IMO, I prefer not to participate in illegal activities even if I won't "get caught". I believe it to be against common decency.
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marc Funaro Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 7:33 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] Lycos screensaver tackles spam websites Absolutely correct. I wasn't denying that it's a DDoS, only making the point that it would be difficult for the law to prosecute any one person, which was the concern that I think I was hearing here. The whole idea, of course, revolves around using the screensaver tool to create a DDoS against spammer websites... that's not the debate. A question... has anyone ever seen the (US) legal system go after the owners of individual nodes involved in a DDoS? The concerns that are created by such a spammercide system seem to be: 1. Will I be sued/am I legally vulnerable? 2. Will I be attacking an innocent netizen? 3. Could I myself be attacked by such a system? 4. Am I harming the Internet as a whole? 5. Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? IMO, (#1) is taken care of by the relative inefficiency of the (US) legal system; the idea that Lycos is likely the one that would seem most at legal risk; that proof against an individual DDoS node owner (willing or not, that would hold up in court) would seem to be difficult to come by; and by the apparent lack of precident in lawsuits related to DDoS attacks. IMO, (#2 and #3) might be countered by the fact that Lycos is not creating a fully *automated* system... that there are humans to maintain/populate/extract sites from the list of "spammers". My concern is how easy they would be to reach, should either #2 or #3 actually happen... which could actually be answered by Lycos themselves (?). IMO, (#4) is a direct result of the answers to (#2 and #3) more than anything else... spammers already seem to be doing a lot more harm. #5 is just stupid, listed here only because I've had too much coffee yet am still very groggy. Please note that I'm not escalating this into a flame war... and I've tried to qualify all of the above statements with IMOs and "seems" and other such wishy-washy minutae. I'm enjoying the conversation and equally respect other's concerns that a spammercide system like Lycos' screensaver COULD become more of a problem than a solution. I'm just leaning more towards the "let's see what happens" side of things. It's an emotional stance to be sure, and maybe tomorrow my emotions won't play as much into my position, but right now I'd love to see the jerks that run these sites, attack my mail servers, and interrupt my clients with junk in their inboxes get what's coming to them, and this seems like it might be a great start. There was a list or article or something, published somewhere that I can't remember (anyone?), that shows how a large majority of spam comes from a relatively few number of sources overall. Even if Lycos only listed the top 10 worst, long-standing offenders in their database, and had a REAL number of screensaver/system participants, it would increase the costs to those offenders to a point where they'd have to reconsider what they were doing, wouldn't it? It would seem that we could all agree that there are certain types of spam that are just "obvious spam"... not spam for the sake of creating an attack on a legitimate site... that would be obvious choices for the Lycos (and similar) spammercide DDoS databases. I absolutely welcome opposing viewpoints. Marc > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of R. Scott Perry > Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 8:08 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] Lycos screensaver tackles spam websites > > > > >... It's not a specific, dedicated, unrelenting attack against > a site from > >your > >machine... there is plenty of space between each "hit" to the > sites in their > >database, and it rotates among six or seven sites within the > screensaver... > > In other words, a DDoS attack. > > My website www.DNSstuff.com is currently under a DDoS attack, > from malware > that is installed on 10,000s of computers. It wasn't designed > to be a DDoS > attack -- the malware author simply wanted information from my site. It > wasn't a specific, dedicated, unrelenting attack, and there is plenty of > space between each hit. But multiply 100 hits/day times 10,000 > computers, > and you have 1 million hits/day. > > In your case, it may be 3MB/day per machine. That might be within > "acceptable limits." But if you intentionally try to get an unlimited > number of people sending those 3MB/day, the intent is a specific, > dedicated, unrelenting attack. > > -Scott To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/
