A recent Associated Press story on Yahoo! uncovers a new solution for recipients of spam to fight back…and beat spammers at their own game.
Blue Security has a solution called Blue Frog that works by using a “do-not-spam” list they call “Do Not Intrude”.
Here’s a quick overview of how it works:
# Users add e-mail addresses to a “do-not-spam” list and Blue Security creates new addresses (“honeypots”) designed to attract and catch spam
# When a honeypot address gets spam Blue Security tries to contact the spammer and then triggers the Blue Frog software on the user’s computer to send a complaint
# If enough people complain it will knock out the spammer’s website and hopefully encourage them to stop sending emails to the “do-not-spam” list.
Simple enough! But fundamentally flawed, I think.
Category: Privacy Issues
The threat of spyware is changing user behaviour, reports MediaWeek on the release of a new Pew Internet report on spyware. Over 80% of respondents have stopped opening email attachments, 45% report avoiding sites they think might install spyware and a quarter have stopped using peer-to-peer filesharing sites.
Comments closedIn the ongoing battle against spam and, more specifically, the targeting of children, Utah and Michigan lawmakers are looking at creating an email registry that will act like a ‘do-not-call’ list.
Read the Yahoo article from Associated Press.
I applaud the idea of trying to curb pornographic and otherwise inappropriate messages from reaching children but I believe there are fundamental flaws in this line of thinking.