Using tarpits to trap spammers
TAR TANGLE
A tarpit slows down spam by reducing the effectiveness of the spammer’s weapons.
Many email addresses appear on the web, and spammers employ harvester applications to collect those addresses for future mailings. Some victims fight back with a tool called a tarpit. A tarpit is an automatically-generated website that baits a harvester with a complex tangle of meaningless URLs. The longer you can pull the wool over the harvester’s eyes, the longer the list of tarpitted addresses will become. Under ideal circumstances, the harvester would end up with a list full of tarpitted links. To allow this to happen, the bait site must publish more links to itself than an average website. I ran a mini spider I developed myself against 23,000 pages and determined that each page had an average of 6.4 new links. The typical tarpit may publish 20 new links per page - three times the average value. Every round adds to the number of tarpitted links in the harvester’s list of sites.
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
News
-
The 14" Pinebook Pro Linux Laptop is Shipping
After a considerable delay, the 14" version of the Pinebook Pro laptop is, once again, available for purchase.
-
OpenMandriva Lx ROME Technical Preview Released
OpenMandriva’s rolling release distribution technical preview has been released for testing purposes and adds some of the latest/greatest software into the mix.
-
Linux Mint 21 is Now Available
The latest iteration of Linux Mint, codenamed Vanessa, has been released with a new upgrade tool and other fantastic features.
-
Firefox Adds Long-Anticipated Feature
Firefox 103 has arrived and it now includes a feature users have long awaited…sort of.
-
System76 Refreshes Their Popular Oryx Pro Laptop with a New CPU
The System76 Oryx Pro laptop has been relaunched with a 12th Gen CPU and more powerful graphics options.
-
Elive Has Released a New Beta
The Elive team is proud to announce the latest beta version (3.8.30) of its Enlightenment-centric Linux distribution.
-
Rocky Linux 9 Has Arrived
The latest iteration of Rocky Linux is now available and includes a host of new features and support for new architecture.
-
Slimbook Executive Linux Ultrabook Upgrading Their CPUs
The Spanish-based company, Slimbook, has made available their next generation Slimbook Executive Linux ultrabooks with a 12th Gen Intel Alder Lake CPU.
-
Fedora Linux is Coming to the Raspberry Pi 4
Thanks to significant work in the upstream, the upcoming release of Fedora 37 will introduce support for the Raspberry Pi 4.
-
New Linux Ultrabook from TUXEDO Computers
TUXEDO Computers has released a new 15" Ultrabook running Linux.