Anti-Spammers DDoSed Out Of Existence

Anonumous Coward writes "Not one, but two anti-spam services announced their closure yesterday due to DDoS attacks, massive Joe jobs, threats, and the total lack of interest shown by law enforcement. monkeys.com pulled the plug at midnight with an announcement that makes you think of a suicide note. Short time later compu.net went the very same way. So, when will we see a distributed RBL that can stand up to distributed attacks?"

Comments

Re:The Heavy Hitters Are Still Around

[Distan]

From a spammers point of view, these blacklists are just another form of DDOS aimed directly at them.

DDOS = Distributed Denial of Service.

Distributed as in there are multiple computers involved, all coordinated by some central host. Denial of Service in that it inteferes with a desired activity.

If you are a spammer, any distributed sytem that blocks your ability to send email is a denial of service that should be dealt with using whatever resources are at your disposal. This DDOS is best dealt with by decapitating the central host (blacklist server) instead of by trying to deal with all the zombies (mail servers) involved.

The resources available to a spammer are limited. They don't have the ability to get a court order to force the blacklist server offline, they can't have Network Solutions yank the blacklist server out of DNS space, but they can launch a retributional DDOS attack back at the blacklist server.

Adapt or die, no? These blacklist servers are interfering with the ability of spammers to conduct their business. Any solution that stops this interference is going to be worth considering.

Re:Good riddance

[Grayswan]

Having been unfortunate enough to be assigned an IP block from a previous spammer and having gone through the subsequent...

Quit whining. You probably got that IP block real cheap. There is a reason why. You got what you paid for so shut up.

Maybe next time maybe you will check first and get a clause in your contract that lets you out if you ever get put on a blacklist. At that point, ISPs will start getting *serious* about spam because it actually DEGRADES THE FUTURE VALUE OF THEIR SERVICES. Then thing may change.