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Anti-Spammers DDoSed Out Of Existence

Posted by timothy on from the calls-for-punitive-measures dept.

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?"

3 of 677 comments (clear)

  1. The Heavy Hitters Are Still Around by Nintendork · · Score: 5, Informative
    So, when will we see a distributed RBL that can stand up to distributed attacks?

    I'd never even hear of the two sites that closed down. Personally, I use Spamcop's DNSBL, DSBL, and ORDB.

    -Lucas

    1. Re:The Heavy Hitters Are Still Around by frankie · · Score: 5, Informative

      SpamCop is currently alive, but Julian had to blow a bunch of cash on upgraded servers after getting knocked down a couple months ago. Pretty much every site which offers any sort of blocklist has had several months of continuous DDoS.

  2. I won't miss email black lists. by Vic+Metcalfe · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm sorry for the trouble these guys have had, but I've had more trouble with black lists then benefit. I've been black listed many times for stupid reasons. Like one of the sign-off's mentioned, I've had @mydomain.com used to send spams, had to handle the bounces and then been blacklisted on top of that. I've had spam link to a page I host even though the spam wasn't advertising the page, it was using the page to support the sale of its product. The page was about water safety, and posted by someone with no connection to the spammers. I've twice been blacklisted and once had UUNet filter my IP allocation because users had uploaded old vulnerable versions of FormMail.pl to their web sites and spammers found and abused the hole. Both times I had found and removed the offending script before getting shut down, only to be blacklisted/filtered AFTER fixing the problem.

    As you might have guessed I have no love for RBL type services. I think their hearts are in the right place, but I'm tired of getting caught in the cross-fire. Since at some point, in order to benefit spammers have to be contacted by consumers, law enforcement should be able to track them down. I'd love to see that sort of thing become common. I can't see a technological solution even with a complete overhaul of how email works. I like the fact that a stranger can email me if they like. I just want to see legal limitations on that contact to prevent spam.