Make Love, Not Spam

By Stonkwell Bogtrotter
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Grand Master

Stonkwell Bogtrotter

Posted
Posted (edited)

Screensaver tackles spam websites

Sites selling spam goods and services are being targeted

Net users are getting the chance to fight back against spam websites

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 will it 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.

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

Screensaver here: (fixed url)

http://makelovenotspam.com/intl/index.html

Edited by axious
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https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/250581-make-love-not-spam/
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Grand Master

John S. Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted
Screensaver tackles spam websites 

Sites selling spam goods and services are being targeted

Net users are getting the chance to fight back against spam websites

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 will it 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.

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

Screensaver here:

http://makelovenotspam.com/intl

585008957[/snapback]

Even though I would love to participate in this I'm certain it will be shut down eventually. An attack is still an attack.

Grand Master

islanq

Posted
Posted

Technically this is legal I believe, especially since it targets spammers I believe if legal action is perused I believe they will have leniency toward the Lyco's creator. I believe however if it incorrectly target no spammers it may be perceived as a problem.

Veteran

TheDogsBed

Posted
Posted

Apologies if it's been posted already. I did a cursory search and didn't see it.

Those playful pups at Lycos have chosen a different route to fight spammers than the ones being posed by others.

The Make Love Not Spam screensaver, takes upto 4MB of data (per screensaver user), each 24 hours, from spammers sites to increase their bandwidth bills.

At the time of installing, the bandwidth taken back from spammers was standing at around 120GB, and increasing by around 3GB every five minutes. I figure with Neowin users behind it, that'll increase ten-fold. :)

Enjoy and be sure to pass it on to everyone you know. :)

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