Lycos pulls antispam screen saver from site

It was under fire from security experts and spammers

By Scarlet Pruitt

December 3, 2004 12:00 PM ET

IDG News Service - Lycos Europe NV appeared to have pulled a controversial antispam screen-saver program from its site today, after coming under fire from both security experts and the spammers themselves.
The Web site previously distributing the "Make Love Not Spam" screen saver -- which offers to turn the tables on spammers by overwhelming their Web sites with requests -- no longer offers the program and now carries the message "Stay Tuned."
Lycos Europe also removed prominent advertisements for the screen saver from its home page.
Not all Internet users can access the "Stay Tuned" message, however, as some Internet service providers blocked the http://www.makelovenotspam.com site, said Paul Mutton, Internet services developer at Internet hosting services company Netcraft Ltd. Users on parts of the Internet backbone served by these ISPs get an error message when trying to reach the site.
Lycos Europe drew criticism from some members of the security community over the screen saver, saying that the company is engaging in vigilantism and crossing the line by launching what are essentially distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks on spammers' sites. The Web portal responded that it doesn't intend to bring the sites down but simply to cripple them. The screen saver was released on Wednesday (see story).
But some ISPs blocked access to the Make Love Not Spam site, supposedly because the screen saver generates a lot of unnecessary traffic on their networks, or violates their rules on DDOS attacks, Mutton said.
Some spammers also reportedly took action against Lycos Europe by redirecting traffic from the screen saver back to the site that distributes the program.
Lycos Europe representatives weren't immediately available to comment.

Reprinted with permission from

IDG.net
Story copyright 2009 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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