123a34f7ada5
tech



Hello Roy - 

--8<--cut 

CA>> For those who missed this phenomena, Lycos was giving away
CA>> a free screensaver that when activated would send 'dummy'
CA>> requests to the websites of those who attempt to profit by
CA>> spamming email accounts. Over 90,000 people downloaded the
CA>> screensaver and it did manage to disable two spammer
CA>> websites and cripple a few more. 

RJT> Interesting! This is the first that I've heard of this... 

That so few even chose to discuss this is also a bit sad IMO.
:-( 

CA>> The internet 'backbone' began blocking access to the
CA>> download page for the screensaver which stopped it from
CA>> working for those who already had it installed because it
CA>> loaded the URLs to 'spam' from the same website where it
CA>> was made available for download. Seems the backbone does
CA>> not _really_ want to stop spamming as they say they do? 

RJT> Now this is really strange. I didn't think that there
RJT> _was_ any central authority for the 'net, except those
RJT> folks that give out names and tie them to IPs. 

The 'backbone' is made up of college, government, and business
mainframes that carry the bulk of the 'traffic' and are
extremely conservative in their views on _everything_ but porn,
spam, and phishing which they seem to have no problem
transmitting to everyone and anyone. 

CA>> Lycos has pulled the download for the time being and may
CA>> not ever release it again but it certainly was a "proof of
CA>> concept" that users _can_ fight back against spammers even
CA>> if the internet and those who profit from it will stand by
CA>> and do nothing. 

CA>> I am hoping that free/opensource versions of software that
CA>> expands on this concept is released at some point so that
CA>> we can drive the spammers out of business and any new ones
CA>> that follow afterwards. 

RJT> Sounds good to me. 

CA>> Meanwhile there is a website that does something similar
CA>> to fake banks and fake lottery websites while their
CA>> webpage is loaded into your browser. 

CA>> http://www.aa419.org/ladvampire.html 

RJT> I'll have to try and remember to have a look once I get
RJT> online. In the meantime, here's another thing. Spam to me
RJT> is "unsolicited commercial _email_", and I get a fair
RJT> amount of that stuff. Most people just delete it. Not me.
RJT> I *BOUNCE* it. 

Hard to 'target' the actual source of the spam since they relay
it through 'owned' zombie systems etc. 

RJT> Meaning that for each one of those that gets sent out to
RJT> me, they get one back. Sure, it's only a copy of their
RJT> stuff, saying that my email address is invalid, and that
RJT> may help some with some of these folks, but it also helps
RJT> use up a little bit of their bandwidth, which is exactly
RJT> what they're doing to me. And if enough folks did that, it
RJT> might have some effect... 

Lycos had their people manually verify that the URLs were, in
fact, the sources of the spam and/or sponsors of the spam. 

>
>        ,                          ,
>      o/      Charles.Angelich      \o       ,
>       __o/
>     / >          USA, MI           < \   __\__
 

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