The Spam Vigilantes

[mandy]

...Reshef wants me to tap into my dormant rage and fight back. Don't worry, he tells me, you'll have a posse. He's organizing thousands of weary victims like me and leading us in a kind of distributed denial- of-service attack. It's a weapon normally employed by malicious hackers who use hijacked PCs to flood unsuspecting companies, but Reshef is out to cripple offensive bulk emailers. "That," he says, "is the only way to get their attention."

...Reshef has endured a firestorm of criticism for his brand of vigilantism

Blue Security isn't the first to generate controversy by attacking spammers head-on...

full article: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.10..._tophead_5

[rose]

Idiots like that guy are a bigger menace than spammers.

[mandy]

Update to this story: Blue Security has decided to shut its doors following a Blue Security blunder in its war against a Russian spammer that resulted in several 'innocent bystander' web sites, including blog hosts LiveJournal and TypePad, being brought down.

Eran Reshef had an idea in the battle against spam e-mail that seemed to be working: he fought spam with spam. Today, he'll give up the fight...

...earlier this month, a Russia-based spammer counterattacked, Reshef said. Using tens of thousands of hijacked computers, the spammer flooded Blue Security with so much Internet traffic that it blocked legitimate visitors from going to Bluesecurity.com, as well as to other Web sites. The spammer also sent another message: Cease operations or Blue Security customers will soon find themselves targeted with virus-filled attacks.

Today, Reshef will wave a virtual white flag and surrender. The company will shut down this morning and its Web site will display a message informing its customers about the closure...

full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...01873.html

related topic:
LiveJournal and TypePad hit by DDOS Attack As Russian Spammer Wages War
http://community.tuliptools.com/index.ph...635.0.html