A spam fighter sings the blues

Antispam software provider Blue Security threw in the towel this week, following denial-of-service attacks on the company and its partners.

The problems began after Blue Security asked its customers to send replies to the spam they received. The idea was to overload spammers' servers and shut down their ability to send e-mail. The plan was successful at first.

But the spammers retaliated by launching an attack on the company that was so intense it shut down multiple Web sites and service providers.

A spokeswoman for Blue Security said that the company "didn't want to take the risk that these other businesses would come under attack" and so was giving up the fight.

Blog community response:

"What's interesting to me is that the email spammers were seeing enough of an impact that they decided to attack Blue Security."
--Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO

"As skeptical as we were over Blue Security's original model, and the risks it entailed, this still seems like bad news. It certainly will embolden spam attackers to hit hard at anyone who takes them on. In the end, perhaps that was the worst legacy of Blue Security's system: it simply escalated the war with spammers to new, unfortunate, levels."
--Techdirt

"Say it isn't so. With more than 50 percent of email being spam, we will be hard pressed to win this fight, I know I get tired of creating filters and rules, it's just easier to create a new email address and start over, especially if you have your own domain name."
--RealTechNews