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Spammers on the Run
ericald writes "An interesting
update from Blue Security, the group that introduces the Blue Frog initiative to fight spam, claims that during the past few days at least one spammer had frequently deleted domains he owned as a result of their system.
In another update in their blog
they report they have already recruited over 21,000 users.
It's about time spammers start feeling the heat! I'm just surprised they show results so soon."
Spammers must realize by now they run an awful risk by having their true identities tracked down and then posted for punishment. It won't be long until search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc.) start compiling results for them such as, "Mr/ Mrs X Illegally spammed millions of people." Employers certainly will rethink hiring someone with such tainted credentials. It just isn't worth it nowadays to harass people with unwanted/ unwarranted emails. This is a resounding wake-up call for these cretins to rethink their ill-fated profession.
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
...Unless of course Blue Security would like a list of the spammers who are filling my email, then perhaps I will change my opinion ;)
do.what.promptcmds
I'm amazed at Blue Security's success. They've gotten a few spammers to shut down a few domains.
The odd thing is, I'm still receiving as much spam as I've always received. No matter how many tens of thousands of users they sign up for this process, I fear this is going to be a very small drop in a very large bucket.
I'm a big tall mofo.
For those that don't know what Blue Security does, see this thread.
Basically, they DDOS spammers websites in hopes that they will shut them down.
I actually sat through a Flash animation because I was wondering what the heck they did. And... I still don't know.
Blue Frog essentially responds to spam with complaints. So spammer X sends fifty thousand spam mail messages to Blue Frog users, and he gets fifty thousand complaints back. It's an eye-for-an-eye technique done properly: one spam, one complaint.
I see this as having two major effects. First, it keeps the spam away from you. Second, it informs the spammer that nobody read his spam. Spammers *depend* on human beings reading their spam. As long as nobody reads it, nobody buys.
Microsoft cheerleader, blue flag waving, you got a problem with that?
I liked the mention of the domain registrar taking up a zero-tolerance policy after the spammer shut down their domain. I'm starting to think that with more people around the world getting online, more people around the world are getting sick of spam. This could help us eliminate some of those off-shore servers that spammers love to hide behind.
;)
Give everyone in the world email for a week and then see all the government action we desperately crave
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
An interesting article over at TechNewsWorld about how Blue Frog is not what we need in the battle against spam. "It's the worst kind of vigilante approach," said John Levine, a board member with the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail. "Deliberate attacks against people's Web sites are illegal."
do.what.promptcmds
Blue Security
asdlkjfea.com, alsfajega.com, aksdfaewl.com, hkassautdn.com, egmymaridjk.com, lhperdixnd.com, clthriftbf.com, bibiae.com, romisingfeasibility.com, betheuplift.com, fundamentalstojoy.com, dealandvaluematch.com, valueandassets.com, oursuperbiz.com, and best of them: truthfoundhere.com
maybe spamfoundhere.com?
Sue/fine/arrest/jail spammers? They'll move abroad where we can't find them.
Get a legal framework that will be enforced in all the countries connected to the Internet? Good fscking luck.
I just hit the "join beta" link and didn't fill out the form, on the page you signup I see:
System Requirement
Windows 2000/2003/XP
Ok so I'm out, last windows I read email on was Win95 or maybe Win98, some bullshit virus or another screwed me over, I ain't "done email" on Windows of any type since. Oddly enough, I haven't had any viruses, spyware, adware, or malware since then either.
So while I applaud efforts to reduce spam, efforts that requre Windows seems silly at best and are efforts I can't join in on. Even my wife no longer reads email on Windows, the last time her Windows PC slowed to a crawl due to spyware instead of spending 3 or 4 hours googling for the latest cleaners and finding out what new and not at all entertaining spyware she had, I said "fuck this' gave her my new and as yet unpacked Mac Mini and she hasn't had any spyware problems since. Ripped her PC apart and installed Linux on it to replace my laptop as my main "work" pc.
--- www.f-theocean.com
What does this blue frog inituative do thats so magical to get rid of spammers.
You really don't know? Geneticists have engineered a breed of frogs that subsist entirely on Spam. An interesting side effect is their attractive blue coloration.
Best Windows Freeware
An interesting update from Spammers-R-Us, Inc [...] In another update in their blog, they report they have already gotten over 21,000 Slashdotters to hit the Blue Frog site. It's about time spamfighters started feeling the heat! I'm just surprised they show the results within 20 posts on the thread!
- with apologies to the original article poster :)
I'm sure all the Chinese, Polish, and Russian spammers are shaking in their boots. For them, there will never be a solution other than IP block banning and similar measures. If you have the time and energy to waste on "dealing" with this group, more power to you, but I'm done even thinking about them.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I propose the Blue Steel program where spammers are hunted down like animals. Sponsored by Colt. Successful hunters will be allowed to mount the heads on their walls.
smtpd_sender_restrictions = reject_unknown_address
smtpd_recipient_restrictions =
permit_sasl_authenticated,
reject_non_fqdn_sender,
reject_non_fqdn_recipient,
reject_unknown_sender_domain,
reject_unknown_recipient_domain,
reject_unauth_pipelining,
permit_mynetworks,
reject_unauth_destination,
reject_rbl_client ombie.dnsbl.sorbs.net,
reject_rbl_client relays.ordb.org,
reject_rbl_client opm.blitzed.org,
reject_rbl_client list.dsbl.org,
reject_rbl_client sbl.spamhaus.org,
permit
We are also using SpamAssassinn / razor / clamav using amavisd-new. The main mail account used for everything from clients webmaster@ mail to contact@ are getting numerous spam daily, yet only three or perhaps four a month get delivered... and those are added to our body_checks.txt which is publicly available for download by anyone, including spammers who I have a feeling makes spammers think twice and clean us off their list when they find themselves listed there using search engines etc.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
Just as a proof of concept, would somebody please start sending out millions of "fake" spam messages, all with links to every one of SCO's web pages? Thanks!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Blue Frog is effective because it consumes spammer's resources -- it raises the costs of being a spammer. Spam filtering does not reduce spammer's profits in that the same people that filter spam were never likely to visit the spam site and purchase. Filtering doesn't change spammer's revenues or costs.
In contrast, a bot that visits a spammer's site consumes the spammer's valuable resources in far greater amounts that is consumed by the original spam e-mail (spam emails often being under 10kB and sent via low-cost zombies vs. 50kB or 100kB for most web pages begin hosted on the spammer's e-commerce site).
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Of course I'm sure you don't find it at all ironic that you include spam in your very own signatture line, do you?
feh.
Ian Ameline
Whot about the bloke in Russia who got 'blown away' with a gun for excess spamming?
Vardan Kushnir was beaten to death as the result of a botched robbery. That he was a prolific spammer was incidental.
From InformationWeek:
According to the Kommersant, a Moscow newspaper, police said Kushnir met three women in a club, and invited them to his apartment. The women then spiked his drink, but when Kushnir woke up to find the women's accomplices taking credit cards, a laptop, money, and other items, he was bludgeoned to death, the paper said.
It's amazing, isn't it? You're connected to the Internet, the world's single largest source of information on nearly every conceivable topic, and you couldn't be bothered to take 2 minutes to actually look up the topic being discussed before commenting on it.
I kneow SPAM is a huge problem world wide. However i dont get why people dont learn from thier mistakes. In the late 90's I used to have tons of SPAM arriving in my inbox. Since then i now keep three email addresses; one for personal contact, one for doing online transactions and one for filling out online forms (like contests & website registration). Since then i have had no SPAM in my 2 main accounts and very little (cause im very picky about the places i register) in the account i do give out the address to. Im glad that there are businesses and government efforts to combat SPAM but some of the responsibilty can still be layed on the shoulders of the fools who continue to give out their address to every ipod give-a-way website they see. Come on people, wise up. Help these do-gooders help you!
Don't ya hate it when the correct spelling of your favorite screen name is taken?
Spamming is cheap, and virtually without risk. Essentially, this is a legal way to shift reality so that it's more risky to pay a spammer for your advertising.
Yes it's legal. No, it's not spamming the spammers. They only get one complaint per spam recieved. You'd do it yourself, given the time to do so. Meanwhile, you've explicitly installed a piece of software to do it for you. If that breaks their server, well they probably shouldn't be sending so much goddamn spam.
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
Spammers change domains the way normal people change underware. The fact that within a few days of Blue Security sending their malcious complaints to a spammer's website (which is set up on a throw-away account at a Chinese ISP, registered through a reseller for one of the minor registrars, who will, in three days, cancel the domain registration ANYWAY), is not evidence of ANYTHING.
Correlation is not causation!
Spammers have been rotating through domain names for years now. You can watch it on a week-by-week basis, as a whole series of domains with the same nameservers takes responses for the same spam months on end. Even when the spammers change nameservice, they tend to do it in predictable ways.
In one week's time Blue Security has manages to slightly ruffle the feathers of a total of THREE distinct spam operations. Big whoop.