Striking back at spammers?

Urban Ranger · October 10, 2003, 01:53

Paul Graham advocates that the next generation of spam filters should use automated 'bots to track down URLs listed in the spams. If a large number of users do that, that will amount to massive distributed denial of attacks against spam advertisements. Clearly, the software needs to be written properly, and protect large public websites needs to be protected.

This idea has merit though, which is to take the battle to the spammers. Get on the offensive.

What do you think?

alva · October 10, 2003, 02:14

Whatever works

self biased · October 10, 2003, 02:17

the best defense is a good offense.

H Tower · October 10, 2003, 02:55

aren't DDOS attacks illegal?

Ted Striker · October 10, 2003, 02:59

At first reaction hell yeah

However SPAMers often hijack unsuspecting servers and use them as relays

It's too dangerous and many innocent servers will get hurt

I can't remember which WIndows virus it was, but some admin modified the virus to go out and fix all the infected pcs. He had a nice intention, however the side effect of his "fix" was that it generated way too much network traffic.

Jon Miller · October 10, 2003, 03:41

wHTA IS mOING

jkPOKN mILLER

Urban Ranger · October 10, 2003, 03:43

Quote:

Originally posted by Ted Striker
At first reaction hell yeah

However SPAMers often hijack unsuspecting servers and use them as relays

It's too dangerous and many innocent servers will get hurt

He isn't proposing attacks on mail servers. He's proposing tracking down the URLs contained in spam messages, which should be the sites spammers want to promote.

Urban Ranger · October 10, 2003, 03:44

Quote:

Originally posted by H Tower
aren't DDOS attacks illegal?

They won't be DDoS attacks, but the effects will be the same.

Sikander · October 10, 2003, 05:17

Eat flaming lead fascist multimedia pigs!

Wraith · October 10, 2003, 07:46

--"Paul Graham advocates that the next generation of spam filters should use automated 'bots to track down URLs listed in the spams."

I don't think he understands how the latest spam works. The serious guys don't have sites hosted on real servers with static IPs. A lot of the e-mail trojans and viruses these days include things like small web servers, you see...

It's rather amazing to what length the spammers are going. Some of the URLs for these sites don't have the same IP for more than two minutes in a row. Tracking down the URLs doesn't do you any good at all unless you can somehow inform people that their computer is infected and then get them to fix it. This is not an easy task; blaster, among others, is still all over the place.

Wraith
"Awww. I wanted to explode."
-- Gir ("Invader Zim")

Urban Ranger · October 11, 2003, 00:41

I suppose that is possible, though the technical challenges are so big that I don't think spammers will go the length of doing it.

mindseye · October 11, 2003, 01:01

Give me weapons! GIVE ME WEAPONS!

MrFun · October 11, 2003, 01:48

You can have your weapons as long as you leave me and my cache of WMPDs alone.

Atahualpa · October 11, 2003, 05:02

nah that wont work. A spammer just needs to write an innocent url somewhere. Not a big popular one but just a small one and it would piss that guy off pretty much.

I am all for a new Mail Protocol! But AMTP doesnt seem to do the trick IMO.

Urban Ranger · October 11, 2003, 06:35

Quote:

Originally posted by Atahualpa
nah that wont work. A spammer just needs to write an innocent url somewhere. Not a big popular one but just a small one and it would piss that guy off pretty much.

That's why the URL will be checked by a human first.

Did you read the linked article?

Atahualpa · October 11, 2003, 07:45

UR: no but that doesnt matter that idea creates a kind of war situation. Apart from satisfying your need for revenge it does not solve the problem....

Pekka · October 11, 2003, 09:08

I say we do it Braveheart style. On the other side we put all the spammers, and on the other side we try to fit in all the ones tired of it. Clubs, knives, axes.. and let's get it on! Side has lost if it lost all of it's fighters, and winners are who are still alive.

Urban Ranger · October 11, 2003, 10:22

Quote:

Originally posted by Atahualpa
UR: no but that doesnt matter that idea creates a kind of war situation. Apart from satisfying your need for revenge it does not solve the problem....

It does.

The spammers are so reckless now because the cost of spamming to them is minimal. If, all of a sudden, we find a way to increase their cost by 100x or 1000x, they will stop spamming.

Urban Ranger · October 11, 2003, 10:24

Quote:

Originally posted by Pekka
I say we do it Braveheart style.

Do you resort to violence every time?

Quote:

Originally posted by Pekka
On the other side we put all the spammers, and on the other side we try to fit in all the ones tired of it.

I don't know if you can fit all the people opposing spammers in there.

Wraith · October 11, 2003, 10:34

--"I suppose that is possible, though the technical challenges are so big that I don't think spammers will go the length of doing it."

Well, that's nice and all, but they're already doing this stuff. I really don't think you understand how much money some of these guys can make off this.

I'd direct you to some interesting info on SpamHaus, but their site seems to be having problems right now. They've been hit by DDoS attacks frequently by spammers.

These guys do not play nice. They go to great lengths to get the spam out and keep themselves at least a little removed from the action (since many of the things they do are blatantly illegal). But they make millions doing it.

--"That's why the URL will be checked by a human first."

Sorry, but this guy did not think this through. Have you ever heard of a Joe Job? All this would do is give absolutely anyone the ability to DDoS any web server in the world.
If he wants it checked by people first, it's not an automatic response and it isn't going to do diddly. These pages do not stick around for long, and I can't see anyone having the money to pay people to check them all in the time it would require for this to work. (Well, okay, except Bill Gates, but is he going to?)

His little blacklist/whitelist thing shows that he isn't at all familiar with current anti-spam tactics. The two terms are commonly used and are very much not interchangable. That he misused them does not say much about his competence in this field.

Wraith
"Either you're babbling, or you just told me in Cherokee 'my scrotum is many colored'."
-- Cornfed ("Duckman")

Pekka · October 11, 2003, 11:27

UR, well not always with violence, but do you have better suggestion? I think solving this thing with chess tournament is not a good idea, though it's a good game.
Or doing rock paper scissors.. we need to kick their butts. And Braveheart style, everyone can participate and it's fair rules.

Pekka · October 11, 2003, 11:30

And look at the topic. It says STRIKING. That means hitting the other one, or shooting etc. There is no room for misinterpretation here. It's very clear. To strike is to deliver continuos blows in order to KILL the bastards.

Urban Ranger · October 11, 2003, 11:43

Quote:

Originally posted by Wraith
Well, that's nice and all, but they're already doing this stuff. I really don't think you understand how much money some of these guys can make off this.

Money is not the main point. You are just not going to squeeze a http server small enough to be a virus or a worm. You might be able to pass it off as a trojan.

Quote:

Originally posted by Wraith
Sorry, but this guy did not think this through. Have you ever heard of a Joe Job? All this would do is give absolutely anyone the ability to DDoS any web server in the world.

This ability already exists. It's far easier to write a virus or a worm to infect Wintel boxes to turn them into DDoS clients.

Quote:

Originally posted by Wraith
These pages do not stick around for long

If they don't stick around for long, how do people see them? If they rely on dynamic DNS, they are still vulnerable to the same attacks.

Urban Ranger · October 11, 2003, 11:44

Quote:

Originally posted by Pekka
UR, well not always with violence, but do you have better suggestion?

Yeah.

Lock them all up in a huge cage, and tell them only one can get back out.

Kuciwalker · October 11, 2003, 11:48

Quote:

Originally posted by Ted Striker
many innocent servers will get hurt

It's true, just putting it that way is hilarious.

Urban Ranger · October 11, 2003, 11:55

The problem with current anti-spam tactics is they are not very effective: they aren't hitting the spammers where they hurt most. Spams now reach a problem of such massive proportion is because costs incurred for sending spams are very, very, low.

:) Smiley · October 11, 2003, 15:30

Write your Congressman to get the CIA to have spammers mysteriously disappear in the night without trial. There's a reason terrorism isn't a popular activity.

Q Classic · October 11, 2003, 19:57

dude, maybe we should pay for ads linking spamming and telemarketing to terrorism.

kinda like those drug ads.

Odin · October 11, 2003, 22:43

We need a National Do-Not-Spam list (hides from Ming).

It wouldm't be enforcible though.