|
Anti spammers are downed by Spammers |
|
|
|
|
Sunday, 21 May 2006 |
Blue Security, a company famous for its long-running crusade against spammers, has announced it has stopped all anti-spam operations. The company clearly could not sustain the same level of intensity in a cyberwar that was getting out of hand.
Blue Security initially made waves in the security world when it announced a “grassroots” initiative to fight spammers with their own weapons. Customers were encouraged to reply to spammers and clog their networks. The firm also contacted known spammers asking for names to be removed from spam lists. They would also visit the sites promoted by spammers and fill in forms demanding the removal of names from these lists. This scheme was launched in 2005 and attracted as many as 500,000 users. Initially it was branded a success, as some spammers actually agreed to stop mailing Blue Security customers. However, the whole idea of spamming spammers was considered to be rather controversial, even amongst those who were on the same side of the barricades in terms of fighting spam.
Some spammers, though, decided to take action into their own hands and as a response initiated a distributed DoS attack on Blue Security sites. Threatening messages were also sent and some customers whose names were removed from spam lists as a result of antispam actions started receiving increasing numbers of spam emails. It is believed that the attacks that blocked Blue Security sites came from Russia. In this situation the company decided to withdraw from the battle, as it believed that escalating the conflict would simply lead to more intense attacks. Spammers currently control sizeable botnets that allow for sustained and powerful DoS attacks. These are used for sending spam and malware, but also for intimidation and, increasingly, blackmail purposes. Currently it is estimated that as much as 80% of Internet traffic is abusive email and some 58% of email traffic is spam.
|