[atlarge-discuss] execlub.org's future? - Vigilantes give spammers a dose of their own medicine --WSJ

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

All fellow members especially Jefsey, Eric, and Bruce,

Is the following the future for http://execlub.org/

see:
Subject: [ABA-LAWTECH] AP: Vigilantes give spammers a dose of their own
medicine
Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 00:45:44 -0500

Vigilantes give spammers a dose of their own medicine

By MYLENE MANGALINDAN
The Associated Press
5/19/03 9:22 AM

The Wall Street Journal

When all 24 office phones at Scott Richter's e-mail marketing company
started ringing at once, with nobody at the other end of the line,
employees knew they were under attack again.

Daniel Dye, the systems administrator, could do little. After 15 minutes
into the lunchtime assault last month, Mr. Dye recalls yelling, "Go
ahead and pull your phones out of the walls for now. It'll be easier to
think about what to do." Examining the phone system's central computer,
Mr.
Dye found that someone had hacked into it and programmed a feature that
caused all the phones to ring at the same time.

Mr. Richter's company had been "flamed" -- attacked by a shadowy group
of vigilantes who have taken to harassing spammers using just about any
means they can dream up. Spam, or unsolicited commercial e-mail, has set
off a war between marketers and people who hate spam. Mr. Richter, who
is a
mass commercial e-mailer, has become a frequent target of attackers 
known as antispammers.

They form a loose affiliation that uses the Internet to coordinate
attacks from around the world. E-mail marketers often feel powerless
against them. "It's an underground cult running it," says Mr. Richter, 
whose Westminster, Colo., e-mail marketing business, Optinrealbig.com, 
pitches mortgages, adult- related products and Viagra. "You don't know 
who they are."

Here's one of them: Mark Jones, a 26-year-old software engineer in
Enterprise, Ala., who calls himself a "soldier" in the war against spam.

 >From his home at night, he tracks down spammers by tracing the complex
routing code hidden in e-mail messages. He reports them to what
antispammers call "realtime blacklists," Web sites that track known 
spam sources and allow computer administrators to block certain 
Internet addresses.

Then, he fights back. "Anytime we find a source of spam," he says, "we
spam them back."

After his three children were asleep late one Saturday night last
November, Mr. Jones sat down at his PC for a bit of spammer-flaming.
First, he says, he visited a Web site, slashdot.org, that's a favorite 
among techies; he pulled down a list of about 10 alleged spammers. 
He programmed his personal computer to send a letter to each supposed 
spammer in the same way many spammers do: through so-called open relays 
and mail servers that forward e-mail in ways that make it hard to track 
down the sender. As his finishing stroke, he had his PC send the 
message to each spammer 10,000 times.

"We use the same methods the spammers use," says Mr. Jones, chuckling.
"It's a bombardment."

Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 131k members/stakeholders strong!)
"Be precise in the use of words and expect precision from others" -
    Pierre Abelard
================================================================
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
Contact Number: 214-244-4827 or 214-244-3801

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