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Blue Frog
Blue Frog was a freely-licensed anti-spam tool produced by Blue Security Inc. and operated as part of a community-based system which tried to persuade spammers to remove community members' addresses from their mailing lists by automating the complaint process for each user as spam is received. Blue Security maintained these addresses in a hashed form in a Do Not Intrude Registry, and spammers could use free tools to clean their lists. The tool was discontinued in 2006.
Community members reported their spam to Blue Security, which analyzed it to make sure it met their guidelines. Then, they reported sites sending illegal spam to the ISPs which hosted them (if they could be contacted and were willing to work with them), to other anti-spam groups, and to law-enforcement authorities in an attempt to get the spammer to cease and desist. If these measures failed, Blue Security will send back a set of instructions to a Blue Frog client. The client software will use these instructions to visit and leave complaints on the websites advertised by the spam messages. For each spam message a user received, their Blue Frog client would leave one generic complaint, including instructions on how to remove all Blue Security users from future mailings. Blue Security operated on the assumption that as the community grew, the flow of complaints from tens or hundreds of thousands of computers would apply enough pressure on spammers and their clients to convince them to stop spamming members of the Blue Security community.
The Blue Frog software included a Firefox and Internet Explorer plugin allowing Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo! Mail e-mail users to report their spam automatically. Users could also report spam from desktop email applications such as Microsoft Office Outlook, Outlook Express and Mozilla Thunderbird.
Users who downloaded the free Blue Frog software registered their e-mail addresses in the "Do Not Intrude" registry. Each user could protect ten addresses and one personal DNS domain name.
Blue Frog was available as a free add-on within the Firetrust Mailwasher anti-spam filter. It was also compatible with SpamCop, a tool with different spam-fighting methods.
Blue Security released all its software products (including Blue Frog) as open-source: the developer community could review, modify, or enhance them.
On May 1, 2006, Blue Frog members started to receive intimidating e-mail messages from sources claiming that the software was actually collecting personal details for identity theft, DDoS attacks, creating a spam database, and other such purposes. Blue Security has contested these claims.
One variant of the e-mailed message stated that spammers had found a way to extract addresses from the database for malicious purposes. Due to how the Blue Security software works, this is not possible; however, spammers can identify BlueFrog member e-mail addresses in lists they already possess. Blue Security provides spammers a free tool that allows them to "clean their lists". Extracting addresses directly from the program would be impossible as they are just hashes, but a spammer can run a list through the BlueSecurity filter and then compare the results with an unaltered list, and thus identify BlueSecurity users and target them. This method can only identify Blue Frog addresses already in the spammer's possession, and cannot give them access to as-yet-untargeted addresses.
Hub AI
Blue Frog AI simulator
(@Blue Frog_simulator)
Blue Frog
Blue Frog was a freely-licensed anti-spam tool produced by Blue Security Inc. and operated as part of a community-based system which tried to persuade spammers to remove community members' addresses from their mailing lists by automating the complaint process for each user as spam is received. Blue Security maintained these addresses in a hashed form in a Do Not Intrude Registry, and spammers could use free tools to clean their lists. The tool was discontinued in 2006.
Community members reported their spam to Blue Security, which analyzed it to make sure it met their guidelines. Then, they reported sites sending illegal spam to the ISPs which hosted them (if they could be contacted and were willing to work with them), to other anti-spam groups, and to law-enforcement authorities in an attempt to get the spammer to cease and desist. If these measures failed, Blue Security will send back a set of instructions to a Blue Frog client. The client software will use these instructions to visit and leave complaints on the websites advertised by the spam messages. For each spam message a user received, their Blue Frog client would leave one generic complaint, including instructions on how to remove all Blue Security users from future mailings. Blue Security operated on the assumption that as the community grew, the flow of complaints from tens or hundreds of thousands of computers would apply enough pressure on spammers and their clients to convince them to stop spamming members of the Blue Security community.
The Blue Frog software included a Firefox and Internet Explorer plugin allowing Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo! Mail e-mail users to report their spam automatically. Users could also report spam from desktop email applications such as Microsoft Office Outlook, Outlook Express and Mozilla Thunderbird.
Users who downloaded the free Blue Frog software registered their e-mail addresses in the "Do Not Intrude" registry. Each user could protect ten addresses and one personal DNS domain name.
Blue Frog was available as a free add-on within the Firetrust Mailwasher anti-spam filter. It was also compatible with SpamCop, a tool with different spam-fighting methods.
Blue Security released all its software products (including Blue Frog) as open-source: the developer community could review, modify, or enhance them.
On May 1, 2006, Blue Frog members started to receive intimidating e-mail messages from sources claiming that the software was actually collecting personal details for identity theft, DDoS attacks, creating a spam database, and other such purposes. Blue Security has contested these claims.
One variant of the e-mailed message stated that spammers had found a way to extract addresses from the database for malicious purposes. Due to how the Blue Security software works, this is not possible; however, spammers can identify BlueFrog member e-mail addresses in lists they already possess. Blue Security provides spammers a free tool that allows them to "clean their lists". Extracting addresses directly from the program would be impossible as they are just hashes, but a spammer can run a list through the BlueSecurity filter and then compare the results with an unaltered list, and thus identify BlueSecurity users and target them. This method can only identify Blue Frog addresses already in the spammer's possession, and cannot give them access to as-yet-untargeted addresses.