Spam busting!

[The Purist]

Just found this on the beeb's website -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4051553.stm

and a link to the lycos site itself:

http://makelovenotspam.com/intl/

If anything stops my worshipful friend Mr Undongo from selling me cheap prescription medicine to enlarge my parts and guarantee me a masters degree in debt consolidation, then I'll give it a go.

[Jay]

Is he related to Winston Codogo? Or is he still in prison for walking on the cracks on the road? (Anyone under 30 is now wondering what the hell I'm on about )

[The Purist]

I think he was actaully banged up for wearing a loud suit - the cracks in the road thing was taken into consideration though.

[Lynne]

Originally Posted by Jay

Is he related to Winston Codogo? Or is he still in prison for walking on the cracks on the road? (Anyone under 30 is now wondering what the hell I'm on about )

ermm I'm well over 30 and don't have a clue what you're on about

[Pigpen]

Originally Posted by Lynne

ermm I'm well over 30 and don't have a clue what you're on about

Old 'Not the Nine O'Clock News' sketch.

[Jay]

Originally Posted by Lynne

ermm I'm well over 30 and don't have a clue what you're on about

Sorry, my mistake. I forgot to add the other stipulation:

Over 30 and under 70

[abucksdiver]

Hmmm, Great idea, Lycos!
It would be fine if the spammers used their own computers to send out allthis spam... most of them use YOUR computer, thanks to little viruses like Mydoom!
So, if you have the Mydoom virus (and don't realise it!) and you then use the Lycos "spam buster", guess who gets the big bill....


PS. I thought that Winston Codogo (I can't say that I noticed his skin colour, sir!) was banged up for "looking at me in a funny way!"


Andrew

[Mdemon]

LOL! I got it - target audience.

"A gramophone, Grandad?............... Would you like a bag on your head...?"

Jay, your thoughts on the anti-spam idea? It appeals to me, but I'm wondering how all the extra traffic will be handled... I'm also sure that spammers aren't dull enough to sit still and take it... Pointless traffic going to long-vacated addresses etc...

[Jay]

Most spam originates in the US from legal servers (their spam laws are shit) and so this will hit those who pay bandwidth charges. Users infected with MyDoom will not be affected themselves, their ISP will be and hopefully this will spur some of them on to start filtering spam at their end before it gets passed through (same for inline virus scanning which most currently offer as an additional cost).

[tom]

Originally Posted by abucksdiver

So, if you have the Mydoom virus (and don't realise it!) and you then use the Lycos "spam buster", guess who gets the big bill....

Nope. read the news report again - especially this bit:

The sites being targeted are those mentioned in spam e-mail messages and which sell the goods and services on offer.

Typically these sites are different to those that used to send out spam e-mail and they typically only get a few thousand visitors per day.

The list of sites that the screensaver will target is taken from real-time blacklists generated by organisations such as Spamcop. To limit the chance of mistakes being made, Lycos is using people to ensure that the sites are selling spam goods.

As these sites rarely use advertising to offset hosting costs, the burden of high-bandwidth bills could make spam too expensive, said Mr Pollmann.

Sites will also slow down under the weight of data requests. Early results show that response times of some sites have deteriorated by up to 85%.