Lycos attempts to fight SPAM with DDOS
Fighting evil with evil.
BBC reports on Lycos latest attempt to fight SPAM: The Make LOVE not war screen saver (Flash needed)
The idea is pretty simple:
- Scan SPAM for link to web sites
- Manually verify that the web site sells spam goods
- Let the screen savers send tons of request to the spam web sites
Each client only generates 3-4MB of traffic but Lycos expects to generate terabytes of traffic making the spammers pay extra for high bandwidth usage. If it makes them "hurt where it counts" I guess it does some good but I still think it's better to stop SPAM before it leaves your LAN. Their approach doesn't stop spam and it doesn't even prevent it from coming to your inbox and breaking your balls. All it does is generate loads of traffic and make their web site slower. The spammers will continue to send mails as fast as before but the client who paid for the "direct e-mail marketing" will pay dearly as he gets hits by the Lycos DDOS.
Wonder how long it takes for the biggest spammers to sue Lycos?
Via [SmartMobs]
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