Make Love, not Spam

[Bowlie]

Interesting idea here to get revenge on all those spammers. Lycos says it is not illegal. I've signed up, and its available for both the Mac (OS X and 9) and windows.

Please share in your experiences: <img src=/S/evilgrin.gif border=0 alt=evilgrin width=15 height=15>

[JoeP517]

Just what we need - yet another 'program' to send useless, bandwidth hogging junk. <img src=/S/frown.gif border=0 alt=frown width=15 height=15>

Joe

[Bowlie]

Joe,
Do you really think that my 'new' screensaver is going to bring down the entire WWW? I pay for my bandwidth, and I don't think I'm taking away from anyone else's pleasure using the web - while on the otherhand the targets do take away from my pleasure. Do I really want to constantly waste my bandwidth downloading messages from "Undertaker D. Amalgam" about "iknkey esx with tnens"? NO. I've often thought that DoSS was not an over the top reaction to those that advertise using spam. Eye for an Eye and all that. This Lycos idea doesn't got that far (pity)

[JohnGray]

Bowlie

I think I'm with Joe here. The logical extension of the Lycos suggestion is that if someone should annoy you, then you shoot them.

There must be better ways of dealing with spam than doing DDoS on the (supposed?) perpetrators...

John

PS Unusual for me to be serious, isn't it?!

[jscher2000]

I don't know about shooting them... more like placing hundreds of calls to telemarketers when they're home having dinner. The problem is, tying up the phone system (or any other shared network) to torture a few bad people can end up hurting innocent bystanders. I certainly hope no one installs this at the office. <img src=/S/smile.gif border=0 alt=smile width=15 height=15>

[JoeP517]

You pay for your bandwidth from your PC to your ISP. When you and others send a bunch of useless junk you take up more bandwidth. All this means is that someone is going to have to buy more hardware and it is not going to be the spammers. Increasing costs to network and service providers will only increase your cost in the long run. If you don't want to download messages such as your example investigate software such as Mailwasher Pro (and others) that let you examine e-mail on the server before downloading.

Joe

[bigaldoc]

Concerning Joe's recommendation, MailWasher Pro can also be "trained" to either delete (at the ISP's server) and/or send a "bounce" message, which makes your future reviews a little faster. True, bounce messages may be a tiny bit of extra, sometimes unsuccessful traffic, but it does occasionally make messages from a specific source stop.

[bill_bright]

I feel sorry for the poor guy whose email has been spoofed by the spammer and this program now targets - I don't trust this. I agree, this sounds similar to the MWP's "bounce" feature - however, note that most of the experts at MWP's Official forum here agree that bouncing wastes bandwidth and is a bad idea (go there and search on "bounce" with category of "Firetrust" to read about bouncing woes) - the vast majority of spam uses forged or spoofed addresses so bouncing email back sends the bounce message back to nowhere or to some unsuspecting person's account. That consumed bandwidth is wasted. This can be a further waste if your ISP fails to deliver your bounce message (as is likely the case) and sends you a useless "failed delivery" message - wasting more bandwidth.

Finally, bouncing has one other undesirable affect - it can verify your address is valid! Many folks at the MWP forum report that with bouncing enabled, spam increases! I noticed this myself.

My advice, don't use this screen saver - and for Mailwasher users, disable bouncing!

[charlotte]

Bowlie,

I'd like to point out that some of the spam I get spoofs my own address. I would hate to start sending myself a deluge of spam! <img src=/S/yikes.gif border=0 alt=yikes width=15 height=15> I use Junk-Out (Woody's recommendation) and let it handle the trash.

[JohnGray]

The latest news seems to be that the Lycos website has been taken offline because the spammers are redirecting traffic back to www.makelovenotspam.com, which means Lycos unintentionally launches a denial-of-service attack against its own anti-spam campaign web site.

Full story from The Register, and a piece from the BBC...

John

[Bowlie]

Hi John,
You are correct - the screensaver is non-operative at the moment. I've deactivated it for the time being (on my home computer) and shall await further developments. I'm not sure if meant to refer to 'spammers' in your message - as the intention was not to hit back at spammers - who can hide, but to hit back at those that use spammers to spread their filth - who cannot hide (as they want their locations to be known).

While it may be vigilante - following the rules doesn't keep the crud out of my e-mail box. These guys, who pay the spammers, are stealing from me (my time, my bandwidth, my innocence <img src=/S/innocent.gif border=0 alt=innocent width=20 height=20>) so I really don't feel unhappy that they have had a little of their own returned to them.

I guess I don't have the same level of integrity as other loungers, but neither do the 10s of thousands of others who also downloaded the screensaver. Poetic Justice, I say.

[Bowlie]

<P ID="edit" class=small>(Edited by DaveA on 06-Dec-04 13:37. Removed extra http:// in link)</P>The king is dead Long live the king!

[JohnGray]

<P ID="edit" class=small>(Edited by JohnGray on 07-Dec-04 16:40. To add new article)</P>An article by a chap from Security Focus, published in The Register, begins:

After a week of well-deserved criticism, Lycos is abandoning its scheme to launch denial-of-service attacks against spammy websites. Did the company reform in time to avoid criminal prosecution?

And look what the screen saver has caused! Fake Lycos screensaver harbours Trojan

John