Make Love Not Spam

Lycos Europe launches DDOS against Spam sites.

[grelmar]

About a month or so ago, Lycos Europe started beta testing a screen saver that uses a computer's idle time and spare bandwidth to launch pester requests at blacklisted Spam domains.

Over the past week, it's been getting a bit of media attention, and it also recently started to circulate through the Slashdot set.

Two results from the Slashdot and news frenzy:

1: the Lycos site, makelovenotspam.com, has been haivng intermittant outtages, either from traffic, or from hacks.

2. According to a Netcraft Article [news.netcraft.com], several spam sites have actually been suffering outtages.

And from my own research: The Makelovenotspam site has been hacked [driftersoasis.com] (Screen Capture taken on 11:55 AM, MST, Dec 1. )

This could get ugly. Heheheh, let's just sit back and watch it fly :D

ref: [webmasterworld.com...]

[edit reason: give credit where credit is due, the original WebmasterWorld thread]

[edited by: grelmar at 7:02 pm (utc) on Dec. 1, 2004]

[encyclo]

[webmasterworld.com...]

The "hack" was a fake screenshot according to Lycos, BTW.

The DDOS on the Lycos site, however, was/is real. There is speculation that some domains targetted by Lycos's DDOS simply changed their DNS to point to Lycos's server. Doh! They didn't think of that when they came up with this harebrained scheme! Just another example of how stupid this is.

[grelmar]

That "fake screenshot" is not fake, I took it 10 minutes ago.

[encyclo]

That "fake screenshot" is not fake, I took it 10 minutes ago.

I don't disbelieve you, I just said that Lycos Europe denies having been hacked. Let's just say that their credibility in this whole episode is not outstanding.

[duckhunter]

>> changed their DNS to point to Lycos's server.

ROFLMAO this is going to be a classic before they clean this one up!

[grelmar]

Don't believe me if you like, but go look at the site. It's still hacked as of 30 seconds ag.

[grelmar]

Sorry, misread your post encyclo.

BTW, took another screen capture a few minutes ago, it's still down. Used a different machine running *nix to make sure I wasn't having browser issues. It's un-optimized, so it comes in a 450K, but if anyone wants it for their "chuckle" archive, sticky me.

[olwen]

I just took a look at makelovenotspam which is working for me. But when I clicked on international English and got up a map of the world I see that they are yet another organisation that can't be bothered including New Zealand on the map. They include plenty of island the same size or smaller. What is it with map-makers that want to wipe us off the planet?

[bcolflesh]

...including New Zealand on the map

I don't even know of an original Zealand - come on, you're just making up countries now.

[TheDoctor]

Don't even know of an original Zealand? Start here [zeeland.nl].

[rj87uk]

LOL - that is just crazy! spam the spammers? lol

I think my computer was apart of a ddos attack today, my internet went crazy but with some pro firewall & windows firewall & antivirus & ad scans and online scans all is fixed now :-)

*sigh it all divers me mad...

[grelmar]

pro firewall & windows firewall & antivirus & ad scans and online scans...

The very reason I decided to jump on the Linux Learning Curve.

[vkaryl]

Heya grel -

I also, as soon as the hols are done. In fact, bought my new laptop today (NOT linux - yet) and will be lining out what to buy when for which bunch of pieces-parts just as soon as 2005 hits the streets. I'm really looking forward to linux.... one of my favorite things is playing with new-to-me tech!

[ronin]

Fighting fire with fire?
Lots of fun I'm sure, but tangible results are unlikely.

This is more about PR for Lycos than anything of substance.

[mincklerstraat]

vkaryl, lemme know how you do, I've got a cheapish compaq athlon laptop in need of linucization and have read that if I want it to do the power management right I'll probably have to use Fedora. I also read on some other forum about Mepis, which looks very promising; but don't know how laptop-friendly it is. Check out <snip> for your particular model.

[edited by: lawman at 12:18 am (utc) on Dec. 3, 2004]
[edit reason] no unlinked urls please [/edit]

[jcoronella]

I wonder if the screensaver has adware.

[Teknorat]

[makelovenotspam.com...] is still down, I wonder if Lycos will try and salvage this or just give up and walk away tail between legs. Either way some spammers are going to be laughing to themselves.

Edit: I am able to get to it from a US Proxy.

It has a "Make love not Spam" 60's style logo and then underneath "STAY TUNED"

ROFLMAO.

[grelmar]

I wonder if Lycos will try and salvage this or just give up and walk away tail between legs.

That's a mighty good question. Not having read the news feeds yet today (came to WebmasterWorld first, of course!), I'd guess there's some high level discussions going on at Lycos Europe on that very subject.

It comes down to a showdown between some pretty fair hackers (let's face it, professional hackers and virus writers are in the Spam game), vs. the button down architecture geeks, which Lycos, I'm sure, has some pretty fair staffers in this area.

SCO lost this battle once, and their website continues to get defaced [news.netcraft.com]every now and then, and that's just for ticking off the penguin heads, who are a mostly benign bunch.

Lycos is much bigger than SCO, with more resources at their disposal. The spammers are a nastier bunch than the penguin heads.

So.... I dunno. If Lycos decides to go on with this, I'm not sure I'd put money on either side of that cage match.

[Syzygy]

Well, that didn't last very long...

Lycos has shut down the campaign saying it had been started to stimulate debate about anti-spam measures and had now achieved this aim.

Story courtesy of the BBC News [news.bbc.co.uk]

Syzygy

[grelmar]

Read another article about them closing it down this afternoon (can't remember the link - sorry), and it looks like Lycos was taking some serious heat from the security community.

They CLAIM it was only intended to be for a short time, and that may be, but I don't think they figured it would crash and burn this fast.

Update:
netcraft article [news.netcraft.com] about the site closure. Very interesting indeed. It appears that the screens we were seeing weren't the result of a hack, but because a lot of backbone providers ganged up and blackholed the site.

Lycos is in spin doctor mode right now on the whole thing.

[edit reason - ad all after "update"]

[cdnmarket]

I considered their decision to end the screensave a smart idea. Sometimes two wrongs don't make a right.
This leads to war, computer wars, lame and nobody really wins, most importantly its illegal to disrupt service in alot of places. I couldnt even get to the screensaver website to load which made me wonder if they were being attacked back because of it.

[Timotheos]

.. and it gets more interesting.

[news.zdnet.com...]