My report on the misadventure with dotcomavenue.com was becoming diluted with the chronicle of my "Joe job," so on August 17, 2003, I started this "Joe job" page and moved that material from the dotcomavenue report to this page.
July 4,
2003
33) Apparently on July 2, someone sent a spam
email message to an apparently very large mailing list. The spam is spoofed
to appear as originating with this site's email address. The spam offers to host
the recipients' bulk email (spam) operation, and invites the recipients to email
this site's address for additional information.
As of the morning of July 5, something approaching 10,000 bounce messages have
been received here indicating non-delivery of this spoofed spam message.
Depending on the quality of the mailing list used by the vandal, a very large
number of people worldwide has been inconvenienced by this vandalism.
Aside from sheer malice, there are at least three motivations for such an
action:
 |
denial of email service (by the practical impossibility of culling legitimate from junk email due to volume, and this site lands in many spam filters, either of which may force deletion of the account) |
|
denial of web site update capability (web space is shared with email) |
|
creation of ill will (I appear to be badmouthing DotComAvenue to drum up business). |
Though this is the work of a vandal, apologies to anyone who was inconvenienced by this vandalism.
July 6, 2003
34) The continuous barrage of bounce messages having effectively shut down email
service, an alternate email address was established. Within a very short time
the second address was similarly assaulted, leaving this site with no reliable
email contact. If you'd like to establish contact, place the code string that
follows into the body of your email to dotcomavenuevictim2@cox.net,
and with any luck I can filter it out of the noise. The code string I'll look
for is: RipOffTipOff.
July 8, 2003
35) The code string supposed to distinguish legitimate email from the flood of
bounce, auto-response and "please don't spam me" messages has been
compromised by its inclusion in the text of a new version of the spoofed spam,
meaning that most of the bounce messages now include the code string, rendering
it useless.
You win Ace.
July 12, 2003: New
Email Filter Rule
36)
|
|
|
|
Any email not containing the above in the Subject line will, unfortunately, be deleted. Depending on whether or not this works, it may be deleted anyway. Sorry, but I don't think the sorry criminal responsible for this distributed denial of email service attack really cares if anybody reads the forged spams; rather, I think the intent is simply to flood our email boxes with bounce messages, auto-responses and pleas from victims not to be spammed in order to deny us the email service. The expectation, therefore, is for the vandals to generate new versions of the spoofed spam with the subject line amended as above.
July 15, 2003: Further Vandalism
37) My vandal has attacked two other email addresses of mine (sending out spam spoofed to appear as coming from them). Vandal has also replaced the "more information" line in the body of his spam with my home phone number, indicating 24 hour coverage.
August 14, 2003: Even More Vandalism - "Spam Friendly Mailbox" offering
38) Recently there has been another spoofed spam circulating. This one just says to call my home phone number and leave a message with full details if interested in a spam friendly mailbox. Here you can see it for yourself, posted by someone who received it.
There are technical solutions to these problems, but the force of law will probably be required to force the issue. Contact your government representatives and urge them to back legislation to force a technical solution to the problem of internet abuse before email becomes completely useless as a consequence of the spiral of spam and spam blocking. There ARE technical approaches to the problem.
I plan to split this site into two, one about the scamming ways of dotcomavenue.com, and another to chronicle what's been happening with this distributed denial of email service attack. Check back from time to time.