Monday, August 27, 2007

Yet Another Attack, Plus More On The Bogus Hoodia Spammers.

Yet Another Attack, Plus More On The Bogus Hoodia Spammers.

The carpcstore forum is once again under attack, as is Spamhaus.org.

Spammers who are happy to perform DDOS attacks have always struck me as whiny little brats. They didn't get what they want, so they just wander around kicking over everyone else's sandcastles, etc. It's ridiculous.

The stupidest part about these morons is that they think it will shut us up. Or that we'll stop reporting or monitoring them. They could not be more wrong. Not only does this make sure that we don't stop researching and reporting every last one of them, it practically ensures that we'll do so with even more diligence, since it's fairly clear that we're having the desired effect of killing their ability to profit. Law enforcement will also monitor these attacks very closely, since they are a criminal act. With each attack they decide to launch, the evidence mounts and it becomes easier and easier to tell who is behind them, where they are located, etc.

One of these days, someone like me, or one of my colleagues, or possibly some third party none of us are even aware of will eventually become fed up enough about these stupid, childish attacks that they will actually spill farrrr more information on blogs like this one than they ever thought we knew. You can ask mcproxy about that. He knows the depth of research several people have done on his identity, his background, etc. I and others like me have compiled a lo-o-o-ot of background information on many others like him. The mere threat of exposition caused mcproxy to get out of the spamming business entirely. (That wasn't me, btw.) If you're a spammer and you're behind this attack? Or assisted in it? Or donated money towards it? You should really think about that. You should also seriously consider whether you want to be on the receiving end of one of the multiple lawsuits and arrests which have taken place this year alone. There are only going to be more of them, and exposing yourself so publicly with something as ridiculous as a DDOS attack is only going to make that happen much sooner. You obviously failed to glean this from the previous three years' worth of arrests of other botnet operators.

Also: there are a lot of us. Shutting down one piddly form won't silence us. Shutting down my single blog won't shut down the hundreds or thousands of others out there which are all poised to duplicate the exact same data. One way or another: we will continue to thrive.

We, the recipients of your crap emails for fake drugs and "herbal remedies", are sick of you ignoring our pleas to stop spamming us. If you don't like us researching you, maybe you should find a different line of work.

This attack gives me more time to dig even deeper into some research I hadn't had time to pursue anyway. It's also not stopping any of that forum's members to continue to communicate with each other regarding our ongoing investigations.

I just thought that several of you would probably want to keep all of this in mind.

Also as a followup to my previous posting on bogus Hoodia / Anatrim / whatever the hell they're calling this bullshit product this week: Many of you may be aware that the US's Federal Trade Commission has ordered one Brian McDade and his company Neutraceuticals LLC to stop sending Hoodia spam in the hopes of promoting exactly these provably bogus products. The original complaint makes for some pretty good reading.

COUNT I
False Claims for the Hoodia Products

Through the means described in Paragraphs 18-23 above, Defendants have represented, expressly or by implication, that:
a. the Hoodia Products cause rapid and substantial weight loss, including as much as forty pounds in a month;
b. the Hoodia Products cause users to lose safely three or more pounds per week for multiple weeks;
c. the Hoodia Products cause permanent weight loss; and/or
d. scientific research establishes that the Hoodia Products cause substantial weight loss.

In truth and in fact:
a. the Hoodia Products do not cause rapid and substantial weight loss, including as much as forty pounds in a month;
b. the Hoodia Products do not cause users to lose safely three or more pounds per week for multiple weeks;
c. the Hoodia Products do not cause permanent weight loss; and/or
d. scientific research does not establish that the Hoodia Products cause substantial weight loss.

36. Therefore, Defendants' representations as set forth in Paragraph 34 above are false or misleading and constitute a deceptive practice, and the making of false advertisements, in or affecting commerce...


Couldn't have said it better myself.

Hope the rest of you are also having a splendid day.

SiL / IKS / concerned citizen

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Darn those attacks.

Here's a pdf of much of theCarPCStore.com anti-spam forum as it was on June 17, 2007:

http://www.archive.org/download/Thecarpcstore.comForumArchive1/KsForumSnapshot17-6-07.pdf

Kinda hard to DDoS written texts! Spread the document, mirror it, and
keep a copy! For those of you that have missed the forum, now is a good time to get caught up on it!

Imagine a spam-free world!

AlphaCentauri said...

I'm also having trouble accessing Castlecops.com this morning. We must have really ticked someone off!

Be sure to check out spamtrackers.eu which not only includes the spamwiki but also includes a list of downloads for the spam fighting utilities the spammers don't want you to get.

Map said...

It seems like castlecops is having some trouble, too, at the time I post this its site is not available. I wonder if the attacks are going after castlecops as well. If so, it doesn't surprise me. Continue the rant, SiL! - Thanks, Spaminator, I will take a look at the archived files. Is there a digg URL on this? - I tried a quick search for it with no success.

IKillSpammerz said...

Castlecops was indeed down for a portion of today. I'm also noticing that in my geographic location I cannot get spamhaus.org to load. For a while there this was also true of uribl. Red Dwarf, way out there in New Zealand, has continued to have no issues trying to load either. I'm not sure they're being attacked but I don't understand why they'd suddenly stop loading in specific locations in the world.

Digg apparently doesn't much care about these attacks. Nobody votes for the stories when they are posted, so it's possibly just as well that we just spread the word via other means.

Thanx for the comments folks. Watch for lots more data to show up in a very public fashion soon. :)

SiL

Anonymous said...

I can get to Spamhaus from my location in the Eastern US. Hmm... I check Spamhaus daily and have had little trouble with it loading. Still though, an attack against Spamhaus is not surprising. Spamcop had a maintenance page earlier today Wed 8/29/07 - sounds like spammy is mad and I'm glad.

Anonymous said...

Actually, the spam fighting utilities now have their own website:

http://www.retaliators.net