“Internet portal Lycos has made a screensaver that endlessly requests data from sites that sell the goods and services mentioned in spam e-mail. Lycos hopes it will make the monthly bandwidth bills of spammers soar by keeping their servers running flat out. The net firm estimates that if enough people sign up and download the tool, spammers could end up paying to send out terabytes of data,” BBC News reports.
“‘We’ve never really solved the big problem of spam which is that its so damn cheap and easy to do,’ said Malte Pollmann, spokesman for Lycos Europe. ‘In the past we have built up the spam filtering systems for our users,” he said, “but now we are going to go one step further. We’ve found a way to make it much higher cost for spammers by putting a load on their servers.’ By getting thousands of people to download and use the screensaver, Lycos hopes to get spamming websites constantly running at almost full capacity,” BBC News reports.
“Mr Pollmann said there was no intention to stop the spam websites working by subjecting them with too much data to cope with. He said the screensaver had been carefully written to ensure that the amount of traffic it generated from each user did not overload the web. ‘Every single user will contribute three to four megabytes per day,’ he said, ‘about one MP3 file.’ But, he said, if enough people sign up spamming websites could be force to pay for gigabytes of traffic every single day,” BBC News reports.
Full article here.
Screen saver info and download link here.
“…if enough people sign up, spamming websites could be force to pay for gigabytes of traffic every single day,” BBC News reports.
Ooooo, sneaky.
Brilliant. Thank you Lycos.
Power to the People! Stick it to the Man!
This is probably the single, most ridiculous idea I have ever heard!!!!
Is this what Lycos is wasting its time on these days? I mean Jesus. Come on guys. If I were the board of directors, I would fire the clown that approved this retarted idea.
PP
hoho.. lycos is still in business!
I remember when sb first showed me the http://www.. here.. use lycos and you can search anything you want!
What a neat idea..
lol
Wow, funky idea. Out spam the spammers. I may have to download that and give it a try. The thing is I am not sure if this is sustainable, couldn’t the spammers go to court on something like this and in this wacked out world where OJ and Bush go free, actually win in court?
Instead of Search of Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI), its the Search for Terrestrial Stupidity (STS).
The only problem I can see is that the traffic amount is calibrated to running all day. With a laptop thats often asleep, it would great to have a rate selector that hits with more speed, even if it had a cap. 11 hits per minute makes me want to break out a few dozen emulators.
Then again, maybe the author doesn’t want to raise suspicion until there are enough of us on board to really make some noise.
What if the Spammers couter attack? Send the screen saver user targetted spam?
Tried it out. Works fine but is REALLY boring and the options are pretty much non-existent. They should have a few more interesting/esthetic options with the anti-spamming running in the background. Maybe I’ll email them to that effect.
MTF. Targeted spam? How are they gonna do that? The most they will know is the IP address that some hits are coming from, NOT the email address.
The real issue here is that the screensaver uses 40% of your CPU. That sucks if you’re trying to run a DC.
So how does it work ? Does it automatically know whats in your email before you open it ? Or has it been preloaded with well known offendors. I tried it once, seemed to take ages to load up. I’ll give it another crack.
Wow. This thing is kinda scary. I downloaded it to my desktop and then double-clicked on it. It quickly began installing and it didn’t even ask for my password!! Is this a security issue? Who knows what it put on my Mac.
I think I’l extend my LCD screen’s lifespan by not using a screen saver.
Thanks, but no thanks.
People upset by the presence of this software are probably spammers themselves ticked that their “business” is going down the drain. I’m downloading it now. I hope the spammers pay out of their asses because of this.
Peter P, yer spamming days are over
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I have to echo Eric…. It makes me paranoid that it installed so seamlessly on my Mac, too. I guess the joke would be on us if this were some kind of trojan horse or something. No doubt some spammer will try to spoof it soon. Nonetheless, a great idea (long overdue) worth supporting. I also enjoyed the vicarious pleasure of the “annoy a spammer” applet on the website.
check the link… it has been hacked and you get this message:
Yes, attacking spammers is wrong, you know this, you shouldn’t be doing it. Your ip address and request have been logged and will be reported to your ISP for further action.
Now that’s gotta be illegal.
Trevor,
Spam have two parts, the source and the payload. The source is where a message comes from. The payload are the graphics and �click here� links located in the body, based on domain names, usually followed by tracking codes. Places like Spam Cop make databases of all this info. This software collects the payload domain names reported by these organizations. Our screen savers make requests to these servers (not sure what kind yet), burning up bandwidth. It does nothing about the source servers that actually send the spam.
Eric,
I downloaded this xmas screen saver, double clicked, and there was no password request either, this appears to be categorical:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/18194
MacSmiley,
Turning of an LCD is the best way to maximize screen life. If you want to do both, set the screen saver to activate before the energy saver and you can do both (you just miss out on seeing the stats).
It only applies to europe, it won’t let me download from NZ. I tried first by clicking on the UK for english, then it says I must be a spammer and my IP address has been logged and sent to my ISP.
Same thing for international english. Why bother offer a screensaver in international english if you don’t want international users?
Some scumbag spammer-hacker has managed to redirect the link for the screensaver to a page that has the following message:
“Yes, attacking spammers is wrong, you know this, you shouldn’t be doing it. Your ip address and request have been logged and will be reported to your ISP for further action. “
Attacking spammers is not wrong, it is justified. Spammers are leeches and deserve no respect for what they do. Nobody wants to be spammed so nobody would miss them from this world.
I can’t wait to get the anti-spam screensaver so that I can play a part in putting some losers out of work.
Try downloading the file directly:
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/16592
I give it a week before Lycos get counterattacked and go offline for a couple of days at least.
Never stick your head above the battlements unless you expect to get shot at.
Using it for 24 hours and seems fine. Encouraging others to as well. The idea is right and even if Lycos get stopped others will take it up. It is a better idea than anything Microsoft or others have come up with so far. If nothing else it will demonstrate what strength of feeling there is towards business that considers spamming accepatable.
Peter P: “Is this what Lycos is wasting its time on these days? I would fire the clown that approved this retarded idea.”
Given the column inches this initiative is already generating the guy has got a promotion – to head of advertising!!
I’m with Dave H — this is essentially a “soft DOS” attack, and Lycos should expect one in return. Of course, Lycos could use a few hits to show its clients! “Look, we’re popular again!”