The company has explained why its anti-spam effort is ending

A series of web attacks by spammers have forced a security firm to end an initiative to curb junk mail.
from bbc

Israeli start-up Blue Security used a variety of tactics to make spammers clean up the lists of addresses to which they sent junk mail.

The firm also automatically filled in forms on spammers' websites to get names taken off the mailing lists.

But escalating attacks from spammers annoyed by the initiative's success has led to its closure.

Widespread attack

Blue Security set up the Blue Frog anti-spam scheme in July 2005 and since then has signed up more than 500,000 members.

The scheme involved users reporting to Blue Security every spam message they received. The security firm would then contact the spammers who sent the mail and ask them to remove the name of that user from their mailing list.

We cannot take the responsibility for an ever-escalating cyber war through our continued operations Blue Security

If this method of stopping spam failed, Blue Security would then visit the spammer's websites advertising the products seen in junk mail and fill in any forms asking for users' names be removed from the list.

This could mean that some spammers' websites were getting thousands of requests for mailing lists to be cleaned up every day.

Blue Security claimed that the scheme reduced spam for many of those that signed up.

The tactic of bombarding spammers' websites was controversial among many anti-spam workers.

Sense of responsibility

The first indication that some junk mailers had taken exception to the anti-spam efforts came in early May when Blue Security was hit by a large so-called Distributed Denial of Service attack.

In such attacks websites get bombarded with huge amounts of data that their servers cannot handle.

At the same time some of those that had signed up for Blue Security's anti-spam system started getting threatening messages.

Blue Security realised that if it re-started its anti-spam campaign the attacks would get worse as the spammers seemed to have a huge network of remotely-controlled computers under their control.

"We cannot take the responsibility for an ever-escalating cyber war through our continued operations," said a statement on Blue Security's website.

As a result the company has decided to discontinue its anti-spam efforts.

"We believe this is the responsible thing to do," said the statement.

The company said it would now explore other ways to use its technology although for non-spam uses.
posted by chr15 at 1:15 PM

To the general enrichment of leftist theory-heads, both Society of the Spectacle and Empire use the form of manifesto to convey their ideas on power and vision/communication respectively. However, both seem to focus on the macro level of analysis and would be greatly enriched through engaging the "micro-physics of power." Is this a problem of the manifesto in general or just these texts?

After thinking this issue over I came to several questions I would like to answer in my final paper.

How does the manifesto fit into the contemporary regime of publicity and surveillance?
How does the manifesto address/produce subjects and objects?
How does "publicity" address/produce objects and subjects in Debord? In Hardt and Negri?
Are then manifesto's a form of publicity?
Are Manifesto's utopian counters to regimes of discipline and control, or surveillance and information?
How do discipline and control operate in the society of the spectacle? In Empire? What are the micro-physics of power in these configurations?
What would an effective contemporary manifesto, countering regimes of domination, be like?

texts to be used
Hardt and Negri. Empire
Debord. Society of the Spectacle
Lyon. Against Dystopia, Distance, Division
Agre, Surveillance and Capture
Rhiengold. Smart Mobs
posted by chr15 at 1:54 AM