Spam Slayer: Bringing Spammers to Their Knees

PC World ^ | 7/18/05 | Tom Spring

[GPBurdell]

once installed on your PC, makes it part of a community that works to cripple Web sites run by spammers.

Sweet!

Buzz
Buzz Blog

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[xcamel]

SpamCop and Spamassassin (linux mailservers) have done this for quite a while now.

[Kevin OMalley]

BFLR = Bump for later reading.

[Egon]

Interesting.

[anniegetyourgun]

I won't be happy until spam is traced and returned to the sender, at which point their server/machine melts to goo.

[QwertyKPH]

[Obadiah]

bttt

[QwertyKPH]

[King Prout]

?

[frogjerk]

Works great for me!

[GraniteStateConservative]

Does it kill Home Search Assistant?

[CGVet58]

first time someone's asked me to voluntarily participate in a reverse DOS attack upon a spammer so nicely...

thanks, but no thanks... I'll pass.

I use NAV (paid for) and the following free software: AdAware, Spybot S&D, Spyblaster & A2-squared. Also run XP2 firewall, plus MS Anti-spyware. All of this running behind aRouter using NAT.

Result is no problems, and minimal use of local resources - typical greenline on HD usage is 15-25%, well within performance bounds.

[orionblamblam]

Small problem: if you are, say, a hacker for the DNC... can't you come up with fraudulent spam that directs one to, say, the RNC website? And thus get this program to bombard the RNC website into oblivion?

The reverse situation would also apply, and thus competitors could shut down opponents websites through such sleazy means...

[Publius6961]

Silly questions:

DOS is illegal in most countries but industrial strength spamming isn't?

What's wrong with this picture?

[cooldog]

Neither SpamCop nor Spamassassin are mailservers.

SpamCop.net is an organization that maintains an RBL (Realtime Block List) of systems used to send spam, and Spamassassin is software that can, among other things, check to see if a sending mailserver is on that RBL.

[Publius6961]

I know that there are at least a couple of computer/internet savvy folks regularly on Free Republic all the time.

Question:
Is there any software that enables me to allow two-way communications with any given site (once or forever) that, once set, would only allow sites of your choice to upload anything?

[antiRepublicrat]

The idea has been floating for a while, but this seems to be the first to do it in a quite damaging distributed manner. I believe the spammers will have the cojones to sue this company when they get hit.

For possible weasel room on the illegality of DDoS, the spammers did trigger the automated DDoS response by their own illegal actions.

[NonValueAdded]

Interesting concept ... until the tables get turned and you get charged with a DoS attack. Besides, that is what they say the resident code is doing on your PC that you personally install. How do you know to trust them? It would make more sense that the site would log the multiple violations and then pass the documented proof to Law Enforcement, having group clout to press the claim. This attack-back scheme puts you in the same class as the spammer and changes you from plaintiff to defendant IMHO.

[xcamel]

**for** mailservers. Please don't be petty. Those who know anything at all about eamil know what I meant.