Swedish ISP Blocks Computers That Send Spam

snuppepuppan writes "One of Sweden's largest ISPs, Telia starts to block computers that send spam. 'The computers that Telia will block are primarily those that have been infected with "trojans" which are being used, without the customer's knowledge, to send enormous amounts of spam.'"

Comments

Good.

[clfrd]

More ISP's should do the same.

Period.

This is a great thing

[the man with the pla]

ISP's taking some level of responsibility for the actions of their subscribers is *tremendously* important. Spam exists because of the complacency of two entities: ISPs that allow (or even sell bandwidth to) spammers to use their networks; and Microsoft, for making it so easy for computers to be enslaved by spammers (sorry I know that's flaimbait, but it's true.)

Re:a great idea

[BrokenHalo]

abuse desks are mostly staffed by the clueless.

That's where they are staffed at all. There are all too many ISPs who appear to be happy to turn a blind eye to this type of activity, in spite of the fact that it costs them money.

Statistical analysis

[Anonymous Coward]

of traffic can easily be used to find and stop spammers. I am amazed that all ISP are not doing this.

This is news? TOS Enforcement is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this news? My local ISP has been doing this for years. It's called "enforcing terms of service" on offending accounts.

Re:Good news!

[piranha(jpl)]

Imagine all ISPs blocking egress port 25 traffic for their DHCP clients ... It is irresponsible for ISPs to operate otherwise

Then they cease to be Internet Service Providers and become Interweb Service Providers. Why should "consumers" be subject to inferior Internet service? Why wouldn't/couldn't an ISP monitor egress port 25 traffic for suspicious spikes? I won't be doing business with ISPs that try pulling stunts like that.

Re:My work's ISP does a variation of this

[NorwBlue]

Actually, I did not wonder why You went with a startup for business. I Used to be Head of Computing in a company that spend around 2 mill $ and when we dropped the biggest computer supplier in Norway for a small startup, guess what : We went from being a ok account in a huge company to being the biggest account in a small company (It more than trippeled its sales). We suddenly got really good service, better prices and every one we called for help/support/service bent backwards for us(when we wanted them to, wich wasn't that often*evil grin of power*) So my advice to everyone managing a net is : don't follow the big fish, but find a place where You ARE the biggest fish. A bit off topic maybe, but if everyone did the same when it came to ISP services, YOU to would have leverage if you wanted your ISP to implement something similar.

Re:a great idea

[Keith_Beef]

There are all too many ISPs who appear to be happy to turn a blind eye to this type of activity, in spite of the fact that it costs them money.

Well, in France, many ISPs have premium rate phone numbers for the helpdesk. So, if you're on a dial-up connection, the ISP makes money hand-over-fist! First, you pay to download the spam (because the ISP doesn't block it). Then you pay for the pleasure of listening to 10 minutes of vivaldi's Four Seasons, before explaining to helpdesker No.1, who then passes you on to helpdesker No.2, who wants all the same details again... you get the picture. Finally, if you manage to get any help at all, you'll be sent an e-mail with a 650KByte MS Word attachment, with details of how to set up spam filtering *on your home computer*, so as to filter out spam *after you've downloaded it* Stupid, those ISPs? No, they have a profitable, if immoral, business model. Keith.