US anti-spam web pages shut down by attacks

Three web sites that provide spam blocking lists have shut down as a result of crippling Internet attacks in what experts on Thursday said is an escalation in the war between spammers and opponents of unsolicited e-mails. Anti-spam experts said they think spammers are behind the attacks, although they have no way of proving it. The technological war comes as Congress considers a federal anti-spam law and California adopts the toughest law in the country. The California law allows people to sue spammers for $1,000 per unsolicited e-mail and up to $1 million for a spam campaign.

Anti-spam advocates maintain hundreds of

spam block or ‘black hole’ lists, which are web sites with lists of the numerical Internet protocol addresses of specific computers or e-mail servers that are unsecure or known sources of spam. Network administrators and Net service providers consult the lists and block e-mails coming from those computers as part of spam filtering techniques.