Linky (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4051553.stm)
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 it will 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.
Cost curve
"We've never really solved the big problem of spam which is that its so **** 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.
Slow down
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."
zybch
11-29-2004, 07:08 PM
You can get it HERE (http://makelovenotspam.com/intl/). If your country isn't on the picture, just choose International English (or whatever) from the drop down box at the bottom.
Its got almost 40,000 users now, not 20,000.
http://makelovenotspam.com/intl/
crossedup
11-29-2004, 07:18 PM
Got it! pretty neat, been looking for a new one anyway. Get them back for all the time I waste emptying my inbox.
:r :r
zybch
11-30-2004, 01:19 AM
Well it must be working and annoying lots of spammers as the sites you can download it from have been hacked and the following message is there instead:
"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."
I'm now trying to find an alternate download location. Anything that annoys spammers is a good thing and this certainly seems to be annoying them a lot.
Although you have to use the Low Speed link unless you want to pay for the highspeed one :(
If you still can't get it, PM me.
genesound
11-30-2004, 01:44 AM
Got it ;) :cool:
crossedup
11-30-2004, 08:35 AM
You can PM me as well, ive got the exe saved and can EM it out.
ukulele
11-30-2004, 11:18 AM
On the surface it seems like a great idea but all it does is add more traffic and slows down the web even more. In the end it will cost everyone. Now if the program could join thousands together to force a denial of service attack on those company sites in a coordinated manor then they would really be effective. Another good idea is an international database of companies that use spam and a plugin that can notify a shopper if the company sends spam when they try to order something, perhaps even with a list of alternate sellers of the same product.
crossedup
11-30-2004, 01:05 PM
I doubt it will slow it down any more than Kazaa does and its for a better cause.
Watching it running it does seem to be coordinated with the others, not sure though.
zybch
11-30-2004, 04:33 PM
Originally posted by ukulele
On the surface it seems like a great idea but all it does is add more traffic and slows down the web even more. In the end it will cost everyone. Now if the program could join thousands together to force a denial of service attack on those company sites in a coordinated manor then they would really be effective. Another good idea is an international database of companies that use spam and a plugin that can notify a shopper if the company sends spam when they try to order something, perhaps even with a list of alternate sellers of the same product.
You miss the point and the method of the screensaver.
A DDoS attack while being the best option is also illegal, so what Lycos have done is to keep track of the load on each of the places that are attacked and make sure that the load never exceeds 95%.
The whole point is not to make it impossible for people to reach the sites, but to increase the traffic to such an extent that the spammers have to fork out huge ammounts to pay for the bandwidth used. The actual traffic basically goes nowhere and won't 'clog up the net' in any appreciable way at all, all that it will clog up are the servers used to host the spam sites in the first place, somehting that any decent hosting company will soon fix by cancelling or disabling the hosting services of the spammers, thus taking another scum of the earth spammer off line.
krazefinn
11-30-2004, 04:49 PM
I like it. too bad we can't add on to the blacklist our own spammers. I get 2 to 300 on my junk account. On my two private and 1 business accounts though I get none. Course I tell all myfriends to never put me on a ccc list. Its got to be done bcc.
Baddog
11-30-2004, 04:51 PM
WooHoo On To Battle:D
crossedup
11-30-2004, 04:57 PM
81214 screensavers on my last check. Going to really make somebody mad.
ukulele
11-30-2004, 05:03 PM
Originally posted by zybch
You miss the point and the method of the screensaver.
A DDoS attack while being the best option is also illegal, so what Lycos have done is to keep track of the load on each of the places that are attacked and make sure that the load never exceeds 95%.
The whole point is not to make it impossible for people to reach the sites, but to increase the traffic to such an extent that the spammers have to fork out huge ammounts to pay for the bandwidth used. The actual traffic basically goes nowhere and won't 'clog up the net' in any appreciable way at all, all that it will clog up are the servers used to host the spam sites in the first place, somehting that any decent hosting company will soon fix by cancelling or disabling the hosting services of the spammers, thus taking another scum of the earth spammer off line.
So you're saying that if if a million spams are countered with a million replies that won't increase the traffic? Where did you get you math degree anyway?
zybch
11-30-2004, 06:32 PM
We aren't talking about responding to emails, but by flooding the sites listed in the spam emails.
The traffic is just about all contained within the systems of the hosting company and if the spammer won't pay the fees, the sites will be removed/suspended.
krazefinn
11-30-2004, 07:09 PM
Math degree? what degree? I'm not the great divider, coz duh, i flunked arithmetic and ...
crossedup
11-30-2004, 08:17 PM
Think the spammers are mad, none of my screensavers will connect to the server anymore.
DDoS on Lycos maybe?
ukulele
11-30-2004, 08:50 PM
Originally posted by zybch
We aren't talking about responding to emails, but by flooding the sites listed in the spam emails.
The traffic is just about all contained within the systems of the hosting company and if the spammer won't pay the fees, the sites will be removed/suspended.
Listen bonehead, if you send a request for a page you upload it and if their server tries tries to respond to your request, it downloads files. It increases the load on any system in the circuit, including the major carriers who sell bandwidth to the ISPs. Your ISP is not going to be too happy with you either. :rolleyes:
zybch
12-01-2004, 02:50 AM
Listen Billforce, I mean Uke (its so difficult to tell you guys apart with the personal insults), you still don't get it.
Actual spam messages are not used or sent or received in any way shape or form from the PC of anyone who uses the screensaver.
The whole point is to generate outbound traffic from the spammer's sites (not inbound like a DDos attack; my ISP won't give 2 hoots about my activity) which will hopefully put them above their paid-for-data allowances and force them to either pay a lot more for the excess data or to close down the site and stop sending out spam that refers people to it.
The destination of the sites' requested outbound data is unclear, but its highly unlikely that it will slow the whole net down one iota. All it will do it to increase the cost to spammers, something that has never been tried before.
All thats needed is an auto update feature in the saver which will attack a daily/weekly set of spam sites even if it can't communicate with http://makelovenotspam.com as is happening as I type this.
Its pretty clear that this approach is working very well with over 80,000 people using the screensaver and the constant attacks on the http://makelovenotspam.com website.
The spammers aren't taking this lying down, but now the cat is out of the bag, I predict that we'll see many other screensaver type apps that will do exactly the same thing and really start to hurt the sods who think its fine to invade a person's personal privacy with get rich quick schemes, questionable ding-dong (blasted filter!) engargement pill adds, and pornography solicitations. They are on borrowed time.
genesound
12-01-2004, 02:54 AM
Originally posted by crossedup
Think the spammers are mad, none of my screensavers will connect to the server anymore.
DDoS on Lycos maybe? Mine won't connect anymore either :mad:
zybch
12-01-2004, 03:14 AM
Give it a couple of hours, just like last time. It'll start working again. It would be nice if lycos added in the sites responsible for defacing their site to the list of spamm sites :)
Lastly, this:
Show me a single ISP who doesn't make the claim in their AUP that they will terminate spamvertised sites?
Unless the ISPs are lying in those AUPs, as MCI clearly is with its 234 currently hosted spammers, where's the problem?
If the spammers' hosts act quickly to terminate the spammers, which is something that they should do anyway, I don't see this having much of an impact on bandwidth.
genesound
12-01-2004, 03:32 AM
Thanks for the intermittant info :x
If i was lycos, prolly wanna be way more than thousands of screensavers for defacing their site
it's not raw available bandwidth that's at issue, it's the cost of the bandwidth used for all this extra useless traffic to specific servers; they're hittin em in the pocketbook for their foolishness :cool:
ukulele
12-01-2004, 03:43 AM
Originally posted by zybch
Listen Billforce, I mean Uke (its so difficult to tell you guys apart with the personal insults),
Please don't drag me down to your level. You want respect, stop using insult yourself as a way to make a point. You insult every one who doesn't agree with you as a matter of fact. Just look at your avatar.
genesound
12-01-2004, 04:32 AM
I agree wholeheartedly. If we gotta resort to insults, let's make 'em real jewels.
ukulele
12-01-2004, 04:34 AM
It is pretty obvious to see what is happening here with the lycos site that is down. Spam is generated from thousands of locations and is actually creating a lot of income for the host ISP. Now somebody comes up with a "brilliant" idea how to stop that income to those ISP servers and they are shut down simply and efficiently with similar tools. The only effective way spam will stop is if we can all take the profit out of it in the first place. All this screen saver is going to do is generate a virus like definition based on it's domain (and possibly your own computer) in the end. At the same time it will generated more unneeded wasted bandwidth in an already tight market. One of the ways spam is detected is by the shear volume of messages with the same signature. Now if you operate a screen saver that is essentially using idle time to counter hundreds or thousands if not millions of spam mills then it creates it's own signature and will be treated just like any other virus. In a sense it becomes just another threat to be countered.
If you want a free tool to rid your computer of spam go here...http://www.spamfighter.com/ It has been working for me for 6 months now with out a hitch and will block more then 99% of the spam that is out there. The only cost is a short one line ad for Spamfighter added to you outgoing mail which only helps to get more people using it and if enough use it, spam will simply become an ineffective tool for advertisers. There is an added bonus in that flagged spam is not previewed by Outlook or Outlook Express so it can't lead to web based virus attacks and if left in the dump folder and not previewed then any attachments are also ignored.
genesound
12-01-2004, 04:46 AM
Gee, that's not what I had in mind at all :confused: :r :x
genesound
12-01-2004, 04:57 AM
Hey, that looks perty cool, Uke. :)
Baddog
12-01-2004, 06:27 AM
I use "SpamFighter " too. BUT, I am also on dial up at home. It does a wonderful job separating the spam from your e-mails, but that is all it does. When you click on Outlook you still have to wait for 50 or so e-mail to be downloaded with their attachment (takes awhile). Then they are separated to the spam folder as they are downloaded. But it does filter your mail right good.;)
Also Spamfighter does nothing to stop the wasted bandwith used by spammers. The owner could not prove to me that the "Blacklist" was of any use, per our last e-mailing:t
zybch
12-01-2004, 07:12 AM
Originally posted by ukulele
Please don't drag me down to your level. You want respect, stop using insult yourself as a way to make a point. You insult every one who doesn't agree with you as a matter of fact. Just look at your avatar.
Sorry, who called who a bonehead. I'm pretty sure I didn't call anyone insulting names.
You're clearly allready well below my level thank you very much, and in this thread it doesn't seem to be me who is insulting people who don't agree with my point of view.
Regardless, the only sure fire thing that will stop spammers is the introduction of a charge to send emails. Say 5c per email.
Your credit card gets charged for each email you send.
The recipient of the email then must click on 'refund' or 'charge' (or something similar) depending on wether the email was requested or from a friend, or if it was spam. Of course each user also has a whitelist of accepted senders and a blacklist also.
Each time a recipient clicks on 'refund' the sender gets his 5c back, each time 'charge' is selected, that 5c is lost and perhaps goes towards to upkeep of this kind of system or some sort of global charity organisation.
The models proposed by Billy Gates and others have allready been worked around by industrious spammers, so unless we all adopt the dangerous TC way, having virtual email stamps at 5c a pop may very well be the only way to stop spam.
ukulele
12-01-2004, 12:27 PM
The industry obviously supports spam as a revenue creating form of advertisement or it would have stopped it the easy way. All that needs to be done is establish a mass mailing registry. If a mass mailing is not certified it is returned to the senders server. To keep certified the company can only send to addresses that opt in. There is nothing complicated about it. Mail that cannot be returned is immediate dumped and cannot even be delivered. End of problem. Unfortunately, for obvious reasons, (there is no money in it) this is never going to happen. The best we can do is block it on our own.
As for you, Zybch, I don't ever use other forum members names as an insult. It is rude, inconsiderate and totally lacking in class as well as against all policy here. You do that with smug defiance regularly and then have the nerve to criticize me for joking around when it is true.
zybch
12-01-2004, 04:37 PM
What insult? I only ever criticize when someone has made the first move, and calling people names is something that particular user is well known for, I'm sure you can see the parallels between him and your own name calling when, as you put it, someone doesn't agree with your point of view.
Certification of email sounds good, but this is exactly what has allready been broken by hackers/spammers and unless we all decide to slide down the slippery pole that is TC, and give up our freedoms spam will continue to inconvenience and disrupt everyone. Its not enough to just block it or use a veriication system, the spammers must be made to pay where it hurts, their hip-pockets. A fee based email system will ensure this, as would Lycos's DDoS-like attacks.
I think it'll only be a short matter of time until we start seeing many many other programs that will be doing exactly the same as the Lycos one. When that happens, then I think we'll be closer to your nightmare of diminishing internet speeds, but by then, ISPs and hosting companies will hopefully started to enfore their AUPs, otherwise they'll possibly be shut down under a deluge of unwanted crud from their clients - the spammers.
ukulele
12-01-2004, 05:34 PM
ISPs and hosting companies will hopefully started to enfore their AUPs
Have you ever actually ever rented commercial web space? They don't give a hoot what you do with it as long as it not illegal and does not exceed a specified bandwidth. You are proposing that we attack a legal enterprise with childish games that only add to the problem. I would be willing to bet that the perpetrators of this software you are touting are already talking to their lawyers about the lawsuits they suddenly found themselves in.
zybch
12-01-2004, 07:40 PM
Haven't you heard, sending out unsolicited emails and selling fraudulent products is illegal.
ukulele
12-02-2004, 12:56 PM
Originally posted by zybch
Haven't you heard, sending out unsolicited emails and selling fraudulent products is illegal.
Not in America. Half the stuff on the shelves here is a fraudulent product in some way or another if you believe the advertisement on the labels. Here it is buyer beware. If you believe anything is really as advertised you need your head examined.
zybch
12-02-2004, 05:44 PM
The CAN SPAM act requires that:
Unsolicited e-mails must be clearly identified as solicitation or advertisements for products and services.
There must be an opt-out option. Senders must provide easily accessible, legitimate means for recipients to "opt-out" of receiving future messages.
The revelation of the sender's addresses. Unsolicited e-mails must contain legitimate return e-mail addresses, as well as the sender's postal address.
Any spams without these 3 things are illegal.
Now please tell me, when was the last time you or anyone else you know received spam that complied with all three points, not just one or two, but all three.
Caveat Emptor? Certainly, but that doesn't make it okay to send out tens of thousands of spams promoting your 'miracle wing-wang' englarement pills, annoying and inconveniencing all but the estimated .5% of the recipients that actually believe your claims.
Do you like telemarketers?
Or do you have your phone number on the do not call list and expect that any calls you do get will cost the telemarketer in real $$$
How is junk email different to being interupted while eating dinner, watching TV or having sex by some telemarketer who can barely speak english trying to get you to switch to a different telephone company, selling roof tiles or taking a poll.
ukulele
12-02-2004, 07:38 PM
The can spam act, like just about every piece of legislation passed in this country during the present administration, has more holes in it then a mosquito net. It does not make spam illegal. It does nothing to stop spam from foriegn countries and never will. If you get tricked into giving an email address to even one of these crooks you gave it to them all. Spam is not illegal, it is just regulated and only where possible. The can spam act is only there for the convience of lawyers. It does nothing to regulate spam either. That's just another classic example of tax payer's wasted money.
zybch
12-02-2004, 09:39 PM
Exactly, some other approach needs to be found and the Lycos thing mightr just be the start of an actual offensive against spam rather than an only partially effective passive approach.
ukulele
12-02-2004, 10:09 PM
There is an article here (http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/12/02/anti.spamvigi.ap/index.html) on the subject currently running on CNN. As I pointed out the biggest concern is lawsuits. My guess is the spammers will win this round. The bandwidth issue is just a matter of proper filtering for the spammers. I still say the only way out is filtering mass mailings. A DOS attack is only a temporary annoyance to these buffoons.
ShadeZeRO
12-02-2004, 10:22 PM
Comon now, kiss and make up...:-@
I think lycos is starting a unique idea that will spur many other programs, not neccessarily Screensavers, but other kinds.
We cannot do much to fight spam at the moment, well anything legal, most we can do is filter and make their costs go high.
I think a massave wave of law suits are in order.
Screensavers that broadcast traffic, will basically get you hacked.
mireland
12-02-2004, 10:24 PM
Originally posted by ShadeZeRO
Comon now, kiss and make up...:-@
I think lycos is starting a unique idea that will spur many other programs, not neccessarily Screensavers, but other kinds.
We cannot do much to fight spam at the moment, well anything legal, most we can do is filter and make their costs go high.
I think a massave wave of law suits are in order.
Screensavers that broadcast traffic, will basically get you hacked.
well it was a nice idea..while it lasted...:(
crossedup
12-02-2004, 10:24 PM
Seems its a dead deal all around, bandwidth is bandwidth. Lycos crapped on their end of the bargain, spam sites shut down was NOT supposed to happen.
WHOOPS. :x
Trusted them at their word, should know better.
Besides, spammers have more zombie rigs. Hard to touch that, unless you are fixing them.
ShadeZeRO
12-02-2004, 10:50 PM
isn't spam machines just computers with like auto sending scripts???
Im guessing they put good firewalls and such not on it..
I wonder if they have ad-ware problems too..
Baddog
12-03-2004, 08:19 AM
MADRID, Spain (AP) -- At the risk of breaching Internet civility, Lycos Europe is offering computer-users a weapon against spam-spewing servers: a screen-saver program that automatically hits the offenders with data to slow them down.
Around 65,000 people already signed up for the offensive, called "Make Love not Spam" before Tuesday's official launch on a website by the same name, the company said. It is urging its 22 million users to download the screen-saver, but says anyone with a computer is welcome to it.
The company insists the technique is legal -- it says the culprit servers are simply choked a bit, not completely asphyxiated -- and dismissed concerns that computers which ping servers blamed for unwanted Internet traffic are further clogging the world's digital pipeline.
The program activates whenever a computer equipped with it goes into standby mode, and sends so-called HTTP get-requests to what Lycos says are servers known to generate unsolicited e-mails. When done en masse, this eats up precious bandwidth, causing the servers to overload and slow down, the company said.
The goal, said Lycos Europe spokesman Kay Oberbeck, is to "show the owners of such spam web sites that there is massive interest of thousands of users who are not willing to just give up against more and more spam each day."
Lycos chooses its targets by reviewing spam monitors such as www.spamcop.com and manually checking blacklisted sites to see if they really do carry products promoted by spam.
But Oberbeck acknowledged the risk of going after a legitimate site that has been hijacked by a spam-spewing site. "You have to be careful and that is what we are doing," he said from Guetersloh, Germany.
He said Lycos takes care not to crash spam servers altogether, respecting at least some of their bandwidth. "They will never go down below 5 percent bandwidth. Never."
Is it legal? "Yes. We checked."
Cyberspace activism -- such as virtual sit-ins in which computer users gang together and point browsers at a site, then use automated tools to send requests to it -- is not new, said Dorothy Denning, a professor of defense analysis at the Navy Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.
But in this case a for-profit company is the driving force.
"I guess the interesting question is whether or not that company might be liable under some law, and would probably be liable, certainly, at least under a lawsuit by the spammers," she said.
And the Lycos screen-saver adds more traffic to the Internet even as it tries to clear it of unwanted traffic, and probably has a minor impact on the targeted sites. "Those sites can always just pack up and use another IP address," Denning said. Or they can just buy more bandwidth.
"The cost of adding extra bandwidth may be worth the reward that comes from spamming," she said.