ORDB.org is shutting down

As of today, ORDB.org is closing its doors after more than 5 years. The volunteers behind this service have decided that the filtering of open relays RBLs is no longer the best solutions and is becoming less effective in the fight against spam.

Read their statement at http://www.ordb.org/news/?id=38

Blogs appear in spam

Since a few days we notice the appearance of blogs in spam. URL Intent Analysis is one of the technologies to block spam and we also use it at MX Lab.

We’ve seen a few spam emails with http://erroticz.blogspot.com/ in the body of the email. Spammers not only try to post their messages through webforms, on forums, in guestbooks and as comments on blogs but now also try to create their online presence with a blog. When visiting the above URL we get redirected to a web site that sells, how can you guess, cialis, viagra and other magic pills.

Sites like blogspot.com, wordpress.com and others will have to take extra actions to prevent spammers generating a blog and effectivly using it in their communication.

Out of the ashes from Blue Security comes Collactive

The people behind Blue Security, the anti-spam firm brought down by a rogue spammer earlier this year, have started a new “social action” firm called Collactive. With this action they want to address the spam problem by putting pressure on government agencies in much the same way the technology Blue Frog was used to make life difficult for spammers.

Read the full article.

Spam D Spammer

While surfing on the net I found Spam D Spammer, a tool to fight spammers and hit them where it hurts them most: $.

The setup seems simple, you install the software, receive spam with the URL of their site and start downloading their site. When a lot of people do the same the bandwith usage of the spammers site will start growing until the costs are too high for the spammer.

Seems simple and effective but just a few thoughts. When spammers use URLs in their spam they often change the URL to subdomains, other aliasses and so on. In general their URLs change every 24h or less. So when you want to attack the spammers web sites you are spending quite some time to track the spammers sites. At MX Lab (www.mxlab.be) I see about +150 new URLs pass every day. If the authors decide which sites are being top priority targets and the software is feeded with this information you have less work to do.

Besides the increased bandwith that the spammer will have you are also using your own bandwith or datatraffic from your ISP. At the end of the day you will be attacking several sites so if you have no xDSL or broadband you will certainly make your internet connection crawl. And from what I have read you can control the used bandwith from this software to increase your own bandwith again. It says enough.

APT will seek restitution from spammers

Advanced Powerline Technologies, Inc. was the victim of the recent mass stock spam, not the first time, that was send all over the world. The company stated that it will seek restitution from the parties that have been identified as potentially responsible for the recent unsolicited email barrage. The SEC and other authorities have worked together to identify those responsible. APT further clearly made a statement that the company was not involved in sending stock spam and that it was not responsible for these emails.

Start earning money with stock spam

If you want to know if you really could earn some extra cash with the recommendations of stock spam you should visit www.stock-spam.com.