What is Digg?65 Comments
- wibble, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18Does fishbert even have a clue how BlueFrog works?
They DO NOT send mails to the e-mail address in the SPAM header.
What they do is identify the ultimate website wanting to make money from suckers responding to spam, and ask them to remove their members from their mailing list. If the site choose not comply then BlueSecurity send an instruction to each frog to submit *1* opt-out request at the website for each e-mail received by that particular user i.e. if I receive 5 e-mails wanting me to visit a site then the site will receive 5 visits from my Frog requesting that they clean their list of all BF members. If I haven't received any mail from that particular site then my Frog will do nothing.
Therefore the end result is nothing more than if each user individually chose to visit the sites of each SPAM mail received and individually request an opt-out; it is just automated, and does not identify individual e-mail addresses in the opt-out request.
Regarding this particular attack - I've personally received mails on addresses that have been spammed for some time but not any on those which (up to now) have received no spam. Therefore it is obvious that the database has not been hacked, the spammer is simply able to identify which addresses on his existing list are BlueFrog users (hardly rocket science).. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Even if they publish it.... imagine.
BlueFrog users will get more spam. What does that mean?
The spammers will get more spam, too, in return from BlueFrog.
Sounds great! I say: Publish that list! ^^ - PeterR593, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11It sure is on the right people, and it's not really a DDos attack. One way of knowing it's on the right people because they've been attacking Blue for the last 36 hours or more! And since Blue staff do their job manually, I'm sure are very careful which sites they send multiple opt-outs to. These are not sites of genuine businesses that get attention from Blue. They don't even act with regard to businesses who comply with the ridiculous US CAN-SPAM act.
- bigjuju, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Received this email from a spammer, sounds like they are getting pissed off...
===========================
You are being emailed because you are a user of BlueSecurity's well-known software "BlueFrog."
Today, the BlueSecurity database became known to the worst spammers worldwide. Within 48 hours, the database will be published on the Internet, and your email address will be open to them all. After this, you will see the spam sent to your mailbox increase 10 - 20 fold.
BlueSecurity was illegally attacking email marketers, and doing so with your help. Many websites have been targeted and hit, including non-spam sites. BlueSecurity's software has been fully analyzed, and contains an abundance of malicious code. This includes: ability to send mass mail to users; the ability to attack websites with Distributed Denial of Service attack (DDoS); the ability to open hidden doors on any machine on which it is running; and a hidden auto-update code function, which can install anything on your computer and open it up to anyone.
BlueSecurity lists a USA address as their place of business, whereas their main office is in Tel Aviv. BlueSecurity is run by a few Russian-born Jews, who have previously been spamming themselves. When all is said and done, they will be able to run, hide and change their identities, leaving you to take the fall. YOU CANNOT PARTICIPATE IN ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES and expect to get away with it. This email ensures that you are well aware of the situation. Soon, you will be found guilty of computer crimes such as DDOS attacking of websites, conspiracy, and sending mass unsolicited bulk email messages for everything from viagra to porn, as long as you continue to run BlueFrog.
They do not take money for downloading their software, they do not take money for removing emails from their lists, and they have no visible revenue stream. What they DO have is 500,000 computers sitting there awaiting their next command. What are they doing now?
1. Using your computer to send spam ?
2. Using your computer to attack competitor websites?
3. Phishing through your files for your identity and banking information?
If you think you can merely change your email address and be safe while still running BlueFrog, you are in for a big surprise. This is just the beginning...
==========================
funny stuff... - Swampwulf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Didn't the Russians just *lynch* ( i.e. found shot and beaten in his home) one of their 'spam kings' not too long ago?
Seems like this 'tard would take a clue. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11As it has already been repeatedly reported, this is nothing more than a hollow threat by a desperate spammer getting hammered by Blue Flog users. There's a saying by Mahatma Gandhi that goes something like this:
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win
There can be no greater compliment to the effort of the Blue Flog community then to be singled out by these low life spammers. They did not compromise the Blue Flog secure email list because they don't have the intelligence or computing power to decipher the encryption. And as for those emails to real Blue Frog users, well those were nothing but shot in the dark dictionary emails that they randomly received. - shalow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8when i started out using bluefrog i got 10-15 spams daily, bluefrog had it down to 1-2 mails daily, yesterday morning i had received 48 spam mails in just 7 hours, most of them being of the "we hate you for using bluefrog, and are therefor holding your email hostage until you comply with our requests" type.
what bluefrog does is send a single email to the website paying for the spam, for each spam mail that gets reported, so really you its just a way of automatically replying to them, asking them to not send more spam mails (that they are then sending such a massive amount of spam out that they have problems cooping with the fact that they get an email back for each sent out is they're own fault
btw, as far as i know bluefrog also reports illegal online stores, just to make the whole thing even better - wibble, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Just on this particular point - BlueFrog is open source and available on SourceForge - see http://sourceforge.net/projects/bluefrog ...
- sleze, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7If bluefrog was ineffective, this mini email-battle wouldn't have ever started. Now that bluefrog exists, I actually like getting spam. It acts as ammunition for me to send back at the spammers. I think of it as having my computer automatically call telemarketers at THEIR home and annoy them.
Inspite of the additional emails I have been getting over the last week, it is still less than what I was getting pre-Bluefrog. - Strd, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10Nice tool, I'm downloading it now.
- mark1372, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6You may not have received spam for a long time, but those costs for spam filtering get rolled-down to you, and spam has been steadily increasing (there was an article yesterday that stated it's not 80% of email traffic).
Ignoring it allows the problem to fester, when it should be aggressively tackled on a legal and governmental level. Spammers have been winning for a long time, and they're still winning. - immure, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7I also got one of these emails,
Hey,
You are recieving this email because you are a member of BlueSecurity (http://www.bluesecurity.com).
You signed up because you were expecting to recieve a lesser amount of spam, unfortunately, due to the tactics used by BlueSecurity, you will end up recieving this message, or other nonsensical spams 20-40 times more than you would normally.
How do you make it stop?
Simple, in 48 hours, and every 48 hours thereafter, we will run our current list of BlueSecurity subscribers through BlueSecurity's database, if you arent there.. you wont get this again.
We have devised a method to retrieve your address from their database, so by signing up and remaining a BlueSecurity user not only are you opening yourself up for this, you are also potentially verifying your email address through them to even more spammers, and will end up getting up even more spam as an end-result.
By signing up for bluesecurity, you are doing the exact opposite of what you want, so delete your account, and you will stop recieving this.
Why are we doing this?
Its simple, we dont want to, but BlueSecurity is forcing us. We would much rather not waste our resources and send you these useless mails.
Its simple, we dont want to, but BlueSecurity is forcing us. We would much rather not waste our resources and send you these useless mails, but do not believe for one second that we will stop this tirade of emails if you choose to stay with BlueSecurity.
Just remember one thing when you read this, we didnt do this to you, BlueSecurity did.
If BlueSecurity decides to play fair, we will do the same.
Just remove yourself from BlueSecurity, and make it easier on you.
A. Spamma
--------------------------------
Sounds like it's just an organised attempt by a group of spammers to scare people away from bluefrog. I haven't actually used the thing for ages, thought it was too ugly for it's own good, but hey.. - bigjuju, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Excellent article on how blue security works within the CAN-SPAM Act.
http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/bluesecurity/ - MaLaCoiD, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I don't know what to believe. I am in favor of a DDos attack, but it has to be on the right people!
- fishbert, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Well, yeah, but such is day-to-day life in post-communist Russia. =)
- fishbert, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@wibble
Apparently not.
I read the Digg description, saw the apparent promotion of the notion that "spamming the spammer" is a good idea... and, I don't really know what happened after that, my memory goes blank around that point. The last thing I remember was that everything had this bright red hue...
Shows what you get for not reading the article first, I guess.
Btw, thumbs-up-ing your post because it's probably the most usefully informative of any in here so far. - zyphbear, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Well, I think some people apparently need to read what the software does, it doesn't spam "zombie PCs" as some spammers have used to send out all these emails. Nor do they send any messages to the addresses in the headers. They in fact send the message to the website mentioned in the email (whatever this site happens to be). So it's the same as visiting the website and asking to stop sending the email on your own. And in fact, it only happens if they get ALOT of reports so it's not a REAL promotion that some customers may have accidentally signed up for. They are basically following the same steps you would follow on your own to stop spam, but don't even refer to your own email address. So then your email isn't the actual one being targeted. They have "honeypot" addresses that they use for all email correspondence so they know when the addresses are being used for incorrect purposes. (To get a REAL look at how the software works follow the link mentioned by the other digger: http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/bluesecurity/ )
According to the CAN-SPAM act, they must have a "remove" option. And for those sites that don't, that's the places that really have to worry since that's when they get complained to their sites' host and get other types of complaints. I'm going to download this as soon as i get home and see how it works. - birdwatcher3000, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7An eye for an eye.
Spammers must die. - serra, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Ah yeah, I've been getting those messages by the people that are talking about Blue Security. I got so many spams a couple of days ago.
- wibble, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Good question.. However this seems to be exactly what has happened over the last couple of days, and has now tailed off.
Why? One reason may be that people running BlueFrog are generally those people that complain about spam, so as well as the mails being forwarded to BF they are also forwarded to SpamCop etc. - as a result many sources are now blocked.
If you were a spammer out to make money would you bother wasting resources sending mails to people that will never buy anything from you? Even if a BF user removes themselves from the list it still doesn't change whether they are likely to act on a spam mail - you'd think the spammers would welcome the chance to cleanse their lists of all the "complainers", and leave themselves free to spam those more likely to actually generate some revenue..
Obviously intelligence is not high on the list of criteria at the job selection process (similarly asking users to remove themselves from the list then DDoS'ing the site that the user would need to access to remove themselves - very clever..). - Novion76, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3A prior user posted this article on how bluefrog works, which was a very good read if you missed it, and might address some concerns
http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/bluesecurity/
As a user of bluefrog I can attribute to having received these emails. They were followed by junk emails containing nothing but what appeared to be excerpts from a book. They also gave out their 48 hour warning, but sent multiple copies within the next 12. Interestingly enough, I have not received another in the past 24 hours.
When you join bluefrog, expect your junk mail to spike after a few days. However, after a few more, you'll see it drop back down, and perhaps go even lower than before. It is quite disturbing initially, but I believe it helps in the long run. Spam comes in cycles. Sometimes it's up, sometimes it's down
I've spoken with members on the bluefrog forum regarding one particular problematic spammer who would spam me daily. One of the posters was kind enough to investigate it personally and managed to get the website shut down for awhile (until of course, it was re-hosted somewhere else). Oddly enough though, they managed to get that next website removed so that even though email spams were being sent out, the links to the site didn't work. I havent received spam from that site in easily 8 months now.
Some of my emails on the do not spam registry of my same account are not being spammed by this warning message. Obviously if the spammers had really gotten the registry, I should expect to see notices on all three, not just one, email address should I not?
It's a pretty desperate ploy, but I congratulate the spammer for actually producing a comprehendable counter message. Most junk mails are quite meaningless.
I'm waiting for that 48 hour repeat email, or more of those random book passages. Haven't gotten more yet.
Regarding bluefrog being under attack, it's possible. A few times yesterday my frog gave the warning message that it couldn't connect to the database but right now he's lookiing fine. In fact, yesterday his status was on sending opt-out complaints for several hours. Since I wasn't using my computer, I left it on for him to continue.
I think it's a great piece of software, and hardly eats any system resources. The more frogs, the more power. Stick with it
A prior user posted this article on how bluefrog works, which was a very good read if you missed it, and might address some concerns
http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/bluesecurity/
As a user of bluefrog I can attribute to having received these emails. They were followed by junk emails containing nothing but what appeared to be excerpts from a book. They also gave out their 48 hour warning, but sent multiple copies within the next 12. Interestingly enough, I have not received another in the past 24 hours.
When you join bluefrog, expect your junk mail to spike after a few days. However, after a few more, you'll see it drop back down, and perhaps go even lower than before. It is quite disturbing initially, but I believe it helps in the long run. Spam comes in cycles. Sometimes it's up, sometimes it's down
I've spoken with members on the bluefrog forum regarding one particular problematic spammer who would spam me daily. One of the posters was kind enough to investigate it personally and managed to get the website shut down for awhile (until of course, it was re-hosted somewhere else). Oddly enough though, they managed to get that next website removed so that even though email spams were being sent out, the links to the site didn't work. I havent received spam from that site in easily 8 months now.
Some of my emails on the do not spam registry of my same account are not being spammed by this warning message. Obviously if the spammers had really gotten the registry, I should expect to see notices on all three, not just one, email address should I not?
It's a pretty desperate ploy, but I congratulate the spammer for actually producing a comprehendable counter message. Most junk mails are quite meaningless.
I'm waiting for that 48 hour repeat email, or more of those random book passages. Haven't gotten more yet.
Regarding bluefrog being under attack, it's possible. A few times yesterday my frog gave the warning message that it couldn't connect to the database but right now he's lookiing fine. In fact, yesterday his status was on sending opt-out complaints for several hours. Since I wasn't using my computer, I left it on for him to continue.
I think it's a great piece of software, and hardly eats any system resources. The more frogs, the more power. Stick with it
BTW, bluefrog's blog is still up at http://www.bluesecurity.com/ along with downloads - hfiske, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've been using the frog for months, the amount of spam arriving in my mailbox hasn't really gone down in that time (over 300 most days) but I figure it's going to be a long battle and sooner or later the see-saw will rock back the other way. It appears we are starting to get under the skin of some of the spammers which can't be a bad thing. In the final analysis its just really nice to have a proactive weapon to fight back with...
- DuffDemon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@wibble
>so as well as the mails being forwarded to BF they are also forwarded to SpamCop etc
That's a good point
>If you were a spammer out to make money would you bother wasting resources
>sending mails to people that will never buy anything from you?
Well yes at the moment it is simply easier for them to give in and not spam BF users. But my reasoning is, what if this method starts becoming too successful and becomes a treat to them? Surely it would get to a point where actively attacking users would be more profitable then just ignoring them.
I guess there's nothing to lose anyway. The spammer will already have your email address and although by doing this you are confirming your email address is active, doing nothing doesn't seem to do anything to curb the amount of spam anyway. I will test it out on a hotmail account I don't mind getting trashed. - fishbert, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5"...ability to send mass mail to users..."
There's a pot and a kettle in here somewhere... - hfiske, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Obviously intelligence is not high on the list of criteria at the job selection process (similarly asking users to remove themselves from the list then DDoS'ing the site that the user would need to access to remove themselves - very clever..)."
Likewise them providing Blue Security with a big publicity boost via Digg and everywhere else that runs this story - user numbers for the frog were approaching half a million before this happened, how many more people, who perhaps hadn't heard of the frog up to now, will be prompted to download it and give it a try? - AlanJayWeiner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Think of it this way:
You get angry at someone. So you dial their phone, let it ring, and hang up. Then you dial it again. Over and over. Unless they catch the time between your calls, they can't use their phone; there won't be a dial tone when they pick it up because the phone system hasn't "torn down" your call yet; it takes some small amount of time between your hang-up and releasing their phone. So they can't use their phone - they are denied use of their phone service.
Eventually, he manages to notify the police; you get arrested and he can use his phone again.
That's DOS - Denial Of Service.
But what if, in addition to you phoning, you get all your friends to do the same? And they get their friends, and they get theirs... Now there's hundreds or thousands of people phoning your victim. You may be stopped, but your friends are still calling. And when they're stopped, *their* friends are still calling. You've distributed the work of calling amongst many many people so it's much harder to stop.
That's DDOS - Distributed Denial Of Service.
The current problem is that the spammers are *illegally* using many many (thousands? tens of thousands?) hijacked machines to "call" Blue Security's servers. They *are* being tracked down and stopped, but it takes time.
- Al Weiner - - volatileacid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Can someone explain why DDOS attacks are so difficult to defend against... Maybe the solution would be to host a few load balancing front end websites with different IPs?
I'm convinced that bluefrog is a great solution, it wouldn't be under attack otherwise - hence my resolve is strengthened and i'm going to keep the app running 24/7 now. - Novion76, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1More: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/internet/0,70798-0.html
"Three weeks ago, Blue Security said, the world's top junk mailer, responsible for about 9 percent of all spam, stopped sending messages to inboxes of its half-million registered users. On Monday, the company said, the second-largest spammer started contacting its affiliates and advising them not to contact Blue Frog users." - shalow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1hmm, haven't seen the website up since yesterday, and i cant report spam either, it does the the whole processing part, but the reported counter stays at 0 =/
damn i hate spammers.... - madinga, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2k0zy, loving your comment. You apparently, have more brains than the Russian spam supremo. big up yourself!
- bigjuju, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hehe... Spammers are in for some serious stuff, they helped increase the size of the community and gave it some increased awareness. I wonder how many people will join?
Can you say backfire... - akinnee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The BlueSecurity site doesn't work at all right now... wtf... I really want this tool it sounds cool.
- Metal_Guru, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I just got one of those too. And they are pretty damn unconvincing. The formatting and style is horribly obvious spammer style. Worth a small laugh nevertheless.
- MikeMaloney, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That Russian spammer had his head beaten in last year by 3 young women (one aged 14) whom he picked up and brought home to his apartment. Rumor has it that they are now looking for "killthem" at bk.ru.
- DracoFlameus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2omg... bluefrog doesn't DDos... all it does is sending complaints by using the available complaint scripts from blue security. Do you think they code a complaint script for their own site? Oh c'mon... -_-
- funkytaco, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2There are such things as a legimate DDos, FYI. Have you ever heard of the Digg effect? I'm pretty sure you have.
I'm perfectly fine with the target being spammers. More power to Blue Security. - grawity, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1From yesterday I've got over 200 spam messages (normally there are around 20 each day). Most of them (about 99%) are catched by Gmail spam filter. And BlueSecurity site is unavailable, too. (server not found??)
- quadvods, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Why don't the spammers just comply and not send spam to people on the registry.. they wouldn't get ddos'ed then would they? Everyone is happy!
- bigjuju, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Agreed.
Here is a snippet from spammer's messageboard regarding...
" RE: B l u e S e c u r i t y | READ U... (in reply to killthem)
Ginsta, they didn't do anything to you YET, but they are attacking many sponsors, some you might even be promoting. They aren't just attacking sponsors, they're attacking our community by the hypocritical position of justifying their means by the end
It's just a matter of time (if we don't take action now) before they have a botnet of which we would have no chance of stopping, you have to understand that. If they built their userbase to say 2 million, 1 request command to each of their "frogs" would drop the host in a minute. No point letting someone gain power without being challenged. If they want to be on top they'll have to show they have the balls to undergo some deep *****.
In all reality, these idiots try to speak as if their intelligent on their forum, you should read it. Half the a**holes can't spell "protocol" and 50% of them are high school drop outs who don't realize it takes 1 second to click a delete key and be mindful of where you place your email address.
While bad attention is always good, because it's still attention, this is a rare case where no one will jump into this fight simply to "stand up to fight spam" while also being mindful they are willing participating in illegally ddos operations. It'll be a matter of time before BlueSecurity gets shut down for that fact alone, until then, stand up for your industry and kill the ***** out of their userbase.
Their page is being held down, you won't get complaints, just hit the ***** out of their inbox until they realize they'd get LESS spam by not being part of the BF botnet.
My enemy's enemy is my friend, just remember that and spam the f*** out of those *****"
---------------
Hopefully, Blue Security will start to report to the ISPs' the botnets these spammers use to send spam. I would assume an ISP would have to take action if they receive word from 500K users that spam is being sent from within their ISP network. Also seems that complaining to the spam sponsor is a vulnerability that spammers have. - Novion76, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1damn, stupid edit function messed up. My apologies
- aaaaabbbbb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2can someone in russia do the whole world a favor and just put a bullet in the spam kings head?
TIA! - shalow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0it also means that bluefrog works, and that the spammers know it
(also why they've taken our emails "hostage" until we comply with they're demands ^^) - johndi, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3@fishbert I just summed up the story. I've seen a some info on them but nothing concrete. Some say that Blue Security takes great care to make sure that only spammers get their e-mail, but that it's the spammers themselves sending spoofed e-mails that only appears to be from Bluefrog. Others say they are part of the problem, that they are reckless vigilantes who don't care who gets caught in the crossfire. I leave it up to the reader to decide.
- richardiscool, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Anyone think maybe Bluefrog DDoS'ed itself?
If the software saw spam "advertising" bluescurity.com... - shalow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0just a follow-up on yet another puny attempt to make people abandon the frog (first of all, there was no attachment to the mail even though they said so.. and secondly my spam mail is back down again to about 5-6 daily, when i joined it was about 10-15)
Dear Blue Frog Member,
As a follow-up to our previous emails, and, as promised, we are stepping up in the fight against Blue Security.
The Blue Frog member email database has been compromised, and is currently being distributed worldwide to spammers and to the public. Attached to this email, you will find a zip file of the Blue Frog database, which includes your own personal or business email address(es). If you have not uninstalled Blue Frog yet, we highly suggest you do so now in order to avoid your involvement in this war any further.
Leaving your email address on the Blue Frog list is a risky choice, as we will uphold our promise not only to increase your spam by 20 times the amount you are receiving now, but to continue to make this list publically available as well. Also, as the Blue Frog member database is updated, we will find more creative ways in which to use it, and frequently release it to whomever we wish.
Blue Security, Inc
(kinda like the fact that they sign with "Blue Security, inc" XD just makes the whole thing look even more phony =P ) - shalow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0also they sent a load of extra spam that can be used as opt-out ^^
- shalow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0my blue security icon down in the right hand part of the processor bar suddenly got an orange ! thingy on top of it, i double click it and it says, connection failed (doesn't help if i restart it) but i can still report spam :P
- DangerNerd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ok... obvious smear-job.
Shifting blame onto the victim? I don't think so.
Read this:
http://bluefrogfreaks.blogspot.com/2006/05/news-outlet-shifts-blame-to-victim.html
... please spread that as far and wide as you can, in order to counter the damage being done by questionable "journalism." - fintheman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If anyone has the file for the windows installer BlueRCTSetup.exe file, can ya link it, I'll throw it up on a mirror.
- wibble, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0You can still download the mail application from http://www.download.com/Blue-Frog/3000-2092_4-10527188.html , and the Firefox extension is available from http://www.download.com/Blue-Frog-Anti-Spam-for-Firefox/3000-11745_4-10518315.html .
Not much point downloading if you're not already registered though as the main site is still down.. -
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