Subj : Re: What if?
To   : comp.os.linux,alt.spam
From : mister__bister
Date : Mon Jul 12 2004 07:04 am

Sweet Anise <sweet@too.little.cough.com> wrote in message news:<slrncf3tps.vsc.sweet@too.little.cough.com>...
> On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 01:09:13 GMT, Minderbinder <milo_and_minderbinder@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> > If you give them page hits, you give them MORE incentive to continue
> > spammming. You might even help them to secure new advertising deals
> > and raise their advertising revenue.
> 
>   Whenever you have a URL like http://something.com/index.php?id=bdm
> the request will instead go to http://something.com/index.php?id=spammer
> etc.  URLs like http://fddskgkl.something.com/ are changed to
> http://spammer.something.com/
> 
>   No creditable hits are "given."  Bandwidth is used.  Log files are 
> filled up.  Web hosts might get annoyed... maybe enough.  That'd be goal.
> 
> > If enough people did as you suggest, you might get lucky and render their
> > server unavailable by swamping it (a distributed denial-of-service attack
> > caused by excessive page requests, also known as the "slashdot effect").
> > If you're doing a DDoS attack, why bother retrieving the page and wasting
> > your bandwith? 
> 
>   Actually, the point would be to waste *their* bandwidth.
> Mine isn't metered.  Theirs presumably is.
> 
> > All you need to do is initiate enough (empty) connections
> > to tie up the server (SYN flood). This would require fewer attacking hosts
> > to be effective.
> 
>   I'll explore that.  Thanks... but what will it cost them?
> The point is to make spamming cost instead of pay.
> Bandwidth costs.  I don't know that a SYN flood would 
> cost anything would it?

And how about just ignoring them, so they don't see a benefit of spamming
anymore? which also has the benefit of not downloading neither your nor
my ISP with useless traffic.

your idea is sort of like the shop trying to store so much goods that the
thieves will need to buy a larger truck to steal all of it. sure they'll
have to pay for the truck, but they still break into the shop. And sure,
the goods is useless to the shop owner, so it is not much of a loss. But
the thieves won't know its useless to them too, so the damage is done to
the shop anyway.

I think your efforts ar ebetter spent educating people how to ignore and
get rid of spam.... the best way to stop it is to make it pointless for the
spammer. 

/jeff

.