[clue-tech] Reverse spamming?

[Jeffrey Brown]

<< *- Begin Original Message *- >>

>>> seanleblanc at comcast.net 3/26/2005 2:52:21 PM >>>
On 03-26 10:42, Dennis J Perkins wrote:
> Sean LeBlanc wrote:
> 
> >Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal had an article about IBM now
> >backing software (don't remember if they are writing it or if they are just
> >installing someone else's software.) that will spam spammers. They also
> >mention that there is already open source software that does this, but
> >didn't mention project name(s).
> >
> >Does anyone do this, and what project(s) did you use?
> >

> What is the risk of being identified as a spammer yourself?

The article actually talked about that a bit, about how one open source
developer of a honeypot-type program actually stopped development and/or
distribution of his app. He feared that under one state's laws (forget the
state) that had rather broad language, users and/or him could be held liable
for crashing the remote computer that was using the honeypot.

<snip>

So, with that in mind, let me ask again. :) Does anyone use project(s) that
do this?

<< *- End Original Message *- >>

Open source software (on BSD) doing the something similar here:
http://www.benzedrine.cx/relaydb.html 

Excerpt - "Tarpits like spamd are fake SMTP servers, which accept connections but don't deliver mail. Instead, they keep the connections open and reply very slowly. If the peer is patient enough to actually complete the SMTP dialogue (which will take ten minutes or more), the tarpit returns a 'temporary error' code (4xx), which indicates that the mail could not be delivered successfully and that the sender should keep the mail in his queue and retry again later. If he does, the same procedure repeats. Until, after several attempts, wasting both his queue space and socket handles for several days, he gives up. The resources I have to waste to do this are minimal."