Lycos Europe has apparently scrapped the MakeLoveNotSpam screen saver that turns the users computer in to a DDoS attacker against spamming web sites.
Earlier this week, Lycos Europe released a screen saver that used idle time on the users computer to send requests to spam “friendly” web sites. With a posting of “Stay Tuned”, it appears that Lycos Europe has decided this wasn’t a good decision.
Security experts bashed the screen saver. Adrien de Beaupre of SANS Internet Storm Center called the program “possibly the dumbest thing I have heard this week.” He continued, “Dumb. With a capital ‘D'”. The screen saver was also referred to as vigilantism and questionable.
Lycos Europe inadvertently opened the flood gate on itself when one of the targeted websites simply added a meta refresh that sent all traffic back to Lycos Europe.
Although the software is no longer available for download, over 20,000 copies were downloaded prior to the site being closed. That can lead to a lot of copies still being passed around.
Source: eWeek.com – Lycos Pulls Anti-Spam ‘Vigilante’ Campaign
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