Really, it is like Bugs Bunny erasing the name on the bullet from Bugs Bunny and writing in Elmer Fudd.
Thanks for the explanation lee.
I’ll agree with Lightnin’ that this is the only thing that can be done. At least it is getting somebody’s attention. I’m surprised to hear that spam accounts for 30% of all E-Mail traffic. I thought it would be much higher. Just speaking personally, I’d say I get 100 E-Mails per day - 95% of which is spam. And of those 5 “legitimate” E-Mails, about 2 or 3 are from companies I have purchased from and they send me frequent E-Mails just in case I decide to order anything again from them in my lifetime.
I would add to the discussion, but I just stopped here to use the bathroom.
Untrue. The spammers are already in your home. And they are gonna keep on coming. What you suggest is to do…what? Nothing? Smile and take it while knowing that you are somehow morally superior?
The REAL assholes. ISPs that couldn’t care less about spammers working from their network, more $$$ for them. Legislation is needed here, folks. We wouldn’t need this DDoS crap if the damn ISPs would take down the spammers as soon as they started. To top it off, most spam originates in the US.
Please Homeland Security their ass. Thank you.
It may be just a fluke, but I did notice my spam went down to zero for a few days. And I did notice it before I found out about the anti-spam attacks. It’s back now, but…
When I did notice it, it was nice, very nice. Like driving on an open highway, with no other cars around, no flashing bulitin boards, just open rolling hills, with happy farmers waving, and cows moo’ing when I pass by. The way the net was intended to be. IT was a cyber paridise.
I noticed that there are a few anecdotes about incoming spam needing to be sorted through. While at present there is not much you can do about the wasted bandwidth, there are some reasonably effective filters out there that will at least keep it out of your inbox.
IMO, POPFile is one of the best:
I read that, and I have a question: “zombie army”? Did Lycos somehow hack into a bunch of computers and take them over? Is this really a DDOS attack? The way I understand DDOS attacks, they require someone to have control of a great number of compromised boxes, without the consent or knowledge of the boxes’ owner(s). This screen saver is, as far as I know, a purely voluntary decision on the part of each and every person who’s downloaded it.
I have a hard time getting too worked up over spammers having problems. It’s not the spammers, but the companies the spammers are advertising? They’re working through spammers, which makes them spammers as well in my mind, or accessories to spam at best. If you voluntarily choose to use a method of advertising that you know your intended audience despise, you have no right to be surprised if they take advantage of a method to show that they despise you and your advertising, should such a method appear.
Personally, I wish there was a way to make the people who respond to spam suffer for making spamming profitable enough to keep the spammers in business.
And back to the OP: is it ethical? I don’t know. Is spam ethical? Is using the screensaver of your choice ethical? There are distributed computing projects for various ends people have decided are worthwhile: cracking encryption, SETI@home, cancer cures, protein folding - some of these are aimed at serious problems (the cancer and, possible, protein folding screensavers come to mind). Why not a distributed computing project/screensaver to reduce the amount of spam?
I’m certain it’s more than 30%. More like 80% (I’d consider that a conservative estimate too)