Denial of Service Attacks disguised as Spam...

Mon Jan 5 17:01:14 UTC 1998

> 
> 
> [The purpose of this note is to change your thinking about Spam]
> 
> Enormous amounts of this so-called "spam" is nothing of the sort, it
> is malicious people using mail ports to conduct denial of service
> attacks. And the sooner we wake up to this fact the better.
> 
> We need a new word for this and to publicize this new
> attitude. Because as soon as someone says "spam" all that comes to
> mind is a Sanford Wallace type pathetically trying to make a buck with
> annoying advertising, and people (in particular law enforcement) just
> won't give "annoying advertising" a moment's thought.

Good point.  Perhaps the best analogies for the law types are the junk-faxing
laws.  It's outsiders maliciously consuming a particular resource.

> The fact that not one of these is getting past our filters doesn't
> seem to discourage this person, not even over a period of days.

Yeah, but the person sending them may not be able to tell that they're
not getting through.  

> I don't believe this person is actually selling anything.
> 
> Can I repeat that?
> 
> 	I DON'T BELIEVE THIS PERSON IS ACTUALLY SELLING ANYTHING
> 

Out of curiosity, have you looked at the content of the message?  It's 
interesting that this may be a DoS attack, where there are other things one
can do to try and deny service.  

(Although, setting up somebody else's mail server to repeatedly connect is
in fact a pretty legit DoS in and of itself...)

> We're being fooled, we're allowing criminals to operate without
> challenge.
> 
> -- 
>         -Barry Shein
> 

Are they criminals?  I don't know if I want to get into a debate about
"criminal" vs. "doing something nasty that's not been declared illegal".
Either way, I agree that there should be moved to curb this sort of repeated
contact, whether it's a deliberate attack or not.

eric