Oh, The Poor Dears

The BBC is wringing its hands over the new screen saver put out by Lycos Europe that bombards the servers of a select few spammers with hundreds of data requests. Much like Brian Micklethwait I too am confused by the upset tone of the article. It would seem that two of the servers have gone down completely, and a third is struggling to keep up with the hits. From what I have seen of the BBC, they tend to be pretty hostile to business concerns. Maybe its that it is people taking power into their own hands. As to the argument:

"If you do manage to swamp the spammers then you set yourself up for more attacks in return," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at anti-virus firm Sophos.

We all know the love of the BBC for decrying anything that looks "pre-emptive", but that is hardly the case here. The invasion of the inboxes has already occurred. This is nothing more than a massive retaliatory strike. Feels good, doesn't it?