Fight spam! Gain life satisfaction!

Spammers are getting especially annoying these days, with targeted messages.

I have been striking back, though. My honey pot has recently caught a few of them red-handed, to be reported to such authorities as there are for such things.

If you run a web server and you want to help combat the scourge of spam, consider joining Project Honeypot.

You get a certain definite measure of satisfaction when they email you to let you know that your honeypot has helped to identify a server contributing to spam, such as by harvesting email addresses.

So far, I have contributed to the identification of a few dozen malicious IP addresses, hopefully preventing quite a lot of spam.

Author: Milan

In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. In the fall of 2005, I began reading for an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. Outside school, I am very interested in photography, writing, and the outdoors. I am writing this blog to keep in touch with friends and family around the world, provide a more personal view of graduate student life in Oxford, and pass on some lessons I've learned here.

7 thoughts on “Fight spam! Gain life satisfaction!”

  1. Here are some of the most recent IP addresses I have collected:

    Note: they may not stay malicious forever. The IP address used by a wicked spam server today might be used by an innocent grandmother tomorrow. This complicates the implementation of defences against spam.

  2. There is a new worm circulating right now that is compromising servers running older versions of the JBoss Application Server and then adding them to a botnet. The worm also attempts to install a remote access tool in order to give the attacker control over the newly infected server. The worm has been circulating for a couple of days at least, and it’s not clear right now how many servers have been compromised or what the origins of it are. It apparently exploits an old vulnerability in the JBoss Application Server, which was patched in April 2010, in order to compromise new machines. Once that’s accomplished, the worm begins a post-infection routine that includes a number of different steps.

  3. I understand that the spam filters where I work block 93% of emails that come in.

    In the last year I have been receiving taped phone messages. At this time it is about once per week. I am concerned about their potential growth. Is there some way to block those without blocking real phone calls?

  4. Telephones are unsophisticated when it comes to filtering. I think you can ask the phone company to block a specific number from calling you, but telephone spammers use VoIP systems and probably change their numbers all the time.

    For now, there is probably no defence against voicemail spam that you can implement.

  5. Is the next step aggressive counterattacks against these servers? :)

    It’s a shame the good guys have to play by so many rules.

  6. Regardless of how the rest of your day goes, here’s something to be happy about — today a honey pot you installed successfully identified a
    previously unknown email harvester (IP: 41.132.149.244). The
    harvester was caught by your honey pot installed at:

    http://www.sindark.com

    You can find information about your newly identified harvester here:

    http://www.projecthoneypot.org/ip_41.132.149.244

    Info on all the harvesters that have been spotted by your honey pots is
    also available here:

    http://www.projecthoneypot.org/list_of_ips.php?t=h&m=usr_hp.h.60455

  7. Milan —
    Regardless of how the rest of your day goes, here’s something to be happy
    about — today a honey pot you installed successfully identified a
    previously unknown email harvester (IP: 112.2.255.241). The
    harvester was caught by your honey pot installed at:

    http://www.sindark.com

    You can find information about your newly identified harvester here:

    http://www.projecthoneypot.org/ip_112.2.255.241

    Info on all the harvesters that have been spotted by your honey pots is
    also available here:

    http://www.projecthoneypot.org/list_of_ips.php?t=h&m=usr_hp.h.60455

    Don’t forget to tell your friends you made the Internet a little better
    today. You can refer them to Project Honey Pot directly from our
    website:

    http://www.projecthoneypot.org/refer_a_friend.php

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