Blue security run a service whereby you can list 3 of your email addresses within their "do not include registry" then responsible companies who use agencies to target bulk email campaigns can ensure the companies they use check the database and do not send un solicited email to these addresses. Sounds great in a utopian way but we all know that sometimes the carrot isn't enough and you also need a stick an that's where the online blue frog is very similar to its amphibian brother.

The Blue frog community (currently 15,000 users) all run the blue frog agent, this small application does not monitor your email or interact with any other PC programmes, it is not a Spam filter as such. Instead its purpose is the stick in Blue Securities war on Spam, the little frog icon is normally blue and smiling, but every so often he's wearing a mask of Zorro. This indicates that he and many others are submitting complaints directly to the spammers.

This is how blue frog stops the Spam, spammers who are identified by the community are first warned that they need to stop this behaviour and then they are hit by complaints before the full force of the frog agents is unleashed on them. This is targeted at the links found in the Spam emails, the agents fill in forms (order forms and others) with the complaint message asking them to stop spamming, this over whelms the spammers sites and hits them where it hurts, in the pocket!

In this respect its not dissimilar to the "make love not Spam" screensaver run by Lycos, this was shutdown quickly as it wiped out servers entirely and lost support, Blue security the Israeli firm behind the frog manage the complaints to form a steady but manageable stream targeted at the offending sites. Not enough to obliterate them but making it almost impossible to find any real orders amongst the many blue community complaints.

You may be concerned that spammers may just take the "do not include register" and use it as a directory of live addresses, but our little blue frog is wise to this and for everyone of the 3 addresses you submit it creates many honey pot accounts thus making finding the real addresses impossible and a commercial liability. That's the weird thing we think of spammers as wasters but really its a commercial operation on a grand scale with as few as 30 individuals or companies responsible for 90% of all the worldwide Spam.

While governments may try to legislate and others may try to filter we can only go on the results of our little blue froggy friend and although not dramatic we've seen a tail off of Spam over the last 3 weeks, there is still some and we submit it back to the Blue Frog so that maybe our spammers may be the target of the next campaign.

At present the system is in Beta and running campaigns of complaint against around 12 websites, they hope to get upwards of 250,000 users and the service will become chargeable when it goes fully live, get in now in the free beta and you'll get the service free in the future too.

What ever your views on this kind of vigilantism it seems to get better results than anything else we've tried, given the choice of 200+ Spam filters and still getting offers of performance enhancing dugs or a small blue Spam busting from, we're sticking with our coloured friend.

Update - Sadly Blue Security stopped its service after so much success that the spammers mounted an all out denial of service attack on the Israeli company and they took the decision to close rather than fight.

Published - 03/08/2005

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