Spam war can hide another more difficult to handle

A Spam War has been declared against an Israeli Security Startup: BlueSecurity. They claim they handle spam by attacking back Spammers who have been identified by the help of a community of users complaining they received spam.

Millions of Spams have been issued and not handled correctly. It has also affected typepad plateforms and even lead to a shut down of service for a little while.

So the blogosphere has of course talked about it. A lot. And BlueSecurity has suddenly become one of the hottest request lately

I think this war is hidding another BlueSecurity is totally missing for now. The communication war.

A company cannot stay quiet in front of a angry blogosphere. Many A-listers are mentionned Blue Security in a negative way and they (BlueSecurity) should take the lead in communication explaining clearly what is going on and how they will react. For example by using smartly their blog (which is down right now! see below) or by identifying opinion leaders and start communicating them or post comments. Or by using their news section which for now do not say anything at all. And this is definitely not enough at all. In a word handle crisis Management

Spam is all about bad communication and therefore war on Spam assumes handling war on Communication. Like Daniel i think that Anti-Spam war is a hard one. But for me the second is the most difficult and at least as important.

BlueSecurity got here a fantastic un-sollicited exposure. They should use it. Better.

updates 07/05/06:

• it this is true this is a nightmare scenario for BlueSecurity
• OM malik is reporting this was operated through ICQ my ex company (fantastic) by potential Russian Spammers

 

tags technorati : spam bluesecurity spammers communication crisis

Comments

[Pallab De]

Blue security isnt staying quite. The CEO has spoken out.
Here you go :

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20060504006094&newsLang=en

Also if you browse their site via google cache you will get answers to most of your question.

However, obviously they are busy now trying to find a way to handle the attacks that are being carried out by the spammer. The attack was on the Internet backbone itself.

[ouriel]

i saw that indeed. what i am saying is that they should invest as much effort in communication right now as in fighting.

[m]

Blue are the only ones providing a real solution to fight back against the spam mafia (because that's what it is, organised crime).
Unlike Microsoft and so many other other companies offering fake-solutions, Blue at least fights back AND hurts spammers badly. So badly that they forced major ISP's and about 9000 servers to go down.
People with that kind of power on the net aren't just highschool students in a basement earning an extra buck. These are business guys, working for the Mafia, forcing millions of people to read their spam. Blue needs our support, even if they make mistakes, they need it, because they are the only ones taking the fight back to the spammers themselves.

[Delgado]

I think you are going to find a lot of us have become bored with the carping response to Blue Security. Finally here is an organisation that has taken decisive action against the filthy vermin who fill our mailboxes with trash and scams. The only reason Blue Security have to provide this service is due to the complete abdication of responsibility by a smug and complacent industry. It is an industry that won't do anything other than chat chat chat and then arrange for more chat. We've had enough of it. Spammers are vermin and it's good to see someone finally treating them like vermin. Blue Security have my complete support.

As for "investing as much effort in communication", all other things being equal I'd be inclined to agree. That said, the attack on Blue Security is of such a magnitude there are other priorities in the short term. For the time being I would much rather they continued applying their resources towards a full resumption of the service.

[BadMan]

The real problem is with the operating systems and Internet browsers provided by Microsoft. If their software was more security oriented, there would be no spam. It's the software that makes it easy for the spammers to get our e-mail addresses. The root problem is with Microsoft. They leave the door to the vault open, and then ask what happend to all the money. Blue Security, keep going! Take down the spam servers and send them all to Hell.

[Florian SEROUSSI]

I keep on receiving emails from BlueSecurity hackers. I trusted BlueSecurity to protect me against spam, it ends out now that I am being over spammed. Moreover it seems they use my email address to spam...

[DieSpam]

This is a war, and the attack by PharmaBastard should be a call to arms to anyone not fully engaged. Your inboxes are getting filled with spam now, but it's a small price to pay for future peace and quiet.