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Out of the ashes comes Black Frog, part of a project that is apparently willing to become a flag bearer in the fight against spam. The project, dubbed Okopipi, is developing the Black Frog antispam software as an open-source project, according to the group's wiki.

"This project aims to become a distributed replacement of antispam software Blue Frog," the Okopipi wiki states. The project merges two separate efforts--Okopipi and Black Frog--that arose after the demise of Blue Frog.

Okopipi's battle plan is to avoid depending on a centralized server, creating a target too big to be taken out by a single DOS attack.

"It will be based on a P2P network (the frognet)," according to a posting on the wiki. "On failure to connect, it could still opt out given e-mail addresses."

"Only the Okopipi administrators will know their locations," the group said on its wiki. This should make a DOS attack "very difficult," it said.

The Okopipi wiki said that the Black Frog software will set participants' systems to automatically click the "opt-out" or "unsubscribe" links contained within spam--sending a response to the mailers. The software is still being developed.