Slashdot Mirror
Symantec Wants To Use Victims To Hunt Computer Criminals
Hugh Pickens writes "Business Week reports that security experts plan to recruit victims and other computer users to help them go on the offensive and hunt down hackers. '"It's time to stop building burglar alarms to keep people out and go after the bad guys," says Rowan Trollope, senior vice-president for consumer products at Symantec, the largest maker of antivirus software. Symantec will ask customers to opt in to a program that will collect data about attempted computer intrusions and then forward the information to authorities. Symantec will also begin posting the FBI's top 10 hackers and their schemes on its Web site, where customers go for software updates and next year the company will begin offering cash bounties for information leading to an arrest. The strategy has its risks as hackers who find novices on their trail may trash their computers or steal their identities as punishment. Citizen hunters could also become cybervigilantes and harm bystanders as they pursue criminals but Symantec is betting customers won't mind being disrupted if they can help snare the bad guys. "I'm convinced we can clean up the Internet in 10 years if we can peel away the dirt and show people the threats they're facing," says Trollope.'"
How many of these scams and hack originate in the US anyway? Will their customers really have information to share?
"Sometimes it's hard to tell the dancer from the dance." --Corwin Of Amber in CoC
Not sure that this is as much fun as the summary makes it out to be. I doubt that grandma will be slushing through routing tables or reading through log files to detect the source, but instead the next version of symantec's products will say "You've been pwned! Please provide ALL information to us, including data stolen, connection attempts, and your underwear sizes." and grandma will click "Send" and symantec will have more information to track down cyber-criminals.
And everyone will live happily ever after, with ponies. The End.
american "smoke em out" perspective. how about we do the following instead of chasing fourteen year olds in former east-block countries the symantec police have no jurisdiction in? 1. educate users
2. create hardened operating systems that may never need antivirus
3. promote open web standards and good coding practices open to scrutiny for flaws exploits and bugs.
4. stop letting marketing drive the internet bus.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I think, ultimately, that the internet will never be cleaned up. It is very idealistic to think there are a finite number of hackers and that their methods will not become more and more sophisticated as time goes by.
The kind of "cleaned up" internet that these companies talk about requires STRICT regulation and STRICT monitoring. It is very apparent, from just the audience that posts on Slashdot, that regulation is the exact opposite of what people want.
As far as the approach, the idea of a proactive anti-virus is novel, but I think the idea of recruiting novices to help hunt expert hackers is ludicrous. All it would take is a couple of reprisals from the hackers to permanently deter the said novice from going after a hacker.
Marines aren't like cops at all. A marine knows that the best defense is a good offense. Go get 'em, before they come to get you!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
"Hackers are now targeting Rowan Trollope, senior vice-president for consumer products at Symantec"
How difficult would it be for an enterprising "computer criminal" to leave a trail of breadcrumbs leading to someone else?
IF this is easy to do, Symantec knows it, and this effort amounts to nothing more than a publicity stunt to sell more licenses.
Hah. You think Joe and Judy are going to be concerned about the big picture when they are trying to order Suzie's birthday party invitations and can't? The big picture is nice and all, but to expect people to act reasonably is, in my experience, a recipe for disappointment.
More of the same. "If we can scare people, we can sell more product, er, I mean, clean up the internet," says security vendor.
They don't want to clean up the internet. They want to continue to make money selling products to people who need them (or are scared).
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I'd prefer my police to be run by and for the people, i.e. the government, rather than for profit. That said, the FBI/CIA has been ludicrously incompetent in tackling this problem.
Works for me, first target... Symantec!
"They confiscated everything, even the stuff we didn't steal!"
... will somebody victimize me so that I can put it on my resume?
While it is pretty meaningless to go after spammers themselves in many cases, we could use a similar approach to cut off spammers where it really matters - at the revenue stream. If we made some strategic purchases from spamvertised sites, we could potentially figure out who is making money in the deal. And when we find them, we will find who is funding the spammers. After all, spam isn't sent out just for fun; it is sent out because someone is paying the spammers to send it out. You can use the merchant information to go after the people who are paying for spamvertising - they are often involved in illegal sales of (pirated software / counterfeit drugs / counterfeit property) anyways. If the funding dries up, the spammers will need to find other work.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
So they're planning to recruit every one of their customers, or just a small subset of the group "victim of Symantec"?
but only if i can get a trenchcoat, skateboard, really cool nickname and access to a non-baby crazy angelina jolie...
Don't anthropomorphize computers: they hate that.
I'm convinced we can clean up the Internet in 10 years...
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
Oh gawd, that's rich. One of the funniest jokes I've read in a long time. Hysterical. Hopefully I'll see this guy at next year's Montreal Comedy Festival. Awesome comedian!
How do people like that get into the position of VP of anything? A bold statement that indicates such a complete and utter lack of possibility... Unreal.
Advocated by a guy name "Trollope"?
<looks at calendar>
It's not April 1st; what's up with that?
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
10 years? No crime on the Internet? And this is coming from one of the industry leaders in Internet security? Makes me laugh. For one, as long as there are people clicking on ads, clicking on spam, and opening unknown attachments, there will be crime on the web. As long as there is money to be had, someone will try and take it. This strategy is kind of like saying if your house gets broken into, the police will give you a gun if you want. Yes, burglaries may drop, but that doesn't mean crime will go away. And most people don't know what to do with a gun when they get one. Enlisting the common user in the fight against cybercrime is a nice idea, but realistically unfeasible. http://ruleroftheinterwebs.blogspot.com/
...almost there. The next logical step is to go after the company that released the software with all the exploitable security holes in the first place. If they were held accountable for the damages resulting from their poorly designed and more poorly implemented software, this would be a non-issue.
Anyone using Symantec AV.
1. educate users
Who is going to "educate" users? What will be taught? Where will it be taught, and to how many people? How do you deal with the differing systems that people would need to be "educated" on (remember there are still people using OSes that are 10+ years old)?
More importantly, who will pay for it?
It is easy to talk about "educating users", almost as easy as it is to blame the current problems on "uneducated users". But there are too many unanswered questions related to the statement.
create hardened operating systems that may never need antivirus
That is a great dream until someone goes to wal-mart and buys some nifty USB gadget from the $10 bin that only works in windows.
promote open web standards and good coding practices open to scrutiny for flaws exploits and bugs
That is a very good idea. Unfortunately getting it to go anywhere is another challenge altogether. If you know a good way to eliminate Flash from the web, I'm all ears...
stop letting marketing drive the internet bus
Good luck with that. Remember that a serious portion of all web sites are looking to make money. Which means they need exposure to bring in customers. While marketing droids seldom know much about web standards, they still have to be invited to the table.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
*I* mind, and will sue any responsible party or anyone that is encouraging it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
As long as an ISP values their customer's privacy and rights to step on other people more than they value the integrity of the Internet, we are going to have problems.
Right now, it is not illegal, wrong, immoral or forbidden to have a computer owned by a botnet. This means that if my computer at home is infected nothing will stop it from doing whatever its little botnet commander wants it to do. And my ISP will not do anything to prevent or deter this computer from stepping on the rights of others in any way possible.
Similarly, if your computer is intruded upon and you find an IP address that has been used to vandalize your computer, good luck. The ISP owning that ISP address will certainly not release any information about their customer without your suing the ISP or involving law enforcement. Law enforcement isn't interested until you have lots and lots of financial damages.
All in all, this absolutely assures that "script kiddies" will get away with anything until they do something really big. Similarly, fraudsters and credit card thieves will get away with it until they do something really, really big. So what if you track them down to an IP address? It doesn't help. Nobody cares because it is just the "Internet" and law enforcement is still caught up with the idea that the only people that lose anything are nerds and geeks or people that have been foolish trying to get rich quick - so they deserve whatever they lost.
is just the interwebs way of asking you to quit surfing porn and clicking random attachments in email. Now, if we could only couple an electric shock every time grandma clicks on a Nigerian Scam email or Billy Frat Gentleman downloads a porn dialer, Pavlov would clean up the internet for us.
Well, someone finally someone is doing something about it. I can't even remember how many hacked computers I got my hands on and I could clearly see the spam bots / irc bots processes, who controls them, how they are controlled, etc, but nobody would help me bring down the whole network. I've sent countless emails to companies who had their computer hacked, their ISPs and about 90% of them got replies from postmaster@ and the other 10% didn't get any reply. I sent logs and all the information they needed to track down the "mastermind" behind the bots but nothing ever happened.
... and the biggest risk is installing some Symantec crap on your computer.
Even for Windows users, that is cruel and unusual punishment.
There is a big problem with their logic. If the internet has taught us anything it's that the harder you try to regulate, or get rid of something, the more likely it is to stick around. Just look up the Streisand Effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
For every one hacker they take down, 2 will pop up in their place. Why? Because you are giving them exactly what they want. Hackers operate for 2 main reasons 1.) Because it is a challenge, and 2.) For the prestige earned when they pull off a great hack. By focusing on them this way you are simply just making the game more exciting for them.
It's really sad that our law enforcement is so incompetent that we're reduced to security contractors attempting enforcement pro bono.
Now, that's not entirely fair, our law enforcement isn't so much incompetent as nonexistent and /or apathetic in this arena. But still, this is ridiculous.
So, if I'm reading the summary correctly, there's this program where you can go and hunt down the bad guys, and these bad guys like to do bad things (intrusions?), and there might be bounties on the best/worst ones, and there's even a way to have bragging rights (TOP 10/killmail?), and you can collect a crazy amount of data to get this done...
I'm confused, are we talking about the next Eve-Online expansion, or is this a different MMORPG?
The strategy has its risks...
Interesting that the first thing Edwards (Business Week) thinks of are the cliché arguments for gun control.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
Symantec use computer criminals to hunt victims,
while these criminals run free.
Yours In Astrakhan,
Kilgore Trout
If I was in the antivir business I'd hire a hacker pool to make more malware... smarter... eviler.
But then again getting customers to do your job for you sounds good also... plus it makes you look more authoritative.
*golden star in the margin*
don't you cross me or i'll make it look like you hacked me and report you to the symantec marine. only you can prevent hackery..
yawn. there's crime everywhere, why wouldn't there be any on the internet?
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Aside from what buggy bloatware their crappy AV is, the last time I worked on a new computer with a "trial" verison of Norton, I discovered that I couldn't completely uninstall their crapware even in safe mode. So where do I sign up? I want to report Symantec for distributing malware.
Strange, by "stop building burglar alarms" that would mean that Symantec is leaving the antivirus industry. I find that unlikely, which makes it a very odd thing for the senior vice-president for consumer products to say. I'm hoping he was misquoted, but can't really imagine a context where that statement works. I suppose he could be attempting to simplify for the media, but in that case he clearly doesn't understand his point well enough to correctly simplify it. If someone that high up in management can't say what they mean, or at least say something that makes sense, in a single quoted sentence is there really any hope for that company? Or is it that the general populace simply doesn't parse what people say but instead focuses on how they say it?
Symantec doesn't want to shutdown the criminals who create demand for Symantec's products. This is all PR bull. Why this is on Slashdot's front page is beyond me.
They want people to think they are helping the law by using their product. The FBI does not care. Nor do the police. I have cought a few hackers red handed. Found their hangout, talked to them even. Notified the Police and the FBI. They did not care. What I was told was simply that they only have time to go after the BIG scammers. The ones that are stealing thousands and thousands of dollars. And the hackers know this. They know that if they keep it spread out and do not take large sums of money the police will literally IGNORE them. It is a sad but true fact. Now, really, I clean computers for a living. And the very first thing I do is take Symantec products off the machines. They conflict with windows and tend to make the computers run at a speed of about 30% of their potential. Their virus stuff acts more like a virus then a shield. And most of the machines with Symantec products are usually infected with something. Any decent tech will tell you this.
A few years ago over the space of a week I got several phone calls from irate people telling me computers I owned were attacking them. They gave me the IP address it was coming from. Hmm, that's one of our NTP servers... I asked what port they were being attacked on. "Port 123". "Hmm, I see that the only packets flowing out from this IP address to yours are in response from a packet from your network. In other words, one of your systems is requesting the time from us and you are seeing the responses to that."
After the second such report that week, where the guy hung up on me, I decided to pull our servers off the ntp.org lists. The problem then went away.
I do think that we could be more active about making spam and other attacks stop, but that's really the governments job, not the population. The problem is that much of the crap doesn't come from the same country that I'm in... But, if someone implements a way to do this, I hope they are really careful not to make innocent NTP server operators be targeted.
Though, it does remind me of a joke I used to make: I want to invent a social networking site that connects spammers with people in their local area that own baseball bats.
Sean
This doesn't make any sense... why would Symantec want to catch the bad guys, when the very existence of those bad guys is the bread and butter of the corporation? Biting the wretched hand that feeds it?
There's something else far more sinister going on here. Will Symantec make up the profit lost from having fewer bad guys from whom to "protect" people by milking the people themselves somehow? Of course it might be argued that's been done all along, but....
"I'm convinced we can clean up the Internet in 10 years..."
Disconnect from the 'Net every computer running Windows operating systems. Hell, we can have this place spic-n-span overnight!
Reading about his experience, Rowan Trollope has done real, solid technical work - back in the days when Symantec products (like Norton Utilities) were actually worth having. Given that, it is really hard to understand how he can say something like "clean up the Internet". The Intenet is real life, with easier anonymity. If we can't clean criminals out of ordinary cities, how in the world does he suppose we will clean them out of the Internet?
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Dshield.org ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DShield
I am Byteman!
You gotta love the proactive way that they have chosen.Not that I am a fan!
"Hackers who find novices on their trail may trash their computers or steal their identities as punishment. Citizen hunters could also become cybervigilantes and harm bystanders as they pursue criminals." "Citizen hunters"? "Novices" on hackers trails? Really? It's a software to gather data about attacks, people. The editor's imagination went way too far.
At least it's Opt-in.
Symantec is just going to use this to make computer users more afraid.
Computer users will think: "Oh man, look at all the evil schemes hackers are thinking of on the web! I'm really scared! But wait, Symantec knows all about what's going on the internet, so they can save us! Let's buy all their products so we don't have to be afraid anymore!"
In the end this looks like nothing more than a marketing ploy. If they were really interested in going after the "bad guys" (is that even possible when so many of them are in foreign countries??) they would be working with the FBI rather than using citizens.
Hey, so this is like those cure-cancer protein folding things, or like the original find-an-alien-civilization SETI project, except where it's recruiting people to become cyber vigilantes with their spare computing cycles. Awesome! I want to get my computer infected just so my employer's favorite documents can be snagged AND my daughter's school project can be shredded AND I can be implicated in a giant DDoS zombienet counter-attack scandal too. Sign me up!
[
Who wants to run symantec's crap anyway. I am forced to used windows because of work - there is no way in sam hell im gonna diss my computer system worse by putting symantec av crap on it. That is the worst sw out there and it doesn't catch the stuff anyway.
Get something else - there's free av better than this!
Why would someone use a possibly infected computer with their real info?
Why not set up a Honeypot system and create a fictional name via free web mail and then sign up for some web sites. When a scam email comes in click on the attached file or link, which will install malware on the system that Symantec can track back to the system that is accessing it. When the scammer/hacker/cracker has the fake info, you'll know that they stole it and the infected system can have a history of IP connection that leads back to them. Don't forget to download from P2P networks and install stuff as well. You'll soon have enough malware infections to start hunting down the perps.
Asking users to do that with their real info is too risky. It is better to volunteer a spare system and use fictional info so your real info won't be stolen. You can recruit people who want to be police officers and they can gain training this way to hunt down the bad guys.
Ok so you use your real info and the scammers steal it but Symantec hunts them down and has them arrested. How much would it cost to clean up your credit record and good name? It seems better if volunteers use fictional info instead of real info, you can work with banks and etc to create fictional accounts for law enforcement use. Then when you see an activity on the account, you know someone stole it, as nobody is supposed to be using it.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Right now, it is not illegal, wrong, immoral or forbidden to have a computer owned by a botnet. This means that if my computer at home is infected nothing will stop it from doing whatever its little botnet commander wants it to do. And my ISP will not do anything to prevent or deter this computer from stepping on the rights of others in any way possible.
Maybe 7 years ago, my sister's computer got caught into a botnet. Someone had loaded mIRC and a bot, and her computer was off trying sequentially to find more machines to infect. We got dropped offline, and our modem was blocked from reconnecting.
That evening, I called the ISP tech support, explained what was going on, and explained why we were disconnected. He turned our connection back on, and a couple seconds later, the scans started up again. He then proceeded to walk me though telneting into the modem, watching the NAT states to see which internal IP was causing the behavior, and then tracing that back to the machine that was infected so I could clean it.
And I really see nothing else here. A big mounth, thing said that sound right to those without a deeper understanding of the issue. "Commercial Bullshit", to (mis-)quote Anathem.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
"we can clean up the Internet in 10 years"
And rid the need for Symantec. I think I'll sell my stock now.
"it's time to stop building burglar alarms to keep people out and go after the bad guys"
Nah, it's time to stop building burglar alarms and lock the damn house.
It's computer security, unlike physical security it's actually possible for it to be completely impassable. Just stop letting untrusted people run code on your machine.
You don't need to track these criminal down, you can just completely ignore them.
...and that is all I have to say about that.
http://jessta.id.au
Nice, this comes off as Symantec capitulating to the RBN tbh. This is got to be one of the most idiotic things I've read in a very long time, especially considering what kind of people tend to use their AV, I'd say this will only lead to a an epic failure and a load of bricked noob-boxes and in the highly unlikely event of even marginal success make malware more stealthy then it is.
I wonder where Don Knuth and RMS appear on the list?
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
I wouldn't install that Norton bloated pile of crap if they paid me.
there was an antispam system that used 'revenge' : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Frog unfortunately the project stopped for some reason.
Excuse me but how is Symantec going put the smack-down on some cyber-scumbag in a coffee shop on the Ivory Coast, or cracker in the Balkans? Enquiring minds want to know.
If Symantec products were worth a shit, this might be a decent idea. But Symantec products don't work.
arguing semitics?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Here's one scumbag's capture
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=1334140&postcount=6
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=241557&cid=19649963
Saw this on pocketinformat.com and slashdot
http://www.pocketinformant.com/Forums/index.php?s= 7c5317a05ae84814ac6bb4ab9a83e2ea&showtopic=11368&s t=0&p=61900&#entry619003 [pocketinformant.com]
cracker iFalleni
aka Fallen
aka F/\LLEN
aka Syrkine, Vladimir
aka Vladimir Syrkine
russian living in australia, undergrad at university of sydney (honor roll according to univ.)
vsyr4253@it.usyd.edu.au
vsyr4253@mono.ug.cs.usyd.edu.au
As of 27-Jun-2007 (one day after this first posted) Vladimir Syrkine
has gone into hiding. Vladimir Syrkine had cracked and distributed 100s of software titles before being caught.
pirate mmtorrent
formerly pirate aBroad
formerly pirate bathrinath
formerly pirate sertoli
aka Anderson Barbosa de Oliveira
aka Anderson Barbosa
aka Anderson B Oliveira
aka Andros
aka androabo
aka mike terr
aka Barbol
aka tttsmith
aka bathrinath
As of July 2008 Anderson Barbosa de Oliveira is using the alias mmtorrent. He may also still be using the alias aBroad, which he has for more than a year, but only sporadically as that alias is mainly used by him as he tries to cover his tracks: all bathrinath warez uploads he's done the past year (1000s) were changed to the alias aBroad, though board software being what it is, he's not been successful in doing much covering up.
As of 27-Jul-2007 (one month after this first posted) Anderson Barbosa de Oliveira (androabo) uses bathrinath as his alias/aka. androabo has pirated more than 1000 software titles in the last year. He continues distributing warez to this very day, as he has every day for many years.
living in brazil
andersonbarbosa@cardiol.br
Know them? They have pirated your stuff. Google them to see what it is these two hoods do.
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=241557&cid=19649963
I guess it is easier to rely on an antivirus company to solve all your problems then to educate users of what is going on this isnt a solution, this is just another way to make money When I was a kid, I always found new ways to hack in to another computer, but now i am older, i show people the simple things they do that can fuck up there computer everything is hackable, but with a little bit of knowledge, you can prevent most attacks, because 99% of attacks are done by script kiddies that dont know any better and are new to computers themselves
The only way to even to begin to ''clean the internet up'' is to admit to the mass media, that Microsoft Windows is the problem.
Zombie computers, sending spam, and infecting other machines is the problem. You can not trace the BotNET as the BotNET is everywhere, therefore NO where. ... you will just be lead to another BOT in the BotNet... a never ending MAZE of Proxy Botnets... not to mention the TOR project, which allows anyone to hide their IP Address.. Im sure the hackers use TOR a lot.
I
f if you could have some ginnie pig Luser as bail
Also, recently, ABC did a segment on the Twitter, Facebook, Whitehouse.gov and other DDoS attacks, and how it could happen. the BotNET was mentioned, but do to having to be Politically Correct' no one mentioned the 'W' word. WINDOWS.
Peopple have been FIRED from their jobs for admitting that microsoft windows is the #1 bringer of SPAM, Phishing which is how all the hackers get credit cards to them make money with Spam.
"Don't know what country you live in, but around here, the only reason people tolerate hackers is because they don't really do anything." - by phantomfive (622387) on Friday September 04, @04:28PM (#29316663) Homepage
Correction: Once you apply THIS security guide & tools noted (such as CIS Tool)? THEY CAN'T DO ANTHING TO YOU @ ALL, PERIOD:
----
HOW TO SECURE Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003, & even VISTA/Server 2008/Windows 7, + make it "fun-to-do", via CIS Tool Guidance (& beyond):
http://www.xtremepccentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=feead501552d2d549fc607f5ccb524fd&t=28430
or
http://www.tcmagazine.com/forums/index.php?s=a2287e2ac08f7b36f20819c0874238ba&showtopic=2662
----
Do that? You will be FAR MORE RESISTANT to "hacker/cracker" attacks (testimonials to that effect are below, please read on...)
----
"If crackers start doing reprisals (what are they going to do, reformat the hard drive? Send a hitman?), it's only going to make people angry." - by phantomfive (622387) on Friday September 04, @04:28PM (#29316663) Homepage
No reason to get angry, if you cannot be affected by their "reprisals", such as this fellow saw for himself, his family, AND HIS PAYING CUSTOMERS (who all had the tips/tricks/techniques of my security guide above applied to their systems, & that is going on 2++ yrs. for himself, & in my case personally? Since 1998 onwards, to present day, today):
PERTINENT QUOTE/EXCERPT OF A USER'S RESULTS:
----
http://www.xtremepccentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=feead501552d2d549fc607f5ccb524fd&t=28430&page=3
"Its 2009 - still trouble free! I was told last week by a co worker who does active directory administration, and he said I was doing overkill. I told him yes, but I just eliminated the half life in windows that you usually get. He said good point. So from 2008 till 2009. No speed decreases, its been to a lan party, moved around in a move, and it still NEVER has had the OS reinstalled besides the fact I imaged the drive over in 2008. Great stuff! My client STILL Hasn't called me back in regards to that one machine to get it locked down for the kid. I am glad it worked and I am sure her wallet is appreciated too now that it works. Speaking of which, I need to call her to see if I can get some leads. APK - I will say it again, the guide is FANTASTIC! Its made my PC experience much easier. Sandboxing was great. Getting my host file updated, setting services to system service, rather than system local." THRONKA, user @ xtremepccentral.com
----
As you can see? It really does work for better security AND a F A S T E R online experience as well...
In fact??
This guide I put out to others in late 2007/early 2008 (extending ones I had done a decade before @ NTCompatible.com + Neowin.com (where it is STILL featured & rated well)) was my "personal effort" to help others, & in this very capacity (& it was my New Year's Resolution in 2008 to do so in fact) that this article speaks of - educate users? They cannot be suckered (or, @ least as easily)...
E.G.-> On 15/20 forums it has been featured on, it has been rated "5/5 star" or made an "Essential Guide" or "Sticky/Pinned Thread" and has crossed well over 250,000 views worldwide in 1++ yrs.'s time, & w/ good ratings but more importantly, w/ GOOD RESULTS FOR END-USERS THAT APPLIED IT (as noted above). It utilizes a respected tool for securing one's Windows NT-based OS of modern design (2000/XP/Server 2003) in CIS Tool, & goes FAR BEYOND ITS "i
there was an antispam system that used 'revenge' : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Frog
That was a different idea altogether. Blue Frog ran under the assumptin that the spammers could be pressured directly into removing people from their lists.
On the other hand, I acknowledge that attempting to work directly with the spammers is a lost cause. Instead you need to attack something that the spammers really care about - their profits. If you can disconnect the spammers from their revenue streams then you will remove their incentive to send out spam.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
That, right there, just shows how very, very far users are from being educated...
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.