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Was the Ron Paul botnet attack a dirty trick?
71 comments- IT TOPICS:Government & Regulation, Internet, Networking, Security
In a recent blog, I wrote about about spam-spewing robots sending out spam in support of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. That spam has caused his campaign nothing but grief. Could it be a political dirty trick by an opponent's supporters?
Some new information has come to light since the original revelation. It appears that there were two types of spam. One type contained Paul's standard political pitch --- to read it, check out this blog from dslreport.com.
The other type contained links to videos about Ron Paul on YouTube. And this is where it's hurt the campaign. The McAfee Avert Labs Blog, run by security vendor McAfee, notes that YouTube took down Ron Paul videos because spam linked to them, in keeping with standard YouTube practice, which takes down links if they're related to spam. That clearly hurts the campaign.
The bad press hurts the campaign as well, because the University of Alabama, McAfee, and security vendor BitDefender have all issued reports on the spam. The press has reported on it widely.
There's no way to know who launched the botnet attack. Certainly, Ron Paul's opponents are gaining from it. On the other hand, you can't rule out a misguided supporter doing it on his own, either.
My favorite comment about it comes from the McAfee Avert Labs Blog. Someone, commenting on the attack, wrote this: "This is either a toxic attack from another campaign -- similar things have happened already -- or it’s a complete imbecile."
I couldn't have said it any better. Given that it's political season, expect more toxic attacks....and more complete imbeciles as well, on all sides.
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