[Mimedefang] Phishing Question

[John Nemeth]

On Aug 27,  5:47am, WBrown at e1b.org wrote:
} mimedefang-bounces at lists.roaringpenguin.com wrote on 04/06/2006 10:45:39 
} AM:
} 
} > Not that I would necessarily condone this type of activity, but with the
} > amount of spam/spyware/adware/phishing attempts I see in a day, wouldn't
} > be a really interesting project to do something like this?  Set up a 
} > database somewhere that had all of the current phishing websites 
} > locations and the form fields asking for input.  Then, create a network 
} > of computers like SETI, where nice home users run a program on their 
} > computer that will take idle cycles and put false usernames and 
} > passwords to these sites.  If enough people participated, the data 
} > collected by the phishers would be so bad, noone would ever buy it. 
} > Noone could possibly verify every entry, either.
} 
} You'd probably be taking out (somewhat) innocent third parties.  Most of 
} the phishing web sites are on legit servers that have been compromised.  I 
} guess you could argue that they deserve it for not securing their servers, 
} but I doubt the owner would feel that way when their business just dies. 
} That would bring in the lawyers, and once that happens nobody wins (except 
} those that bill by the hour).

     The flip side to this is that the day when people are held
responsible for not securing their servers and allowing them to be used
to attack others is probably not very far off.  I can see this be
similar to "attractive nuisance" laws.

}-- End of excerpt from WBrown at e1b.org