Lycos turns hippy on spam

Posted by   Virus Bulletin on   Nov 29, 2004

'Make love not spam'

Lycos Europe has come up with an interesting new way for its users to feel they are getting their own back on spammers.

Lycos is encouraging its users to download a screensaver program named 'Make Love not Spam'.

When the screensaver is activated it sends HTTP requests to servers which are known to be associated with spam - the idea is that, with a large number of the screensaver programs in use, the thousands of requests to the spammers' servers will cause them to become slow and overloaded.

The servers have been pre-selected manually from various SURBLs and verified to be spammers' sites - but the idea is not to cause the servers to fall over completely. A 'health check' is run on the servers so that Lycos can decide whether to remove any from its cycle of attacks, ensuring that no server actually stops working.

The Lycos website reports the success of the campaign with a list of the domains targeted and the percentage decrease in each site's response time.

Visitors to the Lycos website are invited to download the screensaver, or simply 'annoy a spammer now' with a single click of a button.

Posted on 29 November 2004 by Virus Bulletin

 Tags

twitter.png
fb.png
linkedin.png
hackernews.png
reddit.png

 

Latest posts:

VBSpam tests to be executed under the AMTSO framework

VB is excited to announce that, starting from the Q3 test, all VBSpam tests of email security products will be executed under the AMTSO framework.

In memoriam: Prof. Ross Anderson

We were very sorry to learn of the passing of Professor Ross Anderson a few days ago.

In memoriam: Dr Alan Solomon

We were very sorry to learn of the passing of industry pioneer Dr Alan Solomon earlier this week.

New paper: Nexus Android banking botnet – compromising C&C panels and dissecting mobile AppInjects

In a new paper, researchers Aditya K Sood and Rohit Bansal provide details of a security vulnerability in the Nexus Android botnet C&C panel that was exploited in order to gather threat intelligence, and present a model of mobile AppInjects.

New paper: Collector-stealer: a Russian origin credential and information extractor

In a new paper, F5 researchers Aditya K Sood and Rohit Chaturvedi present a 360 analysis of Collector-stealer, a Russian-origin credential and information extractor.

We have placed cookies on your device in order to improve the functionality of this site, as outlined in our cookies policy. However, you may delete and block all cookies from this site and your use of the site will be unaffected. By continuing to browse this site, you are agreeing to Virus Bulletin's use of data as outlined in our privacy policy.