cryptoanarchy.wiki

Arise, you have nothing to lose but your barbed wire fences!

1997-05-07 - Re: Spam Update/Cyber Promo attacked

Header Data

From: Rick Osborne <osborne@gateway.grumman.com>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Message Hash: 9b4fc0858eb087eb720df8a403205beeef1c33aa29c6cc03a3c8d2e3316ead99
Message ID: <3.0.1.32.19970507142536.009a7e90@gateway.grumman.com>
Reply To: <v03020902af966ed17bf4@[139.167.130.248]>
UTC Datetime: 1997-05-07 18:57:21 UTC
Raw Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 02:57:21 +0800

Raw message

From: Rick Osborne <osborne@gateway.grumman.com>
Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 02:57:21 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Spam Update/Cyber Promo attacked
In-Reply-To: <v03020902af966ed17bf4@[139.167.130.248]>
Message-ID: <3.0.1.32.19970507142536.009a7e90@gateway.grumman.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


>PHILADELPHIA, 5-7-97  Bulk e-mail giant Cyber Promotions is under attack by
>"anti-spam" hackers. [...] Currently thousands of businesses with web pages
>and mail box accounts are being denied service.

Hmmm... the whole reason they are trying to stop the arp-spam is because
whoever is doing it is trying not to be found, right?  Well, what if
someone (or a group of someones) were to set up a web page with a script
behind it.  The page would simply ask "How many arps would you like to send
CyberPromo?".  An anonymous web user then fills in the blank, hits SUBMIT,
and the CGI does its thing.  Using this system, especially if it is not
just coming from one page but from anyone who sets up the CGI on their
system, CyberPromo really can't do anything about it, can they?

Maybe the denial of service attack is too harsh, though, and provides too
much legal ground.  What if instead of arps it sent emails to random
CyberPromo addresses?  At that point all you are doing is spamming
spammers, so what can they say?  And since it isn't you, but some passerby
on the web, you're safe from any repercussions, right?  You're just
providing the interface.

A perl script to connect directly to their SMTPd (no point in clogging
yours by using sendmail) would be trivial.  If set up on a sufficient
number of sites/pages (the form elements and script might take up a totalk
of 2k, whoopee), this could be a sort of passive agressive way of getting back.
_________ o s b o r n e @ g a t e w a y . g r u m m a n . c o m _________
It's amazing how much 'mature wisdom' resembles being too tired.
- Lazarus Long

Thread