Re: I'm being subjected to a DOS attack...

On Sat, 20 Sep 2003 14:13:06 +1000, "Howard J. Rogers" <howardjr2000_at_yahoo.com.au> wrote:

>Well, the title might be a bit dramatic, and I imagine it's happening to
>others as well, but in the last 48 hours, my yahoo mailbox has been filling
>every 2 hours with 'Would you like to install this Microsoft Patch (a.k.a a
>virus)' mails. They are about 150K each, and within 2 hours, my mailbox is
>full.
>
>I've had a few before now, but nothing like this sustained onslaught.

 Haven't been getting any in my Yahoo box, but my main email address has been utterly flooded with them. They jumped from maybe 2-3 a day previously, to the point where I received over 1,000 of them yesterday.

 Been forced to put up a draconian filter that deletes outright anything with an executable attachment until this clears up a bit.

>Basically, if you are trying to reach me, please try
>aldeburgh<removemebecauseI'mnotwanted>@optusnet.com.au at least for a few
>days (I don't check it often usually).
>
>I feel the death of howardjr2000_at_yahoo.com.au coming on.

 These things usually reach a peak them die down again as virus scanners and email filters catch up; have you hit the 'This is spam' option in the Yahoo webmail? That reports it to Yahoo, hopefully they'll then update their filter.

 No doubt the damage already done runs in the millions (people's time, bandwidth, storage, dental costs from gnashing of teeth in frustration).

>Come on guys: it can't be *that* hard to pass 212 pieces of legislation and
>make it illegal in every country on the face of the planet!

 Since this is a virus, it probably is illegal to have written it in most countries that have computer crime laws. But that's only going to make a difference if the author is ever caught - the worm's still out there, and arresting the author won't turn it off.

 Should it also be illegal to have released the software that's vulnerable to the virus in the first place? Illegal to be running a mail server that passes it on? Illegal to be running a computer without the patches that would remove the vulnerability (once, or if, they're released)? Even so, that'd still just be reactive following the damage (and largely unimplementable).

 The email system needs fixing - somehow. Easier said than done.

--
Andy Hassall (andy@andyh.co.uk) icq(5747695) (http://www.andyh.co.uk)
Space: disk usage analysis tool (http://www.andyhsoftware.co.uk/space)