Shoutbox

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Originally posted by AndreY
Yes, I wanted to say that sometimes our current view of ethics and such things has to be revised. Some things must be done in order to end another thing that is just as bad/even badder. See Iraq: US intervention was considered unethical but was still needed to end Saddam Husseins regime because he killed many thousands Iraqis.

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I understand what you're saying, but still. Some (well, more like many) still found the US intervention unethical, since maybe it could be solved by not going into war. But we never will know that for sure of course.

quote:

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Originally posted by AndreY
lol thats a bit too drastic...a DDoS attack doen't destroy the server, it disconnects it from the internet by overflowing it.

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Make it a EM Bomb then or something... My point is the outcome will be the same, designed as DDoS attack or not.

quote:

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Originally posted by AndreY
As I said, as we have almost no other way to fight the spammers, we must do something against them even if some innocent people are hit.

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There are ways to fight it without hurting innocent people...

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Originally posted by AndreY
The Lycos attempt to help solve the problem was a step in the right direction which should be continued.

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More like a step backwards if you ask me....

Th way to fight spam is to report it to the autorities. Many spammers have already been punished by law. This method works (but is not widely know)... If more and more authorities make laws agains spamming, more and more the spam will reduce...

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
the outcome will be the same, designed as DDoS attack or not.

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well, Lycos intended to control the pinging of websites which seems to have failed, but if they would have managed to stop pinging at 5% - 10% of left bandwith, it couldn't be classified as DDoS attack, because the websites would still be online. DDoS attacks are attacks where the designated goal is to overload the server and to take the website down.

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
The way to fight spam is to report it to the autorities. Many spammers have already been punished by law. This method works (but is not widely know)... If more and more authorities make laws agains spamming, more and more the spam will reduce...

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Yes, this would definitely be a better way but at the moment it's unrealistic because most servers are located somewhere in Asia or anywhere scattered around the world. It would be extremely hard, and it would take a long time, to get the governments to make laws against spamming and actually take actions against them. And maybe some governments have interests in keeping the spamming business up.

I know that the Lycos' way isn't the best, but the only that would work in in the foreseeable future.
And another problem is that every anti-spam company would be against laws, resolutions against spam and will try to block them. So making laws against spam could be hard and will take a long time. And even when laws against spamming are introduced, many companies will stay underground and continue their work. The Lycos attack would work much faster, but I see that it would hit some innocent people too.

Should we just sit here and wait till some government in Asia makes a law against spamming ?

As we can't influence the law-making process in Asia, we could at least try to make spamming harder by using these "unethical" ways like Lycos introduced.

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Originally posted by AndreY
And another problem is that every anti-spam company would be against laws, resolutions against spam and will try to block them.

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/sright

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Originally posted by AndreY
As we can't influence the law-making process in Asia, we could at least try to make spamming harder by using these "unethical" ways like Lycos introduced.

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Or by not responding to those spammails (even not "unsubscribing" <=big hint) and not giving out your email.....

^^ revenue generated by spam will drop

^^ spamming will become unprofitable

^^ hey, what'd you know, same result as what lycos wanted to achieve without using dodgy methods...



EDIT: no problem

well then, the conclusion would be
"don't respond to spam."

And the Lycos' "make love not spam" campaign is stopped now anyway.
ZDNet.uk: Lycos antispam campaign bites the dust

I'll remove my screensaver now as it's over.
And, Cookie, thanks for this friendly discussion.
Respect.


AndreY

i once got so pissed off at a person who randomly spammed me with one of those "i knew a relative of yours, i have millions of dollars, for a fee of $500 i will transfer it to your bank account, all i need is your name, address, creditcard no., billing address for the CC, expiry date and security no. for that CC"
i just found 10 sites or so, and signed the replyto: email up to a couple of hundred newsletters.... hoped they enjoyed having their account filled up

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Originally posted by kangie
i once got so pissed off at a person who randomly spammed me with one of those "i knew a relative of yours, i have millions of dollars, for a fee of $500 i will transfer it to your bank account, all i need is your name, address, creditcard no., billing address for the CC, expiry date and security no. for that CC"
i just found 10 sites or so, and signed the replyto: email up to a couple of hundred newsletters.... hoped they enjoyed having their account filled up

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almost all spams like that are coming from people/companies who sign up for multiple mails to send the spam from. They don't check that mailaddress, not do they care how much they recieve. They just let it die out and sign up for another emailadress the next time.

What it will do (reacting with signing the spamaddress up to other newsletters) is creating more bandwidth use on the net and slowing the net down even more...

eg: some years ago, when you send a mail, it was recieved on the other side of the world almost instantly. Now-a-days it can take up a whole day. And this isn't because of more people using the net (of course it has something to do with it, but that is only a very very small percentage) but because of 90% of the mail that is send in the world consists of spam/counter-spam/virusses/etc. There are many studies done and all come to this same conclussion...

but cookie, they needed to read the reply id sent with my details in.... so they wouldnt just not read it

Another news article related to this topic: "Trojan horse" computer spy masquerades as anti-spam screensaver

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Originally posted by CookieRevised

quote:

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Originally posted by AndreY
And another problem is that every anti-spam company would be against laws, resolutions against spam and will try to block them.

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/sright

quote:

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Originally posted by AndreY
As we can't influence the law-making process in Asia, we could at least try to make spamming harder by using these "unethical" ways like Lycos introduced.

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Or by not responding to those spammails (even not "unsubscribing" <=big hint) and not giving out your email.....

^^ revenue generated by spam will drop

^^ spamming will become unprofitable

^^ hey, what'd you know, same result as what lycos wanted to achieve without using dodgy methods...



EDIT: no problem

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unsubscribe links do not work. i have spent a week once unsubscribing from every spam email i received, and now i receive even more then ever. in fact, i receive about 2-5 every day, compared to 1 a day when they started coming in. and although they go to my spam folder, the fact that they keep sending the emails at all is extremely insulting. they are targeting a 16 year old male in the hopes that i will buy their sex drugs..

i am in the mood to make a macro program to continue what the wonderful screensaver started.

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Originally posted by megamuff

unsubscribe links do not work. i have spent a week once unsubscribing from every spam email i received, and now i receive even more then ever. in fact, i receive about 2-5 every day, compared to 1 a day when they started coming in.

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I did that, although I didn't really get that many afterwards, a few though. What happens is they send you an email because they find your address somewhere (maybe, spider web pages for address etc.). This is a test. Then when you go to the unsubscribe page, and enter your email, they know that the account is active, then they keep spamming it.