Spamhaus under attack from UK spammers

Grok Headline matches for Spamhaus under attack from UK spammers

Blacklisted Comment Spammers Attack
Legitimate Domain

Blacklisted Comment Spammers Attack
Legitimate Domain 07/07/2004 02:28 PM
UPDATED It appears that the comment spammers may be polluting new postings with legitimate domains -- including this one -- in order to cause trouble for people who are running programs to cut down on comment spam. In this case, they put weblog.siliconvalley.com and mercurynews.com URLs into spams containing their porn and casino links (or whatever it was the anti-spam program had already flagged), and the comment blacklist software picked our URLs up and offered to ban them. We missed this, and the result was that I couldn't post comments here briefly, and some of my old comments got erased in the meantime. I'm betting this is going on widely -- and that the spammers are hoping to cause such disruption with MT Blacklist, which we're using, and other such programs as to force us to stop using them. I'd rather shut the comments down entirely than see these slimeballs get away with this. For now we're watching our banned-domain list more carefully. (We just discovered that washingtonpost.com, cnn.com and abcnews.go.com, among other news sites, also made it into our master list. They'll work now.) Let me know in an e-mail if your comment is rejected from a legitimate domain, and I'll ask our tech folks to take a look. The bad guys are indifferent to the damage they cause. Sorry it may be affecting some of you.

Microsoft unleashes legal attack dogs on
spammers

Microsoft unleashes legal attack dogs on
spammers 12/18/2003 06:55 AM
The Register Dec 18 2003 6:21AM ET

Microsoft unleashes legal attack dogs
on spammers

Microsoft unleashes legal attack dogs
on spammers 12/18/2003 06:57 AM
Teams up with NY

On Futureproofing Spamhaus

On Futureproofing Spamhaus 06/02/2004 11:18 PM

Spammer DDoS-By-Virus On spamhaus.org

Spammer DDoS-By-Virus On spamhaus.org 11/03/2003 04:21 AM
McDutchie writes "Steve Linford of Spamhaus announced in a press release that the latest Wintel virus, W32/Mimail-E, was created by spammers for the specific ...

Macs help The Spamhaus Project take on
spam

Macs help The Spamhaus Project take on
spam 03/08/2004 11:17 PM
It was easier nabbing bad guys in the old days. Tracking them down might have been tricky, but at least law enforcement could rely on physical evidence. Today, though, some of the worst criminals in the world operate on the Internet, and they're quick to digitally cover their tracks when necessary. Many of them are spammers, of course, and Steve Linford, founder and director of The Spamhaus Project, has found himself their number one target because of his real-time, dynamic database of blocked IP addresses as well as ROKSO (Register of Known Spam Operations), a list that publicly names the worst offenders. But while enforcers in the old days carried guns for self-defense, Linford relies on a different weapon: his network of Macs.

Spamhaus Opening New Branch in China

Spamhaus Opening New Branch in China 05/28/2004 12:38 AM

Spamhaus: MCI Makes $5M A Year In Spam
Profits

Spamhaus: MCI Makes $5M A Year In Spam
Profits 02/05/2005 09:08 PM

Latest Spam Designed Only To Annoy
Spamhaus

Latest Spam Designed Only To Annoy
Spamhaus 12/02/2003 09:51 AM
The spammers have been getting angry lately, because it appears that the work of many anti-spammers is actually somewhat effective. So, instead of focusing on, perhaps, figuring out a way to market legitimate products without pissing off just about everyone, the spammers are spending their time trying to piss off anti-spam organizations. Unfortunately, some of these attacks have worked, and anti-sp am sites have been shut down. The latest trick, though, isn't designed to do much other than to annoy Steve Linford of Spamhaus. A spammer is sending out spam, saying that you've successfully ordered a CD full of child-porn and will be charged $100/month for it. They say that if the order is a mistake, to contact them immediately - and, of course, the address they give is a Spamhaus email. This is one step up from the typical joe job of just sending out spam email with spoofed "from" headers of someone the spammer doesn't like. While those attacks lead the "target" to get bounces and a few angry replies, this version is specifically designed to make people fire back. It's just that they're firing back at the wrong target. Another article about this tactic says that this is a victory of sorts, because it means that the anti-spam groups like Spamhaus are clearly having an impact on the war against spam. If Spamhaus wasn't making life more difficult for spammers, why would they bother attacking them?

Spamhaus Guru Steve Linford Profiled

Spamhaus Guru Steve Linford Profiled 11/10/2003 11:19 PM
Slashdot Nov 10 2003 11:36AM ET

Spamhaus Accuses MCI of Hosting Spam
Gangs

Spamhaus Accuses MCI of Hosting Spam
Gangs 02/07/2005 01:47 AM

Spamhaus assaults 'Great Wall of Spam'

Spamhaus assaults 'Great Wall of Spam' 05/28/2004 10:51 AM
The Register May 28 2004 3:04PM GMT

Spamhaus breaches great firewall of
China

Spamhaus breaches great firewall of
China 04/23/2004 05:34 AM
vnunet.com Apr 23 2004 9:13AM GMT

DTI and SpamHaus contest Internet Hero
of the year award

DTI and SpamHaus contest Internet Hero
of the year award 12/23/2003 12:54 PM
Silicon.com Dec 23 2003 11:20AM ET

More Spammers Threatening To Sue
Anti-Spammers

More Spammers Threatening To Sue
Anti-Spammers 06/11/2004 12:55 PM
It looks like the various spam laws that help legalize spam are making the spammers extra litigious. Following a lawsuit in the US by a spammer against an anti-spam operation for still block their email, some spammers in the UK are threatening Spamhaus with lawsuits for still having them on their blacklist. The problem is that, just because the law now gives them the permission to spam, it doesn't mean people aren't allowed to make their own private efforts to block them. The laws may allow them to send their spam, but there's nothing in these laws that require people to receive it.

Referer spammers are comment spammers
too

Referer spammers are comment spammers
too 02/01/2005 10:08 PM
Is there a connection between referer spamming tools such as Reffy, and mass comment spamming in Movable Type?

Trend Micro And Spamhaus Help Sina.com
Fight Email Woes

Trend Micro And Spamhaus Help Sina.com
Fight Email Woes 03/28/2005 08:39 AM
ChinaTechNews.com Mar 28 2005 12:28PM GMT

Comment Spamhaus: The Center for
Internet and Society at Stanford
University

Comment Spamhaus: The Center for
Internet and Society at Stanford
University 08/01/2004 09:45 PM
That's right, The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford University is full of Comment Spam (and that's why I didn't link to them--it's http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/ if you want to check it yourself). Steve nicely quantifies the problem and notes that for a place full of Internet big shots, they're pretty stupid about this. The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford University is chock-full of serious luminaries, but for people who are so bright and internet-aware, they are shockingly clueless...

""I am satisfied that I never saw any
intelligence that indicated there was
going to be an attack on America -- at a
time and a place, an attack." "

""I am satisfied that I never saw any
intelligence that indicated there was
going to be an attack on America -- at a
time and a place, an attack." " 04/13/2004 10:28 PM

Everyone Sue Some Spammers

Everyone Sue Some Spammers 02/18/2004 12:07 PM
Who knew? Apparently, today is a "sue a spammer day" (though, perhaps it should be every day) as both Earthlink and AOL have announced lawsuits filed against spammers. Earthlink is going after an Alabama spam ring. Instead of relying on weak anti-spam laws, Earthlink is charging them with violating racketeering laws. It sounds like a fairly sophisticated operation, using a variety of fake identities and rapidly changing websites to avoid detection. Meanwhile, AOL is going after a Florida company who they had sued once before, but which was thrown out over questions about jurisdiction. This time, the lawsuit was filed in Florida, rather than in Virginia.

Take My Spammers... Please...

Take My Spammers... Please... 09/09/2004 10:39 AM

Interesting story from the BBC about giant service provider Savvis’ internal debate over whether to expunge spammers from their network. The article details their angst over hosting spammers vs their love of that sweet green cash.

Alif Terranson, a former Savvis employee who was responsible for keeping the network clean, objected to the spammers and wrote a 200-page report detailing his complaints about the spammers.

He told the BBC: “One of the Vice Presidents told me, ‘Take no action against any Cable & wireless customer - they are profitable and they are off limits.’

“He was talking specifically about that 200-page report which at the time was 95 spammers. When I left Savvis in April it was almost 100, today it is 148.

Two hundred pages? I don’t like spam, but I doubt I could write that much on it. Maybe he should have mailed it a page at a time with subjects like ‘H3RE’5 TH4T B1G SP4M RE.PoRT!!! F4NTASTIC REEDING!!!’

After being threatened with blacklisting by anti-spam groups, they finally decided to give the spammers their walking papers, but it goes to show you just how hard spam is to get rid of. The lost profits of these customers is small potatoes to the world’s second largest provider, but Mom & Pop providers would probably be loathe to get rid of them.

Via Multiple Sources.

Click here to comment on this entry

Spammers

Spammers 09/07/2004 02:49 AM
I haven't said anything about spam in a while. I've stopped keeping track of my monthly intake, no longer look...

"spammers"

"spammers" 01/04/2004 03:27 PM

Spammers given boot

Spammers given boot 09/23/2004 12:38 AM
News.bbc.co.uk - Wed Sep 22, 09:41 am GMT

Damn spammers!

Damn spammers! 10/28/2003 11:06 PM
Those spammers have really sunk to new lows now! They're now posting spams to my blog! So I've had to...

Big Bounties Only Way To Take Down
Spammers

Big Bounties Only Way To Take Down
Spammers 09/16/2004 10:41 PM
The idea of "bounties" for anyone who can track down a spammer is not a new idea. Larry Lessig has been suggest ing it for a while and the FTC has been conside ring whether or not to add it to CAN SPAM. While they've said in the past that they doubted it would work, today they reported their findings, which claim the only way to make a spam hunting bounty system work is to pay some serious cash to spam hunters: $100,000 to $250,000. Note that this is more than what the FBI pays for tips on its 10 Most Wanted list. While the report claims such a bounty would have to come from taxpayer funds, perhaps they should talk to some companies. Large ISPs already pay plenty trying to weed out all the spam clogging their network. Perhaps they'd be willing to toss a few hundred thousand dollars into a bounty system, hoping that taking down spammers would relieve some of their network congestion.

Spamming spammers?

Spamming spammers? 03/22/2005 03:49 PM
IBM unveiled a service Tuesday that sends unwanted e-mails back to the spammers who sent them.

The new IBM (Research) service, known as FairUCE, essentially uses a giant database to identify computers that are sending spam. E-mails coming from a computer on the spam database are sent directly back to the computer, not just the e-mail account, that sent them. "Spam has become a high priority security issue for businesses today," Stuart McIrvine, IBM's director of corporate security strategy, said in a prepared statement.

"By creating a multi-layered defense that proactively repels spam at its source, companies can get ahead of spammers and malicious hackers who are always looking for new ways of penetrating IT systems through e-mail." IBM said the new solution effectively minimizes the growing threats of "phishing and spoofing -- tactics used to trick people into disclosing information that can lead to identity theft."

News source: CNN

Read full story...

Why do Spammers Spam?

Why do Spammers Spam? 05/14/2004 09:17 AM
Ladies and Gentleman that is the million dollar question and now we have some insight into exactly what is happening...

A Look Into How Spammers Spam

A Look Into How Spammers Spam 05/14/2004 01:32 PM
Nothing all that surprising here, but some anti-spammers have managed to get themselves into the various "spam clubs" where top spammers trade tips with each other. From that they've learned, as we all pretty much knew already, that the state of the art in spamming is using compromised machines that have had a trojan installed on them. Lists of such controllable machines are offered to other spammers, both for additional spamming capabilities and for denial of service attacks. Basically, the spammers have built up quite a distributed super computer - and those contributing cycles and bandwidth don't even know about it.

How Spammers Find You

How Spammers Find You 02/15/2004 09:10 PM
Macleans Online Feb 16 2004 1:13AM GMT

AOL Spammers Scram?

AOL Spammers Scram? 12/28/2004 03:17 PM
The Internet service provider claims drastically reduced spam. How good is this news?

Can You Slow Spammers Down?

Can You Slow Spammers Down? 02/16/2004 10:53 PM
Yet another anti-spam company is making news for their slightly different take on how to stop spam. The company, TurnTide, is offering a router for ISPs that watches over email traffic, and if the traffic is consistent with that of spam, the system slows down the traffic to a crawl, making spamming less lucrative, in theory. This is, basically, a more commercial means of offering a greylisting solution. The company, which showed up with a new $1 million in funding today at DEMO 2004, claims they have no competitors - but that (as always) is untrue (and whoever invested in them needs to tell them that). My guess, though, is that it won't take spammers too long to figure out ways to get around this sort of blocking maneuver. At their own end, they'll simply find spam-sympathetic ISPs (as they do now) that would never use such a system. Then, they'll probably just hijack more machines and have them each send out limited amounts of email to trick the system into believing they're legitimate.

Will China Really Go After Spammers?

Will China Really Go After Spammers? 09/15/2004 01:39 PM
For quite some time, it's been known that many spammers use Chinese servers to send out spam. The Chinese government hadn't paid much attention to spam, preferring to do more important things online like blockin g out Google. However, after realizing that (uh oh) political activists might start using spam to get their message out, they announced plans earlier this year to crack down on spam. It looks like it took them a few months to realize it wasn't as easy as they've expected, so they've now agreed to work with foreign anti-spam firms to try to tackle the problem. These anti-spam firms are excited about this, because they think with some cooperation from the Chinese government and Chinese ISPs they'll be able to do a lot more in stopping spam coming from China. Of course, it won't be long until spammers move on to some other country (or to various zombie systems). Still, for all the talk about how China is now interested in stopping spam, it is worth remembering that the only reason they got interested originally was to block political speech. So, is it really a coincidence that Symantec's anti-virus software is suddenly deciding that a program to route around Chinese government censorship is a trojan that should be blocked? It makes you wonder what kind of deal these security firms struck with the Chinese government.

Spammers are giving up, AOL says

Spammers are giving up, AOL says 12/29/2004 08:44 PM
National Post Dec 30 2004 12:44AM GMT

How much will the Bounty be for Spammers

How much will the Bounty be for Spammers 05/23/2004 07:52 AM
Back when America had a true wild wild west their where bounty posters for murder's, bank robbers etc. Well the...

Down with Blog Spammers

Down with Blog Spammers 11/10/2003 11:39 PM
Adam Kalsey says it: Now spammers have turned their attention to weblogs and comment forms. In order to increase search engine rankings you are posting advertisements to our Web pages. What you failed to understand is that bloggers are smarter, better connected, and more technologically savvy than the average email user. We control the medium that you are now attempting to exploit. You've picked a fight with us and it's a fight you cannot win. And you know what? He's...

This Week's Top 10 Spammers

This Week's Top 10 Spammers 06/14/2004 04:15 PM
Spam is a continuing (and annoying) presence in our e-mailboxes. But who's sending the junk messages? Here's a list of the top culprits and what you can do about them.

First spammers charged under new US law

First spammers charged under new US law 04/30/2004 03:25 AM
ZDNet UK Apr 30 2004 7:53AM GMT

Spammers, I Salute You

Spammers, I Salute You 04/13/2005 05:58 PM
For both your creative ways to get around spam blockers and your incredible stupidity in doing so. I saw this in my mail box,...
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Spamhaus under attack from UK spammers

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