too Successful?

"No, officer, I just gave all the neighborhood kids a pellet gun and told them that whenever they saw a Jehovah's Witness, to pop 'em one. I never thought they'd kill anybody."

 

[weehomer]

Oh, dear. I weep a tiny tear of sorrow for the poor spammers who love to give, but not receive.

 

[GLoK]

.....no no.... this must be a joke. You mean they actually expect anyone to care that spammers are getting annihilated by the very people they spam so viciously?

Yeah, that breaks my fucking heart.

 

[WasabiKing]

ELIZA!

Anyway, as much as I feel that this is great vigilante justice, it's no better than spammers spamming, spyware companies hijacking computers, or anti-pirate firms sending out viruses.

 

[duderon]

ELIZA!

Anyway, as much as I feel that this is great vigilante justice, it's no better than spammers spamming, spyware companies hijacking computers, or anti-pirate firms sending out viruses.

An eye for an eye. It's probably only going to get more ugly from here

 

[DarienA]

Great so these companies can now turn around and sue Lycos to boost their bottom lines... brilliant!

 

[retardboy]

Great so these companies can now turn around and sue Lycos to boost their bottom lines... brilliant!

What jury in the world would side with the spammers anyway? Even if I knew it was wrong, I wouldn't vote Lycos wrong.

 

[Ripclawe]

Spammers fighting back.

New Trojan poses as Lycos spam page
Correspondents in Paris
December 10, 2004

A VIRUS that spies on keystrokes and downloads passwords and bank account details is masquerading as a screensaver designed by internet portal Lycos to attack spammers, an internet security company has warned.

Finnish anti-virus company F-Secure said the so-called Trojan horse started to be distributed among emails on Monday.

The mail has the subject line "Be the first to fight spam with Lycos screen" and comes with an attachment entitled "Lycos screensaver to fight spam," F-Secure said on its website.

Whoever downloads it unwittingly installs a spying programme called Perfect Keylogger, which records the user's keystrokes to harvest personal data, such as passwords and details of bank accounts.

The Trojan horse is hooked up to an email adress in Indonesia, the British science magazine New Scientist said in a website report on Thursday.

 

[LakeEarth]

Spammers fighting back.

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,11647212^15306,00.html

The one at Lycos is safe though, right?

 

[Minotauro]

Spammers fighting back.

Fucking BRILLIANT. This just keeps getting better and better. Now, Lycos needs to create a fake trojan that will erase the c drive of anyone attempting to distribute it.