Make Love not Spam: Lycos Attacks Spammers

[Cynthetiq]

Lycos Offers Program to Attack Spammers

2 hours, 16 minutes ago

By DANIEL WOOLLS, Associated Press Writer

MADRID, Spain - 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 have signed up for the offensive, called "Make Love not Spam" before Tuesday's official launch, 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 off adding extra bandwidth may be worth the reward that comes from spamming," she said.

I don't know why Lycos would offer such a thing especially when in my opinion it's basically sanctioned DDOS attacks. Sure I'd like to stick it to the spammers, but this just doesn't sit right with me.

your thoughts?

[superiorrain]

Well i'm going to download it and give it ago i just hope that the screensaver is pretty. Why not give the spammers a small taste of their own methods (though not exactly their method - but you see what i mean). This maybe our chance to stop some of it at least. Viva la lycos.

[vox_rox]

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

I don't know why Lycos would offer such a thing especially when in my opinion it's basically sanctioned DDOS attacks. Sure I'd like to stick it to the spammers, but this just doesn't sit right with me.

Well, firstly Denial od Service has a specific definition, and this does not fall into that category. However, there are laws in some jurisdiction that concern the right to do business, and infringing on that right is punishable. This begins to enter that realm, yet they do state that they are not trying to kill the servers, just be an inconvenience for them. Therefore, they could argue that they are not stopping them from doing business.

They could also counter that their own servers are suffering from exactly the same attack by receiving huge volumes of spam, so any legal attack launched against Lycos for this could be volleyed right back into their court (no pun intended) with exactly the same charges.

I may not agree 100 per cent with the tactic, but with my inboxes being choked with more and more useless spam, I can't say that any attack on spammers is bad.

The only problem is when those who are not spammers get caught in the crunch. Whether or not that will happen often or not is yet to be seen though, so I will reserve judgement. Still, it's a bold move and maybe not such a bad one.

Peace,

Pierre

[bbbbbb555]

i have the screen saver and i think it is a good idea if it can actually make a difference to some spam companies. i just wish that the program could do its thing when i am not using my computer without making me lose my old screen saver.

[bbbbbb555]

what does it mean that this things says stay tuned now when it turns on, and so does the web site?

[CSflim]

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

I don't know why Lycos would offer such a thing especially when in my opinion it's basically sanctioned DDOS attacks. Sure I'd like to stick it to the spammers, but this just doesn't sit right with me.

your thoughts?

I have to agree. Fighting against spam is something I am all for. But vigilantism is something that I am never comfortable with.

[aurigus]

I'm a member of the North American Network Operators Group mailing list and they are pretty much up at arms about this project. It creates bandwidth across the board, and bandwidth isn't free to the ISPs (as opposed to many end users). Many network operators are blocking access to the source server so that the script will not work properly, so don't be surprised if you install it and it doesn't work.