Spam is everywhere. It?s the ?in-box lunch meat? nobody likes,
wants or looks forward too. Unfortunately, many folks enjoy
?eating? this product because if they didn?t, there wouldn?t be
any. Read on?
The federal government?s ill-conceived CAN-SPAM Act did little
more than make a few legislators feel better about themselves.
Did this legislation stop spam? No. Did it at least slow down
the flow of spam? Nope.
You can?t eliminate a problem by treating the symptoms. If you
want to eradicate a problem, you must make its environment one
that will not support it.
There?s a new plan recently hatched by some well-intentioned
folks at Blue Security that several of my clients have asked
about. On the surface, it sounds like a good idea but, in my
humble opinion, the model is fatally flawed. Here?s the scoop?
1. You sign up for their "list" which is basically a "do not
spam me list" and that gives them the authorization to act on
your behalf.
2. You then have to send EACH spam message to them for inclusion
on their list.
3. They then send the spammer a "stop order" (which, if they can
even find the spammer, will be ignored).
4. They then flood the spammer with basically a DDoS
(Distributed Denial of Service) attack hoping to bring down the
spammer's server.
This all sounds great until you think about it rationally...
1. Spammers use "open relays" and hundreds of addresses to
prevent you from finding their originating location.
2. The "stop order" they send is just their way of fulfilling
the letter of the law under the CAN-Spam act.
3. The part I have the biggest problem with is they then
effectively BECOME A SPAMMER by sending thousands of messages in
a Distributed Denial of Service attack (DDoS). This is the same
thing hackers do when they bring down a website by sending so
much traffic to a server it basically shuts down.
4. Most spam is sent from your neighbor's PC. I spend a great
amount of my time cleaning ?bad guys? from client?s computers.
There are MILLIONS of "zombie computers" that are infected with
auto-dialers and trojans that are being used without the owner's
knowledge to send spam. Don?t believe me? Just run Counter Spy
on grandma?s PC and tell me what you find!
5. How long do you really think it will be until the spammers
turn the tables on Blue Security and initiate their own DDoS
attack? It will be interesting to watch.
Other fight-back tactics against spammers have failed. Last
year, Lycos Europe rolled out a screensaver that conducted DDoS
attacks against known spammers. Within days, however, Lycos
buckled under pressure from security groups, which called it
vigilantism, and ISPs, who worried that attacks originating from
their members would make them liable to legal action on the part
of spammers.
Spam will NEVER go away until you attack its real source engine.
If you don't order anything from a spammer and don't even click
on his link to open the message, the monetary incentive for spam
is removed. Spammers operate under the same economic rules as
the rest of us...supply and demand.
Take away the demand and you eliminate the supply. Simple.
About the author:
Allan Gunnneson is the CEO of Gunner Web Group
(www.gunnnerweb.com), a website design and marketing company
based in Kansas.
Online reprint rights granted as long as the article is
published in its entirety, including links (www.gunnerweb.com).
Copyright ? Gunner Web Group, 2005
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