Lycos Spam Killing Screen Saver Link

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As I said in the networking forum, what a imature waste of resources ... fighting spam with spam is a retarded idea.
 
It's not fighting spam, its a giant DDoS attack.... and that's just ASSUMING that the ppl you're hitting are spammers. The entire ev1 network is blacklisted on some spam networks.... does that mean you're gonna DDoS my server? It's on EV1.....

You go ahead and try it, I'll be logging IP addresses and pressing charges, and I wouldn't be surprised in the least if the *real* spammers do the same.
 
Anyone know of any case in which someone has been attacked for running this? It will be interesting to see if vindictive spammers get a little too happy with the DDoS attacks in return, even the the software is not supposed to overload and, coincidentally, crash servers...
 
he meant spammers, the ones with the real bw could easily bring down lycos till they felt like .. :)
 
iNViSiGOD said:
Its only a DDoS is it cripples the service.
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From CNET:
Under the plan, when a URL already listed on Lycos Europe's spam blacklist is mentioned in e-mail sent to someone using the screensaver, the tool automatically and repeatedly requests data from the site in question. The idea is that when a large number of the screensavers send requests to the same page at the same time, those sites' performance will suffer greatly.
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Definition of DDoS


This is the dumbest idea ever conceved, aside from the Jump to Conclusions mat.
 
...so this screen saver is like the boondock saints of spam? :p

(...anyone get that?)
 
Hito Bahadur said:
no... pleaze 'xplain!
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assuming your not being sarcastic... its this

OT: and as a person of irish heritage and from south boston I thought the movie was pretty stupid :rolleyes:
 
As the original poster has pointed out to me in IM, it's not technically DDoS, as it's 'not causing the servers to deny service' - the intent is the same vein - be it to deny service, or kill bandwidth - it's still dirty, and it still fucks over anyone else on their network.

relic... Where's that lock?
 
So like 80% of net traffic is spam and they want to add more, WTF if im not mistaken that = slower internet for everyone and mabey higher fees if this keeps on for a long time. Besides this is really right on the line of being aginst the law.
 
Jozone, thanks for the memory reset. I couldn't remember what Boondock Saints was about. Duh! Good analogy.
 
xENo said:
It's not fighting spam, its a giant DDoS attack.... and that's just ASSUMING that the ppl you're hitting are spammers. The entire ev1 network is blacklisted on some spam networks.... does that mean you're gonna DDoS my server? It's on EV1.....

You go ahead and try it, I'll be logging IP addresses and pressing charges, and I wouldn't be surprised in the least if the *real* spammers do the same.
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I couldn't agree more :D

I hate spammers - mainly as I run a website at my own cost to benefit F@H, plus broadband users. I've been blacklisted by Spamcop 3 times due to some spammer using a reference to a stylesheet on my server. It took a while to get the site reclassified back to innocent bystander.

The idea that I would have to take my site down to avoid being hit with the bandwidth charges is insane to me. Go after the spammers using legal means. Make it costly to them. That's cool. Get them locked up - even better.

More scarily - there is a lot to be said for AOL's approach of sticking virus scanner/spam blocker in as part of the package, for those users who just don't want to know how to secure their machines themselves. I know most if not all members here will secure things down, but even the inlaws managed to unsecure their machine within the time I was/am in the US for a few months. GRRin ;)
 
The screensaver will only send people to the spam site so long as there is no performance degredation.

Once the site starts to slow and/or stop responding, the screensaver servers automatically stop sending people to the site until the site responds properly again.

Once again, this is NOT a denial of service attack, and those which share the network do not even notice the difference!

Cheers.
 
As of this posting the site is down. Perhaps a pre-emptive strike (since we're all so fond of those anyway) against lycos? And is anyone here willing to try it out?

B
 
Jordie said:
The screensaver will only send people to the spam site so long as there is no performance degredation.

Once the site starts to slow and/or stop responding, the screensaver servers automatically stop sending people to the site until the site responds properly again.

Once again, this is NOT a denial of service attack, and those which share the network do not even notice the difference!

Cheers.
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Are you willing to risk some money or your freedom on those words? This isn't a bloody game here. This crap has the possibility of screwing with people's livelihood, and you don't do that to the innocent. It's not right. Death to the spammers, but don't risk anyone else in the process.
 
CrazyMrB said:
As of this posting the site is down. Perhaps a pre-emptive strike (since we're all so fond of those anyway) against lycos? And is anyone here willing to try it out?

B
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I use the screensaver. Its legal and not a denial of service attack since it stops when the site starts to break down.

Problems:
Server it connects to is down half the time, so the screensaver doesn't work, only shows what you have already done.
Website has been hacked twice already. (I consider this a sign that its working)
It is a CPU hog, my temps go up the same as if I was running Boinc.
 
I downloaded the screensaver because I really dislike SPAM.

It's a horrible abuse of the internet, and we all pay for it one way or another, even if it's nothing more than the massive amount of time we have spent going through unsolicited junkmail, time we will NEVER get back.

Unfortunately, after some thought, I'm not running it anymore because I don't want to make myself a target.

It's like a war is breaking out in cyberspace here. Too bad it's all rooted in money, power and greed, and some sick sense of honor among thieves.
 
Benny Blanco said:
I downloaded the screensaver because I really dislike SPAM.

It's a horrible abuse of the internet, and we all pay for it one way or another, even if it's nothing more than the massive amount of time we have spent going through unsolicited junkmail, time we will NEVER get back.

Unfortunately, after some thought, I'm not running it anymore because I don't want to make myself a target.

It's like a war is breaking out in cyberspace here. Too bad it's all rooted in money, power and greed, and some sick sense of honor among thieves.
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chalk one up for capitalism... :rolleyes:
 
mwarps said:
Are you willing to risk some money or your freedom on those words? This isn't a bloody game here. This crap has the possibility of screwing with people's livelihood, and you don't do that to the innocent. It's not right. Death to the spammers, but don't risk anyone else in the process.
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Risk my freedom? Damn rights, let the spammer come out of the closet, into the public eye, and we'll show him a thing or two.
Spammers use denial of service attacks and hacking for a reason. They want to stay anonymous.

You're right, it's not a game, which is why they should stop doing the damage they do. Is it fair that we spend money to receive the crap they send us? Is it fair that we have to pay our employees to sift through 20 minutes worth of spam in the morning? No, it's not. This is costing business greatly in lost productivity alone.
Yes, I WANT it to cause people to lose their jobs, I want the spammers to be stuck on the street, begging for our money that way.
This method puts people less at risk than what they do.
If we can prove to them that it is not profitable to spam, then it's worthwhile in the long run.

Estimates put spam at 80% of the internets traffic. If we only use 2% *MAX* to take out their websites, and we take it down even as little as 4% in a year, we're AHEAD 2%.
Keep doing that math for years to come and I hope you'll understand what is best for us in the long run.
 
spam sucks


its not cool to clean out your mail box and then go do something elise and come back and have it half full again in like 20 min .............


i can even get the important stuff ..

and when i block all of it more gets though anyway ...


spam is never going to stop all you doing is slowing it down
 
Devilspunkboy said:
spam sucks


its not cool to clean out your mail box and then go do something elise and come back and have it half full again in like 20 min .............


i can even get the important stuff ..

and when i block all of it more gets though anyway ...


spam is never going to stop all you doing is slowing it down
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right, i follow. so, we have this problem, let's call it [x]. now, we can never stop [x], but we have the opportunity to mitigate [x] somewhat. But, since we can never *completely* solve [x] we'll just sit on our hands and let [x] fester.

yeah, doesn't sound so bad...


...now replace [x] with a larger-than-spam real world issue.

try terrorism.

now tell me we shouldn't act.
 
You don't bully a bully or poke someone thats annoying to get him to stop. You outsmart him.

Am I the only person who grew up the nerd in school and learning the rules of the playground?

Lycos : Downgrade.
 
I think that this will be just a bump in the road for spammers, they will adapt and overcome, just like the roaches that they are. I think minimizing the damage is the best way here, because spam is something that won't just go away with some screensaver (IMO).
I for one am not spending my idle time on this, I'd rather fold or even search for aliens.
And one thing, I presume this thing takes up bandwidth? I have to pay for my bandwidth usage per megabyte... yes, it sucks bigtime... and yes, I'd rather mail the money straight to the spammer with a note saying "you win"... :(
 
I don't think this thread has a thing to do with Distributed Computing. Keep it to the topic of the forums folks. Thread closed.
 
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