Re: Time to CounterSPam ?

From: John (Please_at_reply.to.group.com)
Date: 11/10/04 

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 10:49:08 -0500

"Utilisateur PC Libre Service" <nospam@thx.you> wrote in message
news:4191de6b$0$18579$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr...
> Just a weird idea that had been bugging me for the last two years :
>
> "Spammers wants traffic on theyr websites..."
>
> Ok... Let's just give them what they want. Much of it. Big huge lot of
> traffic. What about a counter spammer : You have a list of site who
> spammed
> you, you send I http request every second of one of the site in your list.
> This list is shared : if 1 million peoples is running a CounterSpam, they
> can synchronise to send 10 million requests on the website during the same
> day.
>
> Hoppefully, their server will crash, the host won't accept to host, the
> business angel won't trust the statitics and will stop flow cash.
>
> That won't stop spam, but it would be a form of "community contestation"
>
> What do you think ? Is it technically possibl ? Is it a good Idea ? Will
> people join ?

Hi Fabien,

What you are talking about is called a Denial Of Service (DOS) attack. And
it is IMHO a VERY BAD idea. (nothing personal)

Most people forget the newsletters they subscribed to, and would be
classifying legitamate email as spam. Which would target legitamite
businesses to become a target of a DOS attack.

Who is to say which URLs should become the target of this attack? Somebody
could easily add the URL for thier ex-employer or competition.

Also, my educated guess is that most of these spam websites are running on
hacked PCs (personal or business), and the owners have no idea it's running.
So you would only be hurting inocent businesses and people not your intended
target.

IMHO; Spam will continue to be a problem until digitally signed email
becomes so widespread that you can safely refuse unsigned email without
offending anybody. It will probably still exist after that, but to a lesser
degree. 

-- 
Regards,
John MacIntyre
http://www.johnmacintyre.ca
Specializing in; Database, Web-Applications, and Windows Software

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