Lycos Spam Screensaver

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Derek
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Lycos Spam Screensaver

Post by Derek »

Is this a cool idea or what!? Lycos has created a screensaver to help in the fight against spam. In a nutshell: The screensaver works by overloading a list of spam servers by uploading a couple of megabytes per day. The combined affect of all the computers running the screensaver is a huge increase in bandwidth usage for the spammers, thus increasing their cost.

Read the full article :arrow: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/t ... 051553.stm

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Post by InactiveX »

I read about this, and am wary.

Lycos claim that their system would stop servers being completely swamped - which would be illegal in many countries - and would top out at 95%. I am suspicious of the feasibility of this.

I also worry about the extra load placed on the internet in general.

Finally, I am unconvinced about how effective this would be. Would the spammers/marketers who use spammers, not just move to different servers?

I'm really in the dark with all this networking stuff, so I'm just supposing. I'd be interested to hear from some more knowledgeable people on this.
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Post by purrkur »

This is not targetting the spam servers themselves but the customers that spam advertises. So what they are effectively doing is hitting at those that employ those who use spam to advertise stuff.

You should also be careful when using such a service on your computer at work. It may not be appreciated by your employer.

I am not so sure that this will create a greater load on the internet in general but it will cause a problem for the ISP's that run those customer websites that are affected, and possibly their other customers as well. However, I don't mind since some ISP's are very much aware that they house websites that are run using spam and they protect them. Other than that I am sort of for the idea of using the "eye for an eye" type of method to combat spam. What they are effectively doing comes close to being an organised DoS (Denial of Service) attack on those machines involved. Pretty clever.
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Post by davd_bob »

I like it and wish I could use it. No PCs i use at work ever get a break for a SS to start. And my low grade 56K at home would hurt me more then it would hurt them.

Still, the idea has merit.
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Post by InactiveX »

Looks like it's been pulled, at least for the time being.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4065751.stm
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Post by InactiveX »

Some more stuff here and here.
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Post by InactiveX »

Yesterday, Lycos announced that it is abandoning the Make Love Not Spam programme.

Click Here
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