Web portal company Lycos's 'Make love not spam' campaign has killed access to some of the Web sites of its target spammers as the result of denial-of-service attacks.
According to Internet traffic monitoring company Netcraft, Lycos successfully took offline two Web sites hosted in China, bokwhdok.com and printmediaprofits.biz.
Netcraft's Web site said: "A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack launched by users of Lycos Europe's MakeLoveNotSpam.com screensaver has succeeded in crippling several spammer sites, but some of the targeted sites remain available."
Lycos was unavailable for comment on the matter, but said yesterday it was not carrying out DDoS attacks, just slowing the bandwidth of its targets. It added it had no intention of taking Web sites offline.
"I have to be very clear that it's not a denial-of-service attack," said Malte Pollmann, director of communication services for Lycos. "We slow the remaining bandwidth to 5 percent. It wouldn't be in our interests to [carry out DoS attacks]. It is to increase the cost of spamming. We have an interest to make this, economically, unattractive."
Yesterday, Lycos denied claims that it was hit by hacker attacks, but several reports, including one from Netcraft, have alleged that the 'Make love not spam' Web site was unavailable at several intervals. There is, however, no conclusive evidence either way on whether the defacement was a hoax or not.
Lycos launched its campaign earlier this week, offering users a screensaver that uses idle processing power of their computers to slow down bandwidth that connects to spammer's Web sites.
Head of international spam fighting organisation Spamhaus Steve Linford said that by attacking spammer's bandwidth, Lycos could be attacking innocent users' bandwidth.
Talkback
So many people are bleating about "not retaliating against the poor spammers". Hey, the parasitic spammers are denying internet users the freedom to use their own e-mail accounts we pay for. Are we supposed to all sit back and wait for the US authorities to start to enforce their "You CAN Spam" law? They've had a year to enforce it and done basically nothing at all. The low-life sleazy spammers rule supreme. I'm going to be using this screen saver every chance I get, and I hope that most of the internet population does the same.
To the previous poster: You are an idiot if you use this screensaver. You are allowing someone else to use your computer to launch an attack against unknown third parties. Have you considered any of the following:
1/ *They* (Lycos) might make a mistake (or get hacked) and as a result *you* end up attacking an innocent site?
2/ Your attack is correctly directed but goes via shared infrastructure and causes 'collateral damage'?
3/ The spammers log your ip and launch a full scale attack against you, possibly finding an exploit enabling them to take over your PC and fill it with 'underage images'.?
1/ and 2/ carry potential civil and criminal liability.
You can protect yourself against 3/ to a large extent but not 1/ and 2/
We *all* hate spam (except the spammers and their accomplices) but this is *not* the way to fight it.
For those against the Lycos screensaver and the way it fights spam, please read on.
If you're honestly against spam and think this isn't the way to fight it, please tell me what the right way is?
Keeping ignoring it?! Or waiting, while the law seems to take no measures to stop it
I believe if you are against the screensaver it's either because:
1. You don't get enough spam on your inbox to annoy you;
2. You don't think about how much healthier the internet and your email inbox will become if the screensaver (or any other method) succeeds in eradicating spam;
3. Or, you don’t want the spamming business to vanish for some reason... maybe because you’re part of it?!
If you're honestly against spam and think this isn't the way to fight it, please tell me what's the right way?
Keeping to ignore it? I think not.
Well done Lycos - you have even made the internet gurus, who have sat on their hands for so long get off them - if only to wring them on behalf of the spammers. The only good spammer is an offline one!