Lycos Pulls Anti-Spam 'Vigilante' Campaign

KingFishKingFish
edited December 2004 in Science & Tech
Just days after Lycos Europe's launch of an anti-spam DDoS tool raised eyebrows in the security space, the company appears to have scrapped the campaign.
Earlier this week, the company released a downloadable screensaver programmed to launch distributed denial-of-service attacks against known spam sites, but the move sparked a shooting war with spammers and attracted condemnation from security researchers.

On Friday, Lycos Europe gave up the ghost, posting a "Stay Tuned" note on the MakeLoveNotSpam.com Web site it was using to distribute the screensaver. The Lycos Europe home page, which heavily promoted the screensaver all week, was also scrubbed clean of any references to the screensaver.

Company officials did not respond to requests for comment, but security experts were not mincing words.

"I find the anti-spam downloadable DDoS tool to be without a doubt irresponsible, possibly illegal, sets a really bad precedent, gives the wrong impression to users, and possibly the dumbest thing I have heard of this week," said Adrien de Beaupre, an incident handler with the SANS Internet Storm Center (ISC).
Source: eWeek

Comments

  • TBonZTBonZ Ottawa, ON Icrontian
    edited December 2004
    So, uhh, where can I get my screensaver? :D
  • KingFishKingFish
    edited December 2004
    Someone else will probably put out similar software. Hopefully it is someone that hasn't itself put out spyware in the past.
  • FAH_WWFAH_WW Training in Indianapolis, IN
    edited December 2004
    I still consider it willfull damage or DDOS, just imagine what could happen to this site's running cost if it got blacklisted... Not a nice thought, that's all I'll say on that one.
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