Anti-Spam Web Pages Shut Down by Attacks

Technology - Reuters to My Yahoo! ^ | 9/25/03 | By Elinor Mills Abreu

[Calpernia]

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Three Web sites that provide spam blocking lists have shut down as a result of crippling Internet attacks in what experts on Thursday said is an escalation in the war between spammers and opponents of unsolicited e-mails.

Anti-spam experts said that they think spammers are behind the attacks, although they have no way of proving it.

The technological war comes as Congress considers a federal anti-spam law and California adopts what is widely considered to be the toughest law in the country.

The California law, signed on Tuesday, allows people to sue spammers for $1,000 per unsolicited e-mail and up to $1 million for a spam campaign.

"This definitely marks an escalation in the spam wars," Andrew Barrett, executive director of The Spamcon Foundation, a spam watchdog group, said of the recent Internet attacks on lists used to block spam.

"Before, it was a guerrilla war ... This is the first time we've seen (spammers) employ such brazen tactics," he said.

Anti-spam advocates maintain hundreds of spam block or "black hole" lists, which are Web sites with lists of the numerical Internet protocol addresses of specific computers or e-mail servers that are unsecure or are known sources of spam.

Network administrators and Internet service providers consult the lists and block e-mails coming from those computers as part of their spam filtering techniques.

Two of those spam block lists have shut down after being attacked by denial-of-service (news - web sites) attacks, in which compromised computers are used to send so much traffic to a Web site that it is temporarily taken down. The operator of another list shut down fearing a pending attack.

"There seems to be a methodical well-planned attempt to use pre-assembled networks of zombie machines to create sustained denial of service attacks (news - web sites) on servers where these block lists run," said Barrett.

'HANDWRITING ON THE WALL'

Monkeys.com shut down on Monday following a three-day denial of service attack over the weekend and an attack last month that lasted 10 days, list operator Ronald Guilmette said in a posting to an anti-spam news group.

"The handwriting is now on the wall," he wrote. "I will simply not be allowed to continue fighting spam."

Spam block list operator Osiriusoft.com also recently shut down its list after a denial of service attack, and on Tuesday the list maintained at Tennessee Internet service provider Compu-Net Enterprises was taken down.

Bill Larson, network administrator at Compu-Net, said in an interview on Thursday that he shut the list down because he was afraid it would be targeted with a denial of service attack.

The company was already being harassed, receiving complaints after attackers sent spam that looked like it was coming from the company's network and legitimate e-mails were getting bounced, he said.

Experts have speculated that spammers are behind a computer worm, Sobig, that surfaced earlier this year that can turn infected computers into spam relay machines.

"The black hole lists were incredibly effective until the Sobig worm started going out," Larson said.

While Guilmette complained that ISPs could do more to stop the attacks by taking the attacking computers offline, Larson said anti-spam advocates were considering other options to keep the lists going.

They are talking about having lists that are distributed across numerous computers like in a peer-to-peer network, he said. "That will make it hard, if not impossible, to take them down," he added.

However, the best solution to the problem is for people to just "not buy the products mentioned in spam" advertisements, Larson added.

[Calpernia]

Kinda like a cat toying with a mouse.

BTW, why can't I make my own spam block lists? I mean outside of my ISP. I get mail blocked at the isp level that I want and spam still comes through. Why doesn't the user have that control?

[Calpernia]

Humor of the Day

How Dr. Seuss explains Computer Technology.

Dr. Seuss Explains Why Computers Sometimes Crash~
(Read this aloud, if you can!)

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,

and the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,

and the access of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,

then the socket packet pocket has an error to report.

If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,

and the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash,

and your data is corrupted cause the index doesn't hash,

then your situation's hopeless

and your system's gonna crash!!

If the label on the cable on the table at your house
says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,

but your packets want to tunnel to another protocol, that's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall,

and your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss, so your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse;

then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang, 'cuz sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang!

When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy in the
disk,

and the macro code instructions cause unnecessary risk,

then you'll have to flash the memory and you'll want to RAM your ROM.

Quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your Mom!

[TomServo]

I have my own. I call them "rules".

[Calpernia]

I can write rules too; but, there is still a level above (the actual isp) that stops some mail before it even gets to your desktop rules.

[HAL9000]

Depending on your ISP, you may be able to upload something like SpamBouncer to your home directory and customize your spam block lists.

[TomServo]

that stops some mail

There's your answer. They can't stop it all. And the best you can do is purchase/download a spam-blocker.

[AIC]

Hey! That was great! I liked it.

[Publius6961]

Seems to me that hese slimeballs use unprotected computers as "zombies" to do the evil deed.

Why aren't the owners of the zombies liable? Idiots who have high speed connections and can't be bothered to protect themselves, and in the process allow the bad guys to go through their computers.
Those computers should be identifyable, no?

[autoresponder]

Try a hotmail account

Go to "Options"

Select "Blocking"

Select 3rd Choice Down: "Most Secure"

Then Block all email except on your Address List Only

Exceptions may be added

I get zero (0) spam on my two optional Hotmail.Com accounts on my MSN-TV

You must go to Hotmail.Com on the internet to make these Option changes

It's a pain, but 100% bulletproof SPAM blocking

[MeekOneGOP]

[Calpernia]

I see your smash and raise you a hatchet.

[fourdeuce82d]

Here's a thought- why not track down the people whose products are being advertised...and hang four or five thousand of them? If the people paying for the spammage start recieving damage...then the spam generators will lose their clientele...

All references to lynching, genital mutlitation, forcing spammers to be held down while a naked rosie o'donnell is lowered onto their faces is purely tongue in cheek(s) and not meant to be a threat of violence in any way.

[Calpernia]

Here is another thought.

WHY NOT track down the companies that SELL you name/email to the spammers? Why are people/companies profiting off of YOUR/MINE/ANYONES email/name? Isn't our email/name OURS? Why can companies sell it and profit? When did our information become others property?

[fourdeuce82d]

WHY NOT track down the companies that SELL you name/email to the spammers?

Not a bad idea, but from what I can tell, based on the screwy spelling of my name on what I get, some of the stuff seems to be generated by random number/letter generators.

[Calpernia]

Not necessarily. See these sites: http://gem.imarketoffice.com/index.asp http://prospectplanet.com

Not limited to them; but, they are automated email databases that you use to customize 'spam'.

Dopies buy lists from these places or independents such as Cutting Edge Media and others. THEN they have to enter each and every name/email manually to all the different form letters that are in there. I would say the misspelling of your name happens at this point. Once the email and name are entered, the generators send emails automatically every 2 weeks, 30 days, which ever option is chosen.

[MeekOneGOP]

LOL !!

[L.N. Smithee]

I was considering dumping spam-crammed AOL for a cheaper ISP when something amazing happened after I downloaded AOL 9.0 -- the spam slowed to a trickle!

All you have to do is select the spam in your inbox, click a button to send it to a folder, and read what's left. Then you can dump the spam at your convenience, and in most cases, IT DOESN'T come back!

Back in the days of AOL 7, I would get at least 25 pieces of spam a day, sometimes more, some promising to lengthen my manhood, others offering mortgage re-fi's, and others curiously marked "Norton AntiVirus," "eBay," and "Microsoft."

Now, I average only three or four emails a day, and usually only one is spam.

But I still may dump AOL over its leftist news page, home of the occasional "Bush Credibility Meter."