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SpamSlayer - should we DDOS spammers?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the what-lines-to-cross dept.

pointbeing writes "Just read this article about a company called Blue Security that essentially floods a spammer's website with requests to unsubscribe members - we're talking thousands of requests per day - the company's CEO says that fighting back by "inducing loss" against spammers is the only way to eventually stop them. Although I hate spam as much as the next guy, is participating in a DDOS attack the way to bring spammers to their knees? If it's okay in this instance, it it okay to DDOS the next guy who does something we don't like? "

3 of 587 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Sophistry at its finest... by interiot · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How do you define DDOS? If spammers send millions of emails in a day to AOL, does that constitute a DDOS against AOL? If large ISPs automatically send an unsubscribe response for each spam they get, and the total bandwidth is less than what the spammer originally sent, does that constitute a DDOS? Is it a DDOS if the large ISP's intent in doing this is to shut the spammer down?

  2. Do-Not-Intrude Registry Service by guyro · · Score: 5, Interesting
    There is no doubt that DDoS is an illegal and immoral action. As a security company we are the first to recognize that and live by that rule.

    Blue Frog clients do not arbitrarily perform DDoS on spam sites. They complain about specific spam messages received in mailboxes belonging to our users. Our users exercise their right to complain about the spam they receive. They are merely responding to invitations to the spammer's website.

    The Blue Frog enters the site and sends a complaint just as a user would do manually. It does not consume more resources from the site or from its ISP than a user could do manually. Many users have tried sending complaint to spammers at some point requesting to unsubscribe. We merely allow the users to do it in a safe and automated manner.

    Our goal is to force spammers to comply with the Do-Not-Intrude Registry - to clean out our users' addresses from their mailing lists. When they do so, they will not receive even one single complaint from community members.

    We perform thorough manual (human) validation on the spam messages we act upon, to prevent Joe Jobs and to make sure we minimize any possible impact on third parties.

    Guy Rosen
    Blue Security, Director of Operations
    http://www.bluesecurity.com/

  3. Re:Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen... by wkcole · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Read about the clean hands doctrine and get back with us.

    Read up on the history of the Church[spit] of Scientology's lawsuits and of the lawsuits that were filed against MAPS in 2000 by spammers and get back with us.

    One thing LRH got right: lawsuits under the US system are not all about who is right or about wins in court. They are often about which side can inflict the most damage on its opponent by careful strategic pursuit of the lawsuit.