If you wonder why people don’t just go after spammers, vigilante-style, here’s why. Three Dutch blogging websites launched an online war against a U.S. spammer, Customerblast.com late last week, and found they’d bitten off more than they could chew. The weblogs, according to The Register, tried to push Customerblast off the web with sustained distributed … Read more
Microsoft’s Bill Gates has announced new junk e-mail filtering technology called SmartScreen. AP reports the technology will use algorithms to judge whether incoming e-mail messages qualify as junk e-mail and filter them out before they get to the end user’s e-mailbox. More interesting, Gates demonstrated Microsoft Research’s Stuff I’ve Seen project, which is developing … Read more
It sounds good in theory, but I have my qualms. Smartalec Internet Security Suite 2004 combines a firewall, and anti-worm block, and a spam blocker, all for $20. But when I click on the main link to buy it from their online website, Live Wire Media, I’m diverted to a website inviting me to get paid for … Read more
If you start receiving weird messages on your Bluetooth-enabled phone (or, I guess, a PDA) from strangers, you’ve probably been Bluejacked. For more, read here. Nice. Although of course it’s open to abuse so expect the vulnerability to be exploited by spammers, hackers and the marketing fraternity.
Further to my posting about SpamCop, it seems that a new virus, actually a worm, is aiming at bringing down SpamCop and some other anti-spam sites. Is it more evidence of collusion between sleazy spammers and spotty virus writers? Sophos reports that W32/Mimail-E is a worm which spreads via email using addresses harvested from … Read more