How many backbones here are filtering the makelovenotspam scr eensaver site?

Thu Dec 2 17:59:14 UTC 2004

I think Lycos did not think this through enough.  Their response is
HUGE.  They've essentially launched a Denial of Service on themselves.
 They would not have needed the larger backbone if they cut down on
the size of their response.  They could have done anything with their
client, but they chose to make it full web service with a valid XML
response.

Every transaction with their server looks to be about 3K.  They could
have implemented something minimal, like a basic socket connection and
a minimal request, then sent something like a space delimited list of
parameters.  They could get rid of about 75% of the data and still
preserve the same functionality.

I personally like the idea, even though it's not original, it just
took a large site to back it.  Too bad they couldn't do it right.

On Thu, 2 Dec 2004 10:28:26 -0500, Hannigan, Martin
<hannigan at verisign.com> wrote:
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Lionel [mailto:nop at alt.net]
> > Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 8:40 AM
> > To: Hannigan, Martin
> > Cc: nanog list
> > Subject: Re: How many backbones here are filtering the makelovenotspam
> > scr eensaver site?
> >
> > 
> > On Thu, 2 Dec 2004 08:27:38 -0500 , "Hannigan, Martin"
> > <hannigan at verisign.com> wrote:
> >
> > >> > Hosted on a cablemodem?  Tch, tch, how the mighty have fallen
> > >
> > >
> > >The blocks are widespread.
> > >
> > >The reports of hackers are incorrect. The blackholes are
> > what is stopping
> > >them.
> > 
> > What amazing efficiency. I can't help but wonder if these
> > same providers
> > are as quick at blackholing spamsite hosts, or blocking the zombies on
> > their user networks from spewing spam on port 25?
> 
> If you tied all the spammers into a few controllers, you see it happen
> immediately.
> 
> I've been following the news reports on this. Here's a quick summary
> of "what I know" without making any judgement or opinion:
> 
> - The lycos screensaver campaign activated Tuesday
> - Major networks began activating blocks
> - When the controllers can't be reached, the clients die off
>         - If screensaver is active when controllers die, it runs
>         off the current target list.
>       - If screensaver deactivates, then activates, it can't
>         contact the servers and tells the user it's "off the internet"
>         (I can't verify the veracity of the update process i.e. if it
>        will die while active)
> - Blocks started going up early Wednesday morning
> - The press began reporting hackers due to an apparentdefacement
>   being seen by many users. What they actually saw was the banner of
>   an ISP that had blackholed the traffic and redirected port
>   80 to a notice.
> - Lycos moved their application to a hosting facility with bigger pipes
> - Target sites began using redirects sending the traffic back
>   to Lycos
> - Press reports are coming out today regarding the blackholes
> - SpamCop is the source of the target list via a page that is public
>   off of the SpamCop site (SpamCop is does not appear to have complicity)
> - The effectiveness of the blackholes is rising
> - There are a reported 100K clients downloaded. Less than you would
>   expect due to the voluminous press coverage. Probably a result of
>   the blackhole activity as well.
> 
> I'm really not sure if Lycos knows about the blackholes at
> this point as the press has been reporting "hackers" all the while.
> If you think it's hacked, check the route.
> 
> Here's some operational data captured via ethereal
> 
> The target list generated by the botnet controller:
> 
> GET
> /xml/69426058014054/94772079193788/35264029467456/12122010129438/CONFIG_2865
> 2023942308.xml HTTP/1.1
> Referer:
> http://backend.makelovenotspam.com/xml/69426058014054/94772079193788/3526402
> 9467456/12122010129438/CONFIG_28652023942308.xml
> x-flash-version: 7,0,19,0
> User-Agent: Shockwave Flash
> Host: backend.makelovenotspam.com
> Cache-Control: no-cache
> 
> HTTP/1.1 200 OK
> Server: Resin/2.1.14
> Content-Type: text/xml; charset=UTF-8
> Content-Length: 2889
> Connection: close
> Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 15:22:00 GMT
> 
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
> <mlns><targets location="US"><target id="TVRBd01EQXdOVGt5"
> domain="myshopinternetcompany.com"
> url="http://myshopinternetcompany.com/?e=aa5100" bytes="357460680"
> hits="2572309" percentage="100" responsetime01="498" responsetime02="0"
> location="BR" /><target id="TVRBd01EQXdOVEk0" domain="grlswaiting4u.com"
> url="http://grlswaiting4u.com/" bytes="206765667" hits="1488797"
> percentage="100" responsetime01="11866" responsetime02="0" location="US"
> /><target id="TVRBd01EQXdOVGc0" domain="1stwebsitetheyourshop.com"
> url="http://1stwebsitetheyourshop.com/?e=aa5100" bytes="317867325"
> hits="2288427" percentage="100" responsetime01="507" responsetime02="0"
> location="BR" /><target id="TVRBd01EQXdOVGcx" domain="cheap-r-x.com"
> url="http://cheap-r-x.com/" bytes="355920802" hits="2565612"
> percentage="100" responsetime01="787" responsetime02="0" location="CN"
> /><target id="TVRBd01EQXdOVGcz" domain="www.hlplmanhds.biz"
> url="http://www.hlplmanhds.biz/" bytes="317590861" hits="2269503"
> percentage="100" responsetime01="785" responsetime02="0" location="CN"
> /><target id="TVRBd01EQXdOVEkz" domain="r.vtm.homewo.com"
> url="http://r.vtm.homewo.com/" bytes="367630639" hits="2248424"
> percentage="100" responsetime01="5542" responsetime02="0" location="CN"
> /><target id="TVRBd01EQXdOVE0w" domain="www.incentiverewardcenter.com"
> url="http://www.incentiverewardcenter.com/xg_reg.htm?SID=ab9ee352c3402bdc858
> e5540b887d28a--landing_page=1--show=zip--=--p=92375--c=5411-toys250_720_emc-
> -catalog_id=14--a=--affil=5408--subid=1" bytes="1028999994" hits="6992693"
> percentage="-144200" responsetime01="1442" responsetime02="-1" location="US"
> /><target id="TVRBd01EQXdOVEk1" domain="www.macromed.ws"
> url="http://www.macromed.ws/" bytes="742958780" hits="5063804"
> percentage="100" responsetime01="1212" responsetime02="0" location="RU"
> /><target id="TVRBd01EQXdOVEEz" domain="www.curdom.com"
> url="http://www.curdom.com/" bytes="734756904" hits="4831221"
> percentage="46" responsetime01="2134" responsetime02="4541" location="CN"
> /><target id="TVRBd01EQXdOVGt4" domain="www.bacbwefds.info"
> url="http://www.bacbwefds.info/" bytes="422036604" hits="2463679"
> percentage="100" responsetime01="3375" responsetime02="0" location="CN"
> /></targets><conf><key name="source-xml"
> value="http://backend.makelovenotspam.com/xml" /><key
> name="interval-diagram" value="10000" /><key name="interval-hit"
> value="10000" /><key name="post-data-length" value="5" /><key
> name="refresh-xml" value="1200000" /><key name="current-version" value="1.0"
> /><key name="spray-filter-count" value="39" /><key name="url-report"
> value="http://backend.makelovenotspam.com/report" /></conf><stats><key
> name="average-percentage" value="100.0" /><key name="bytes"
> value="143003829363" /><key name="hits" value="859880020" /><key
> name="downloads" value="103803" /><key name="target-count" value="69"
> /></stats></mlns>
> 
> Here's what they appear to receiving a lot as a result:
> 
> <makeLOVEnotSPAM>IN`TS</makeLOVEnotSPAM>
> .<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">
> <html><head>
> <title>501 Method Not Implemented</title>
> </head><body>
> <h1>Method Not Implemented</h1>
> <p><makeLOVEnotSPAM>IN`TS</makeLOVEnotSPAM> to /index.html not
> supported.<br />
> </p>
> </body></html>
> 
>