Broadband Access Leading to Internet Breakdown?

TwistedSpring asks: "As bandwidth costs become cheaper and more people adopt cable or DSL over standard dial-up connections, the time it takes to distribute worms and other unwanted or malicious material (read: spam) across the Internet decreases. After noting the current surge in Internet worms and the so-called Darwinist evolution of these things into more and more powerful incarnations, I wonder: will the proliferation of broadband Internet access deal a serious blow to current freedoms on the Internet?"

"Spam, adware, worms and viruses are now able to propagate much faster than ever before. Worms are also growing bigger, more advanced, as it's possible to transfer more viral code in less time. It's as if slow dial-up lines acted as a kind of immune system that prevented effective propagation of worms and made DDoS attacks so much less significant.

I'm not only worried about viruses and spam levels. Part of the reason the MPAA and RIAA are taking such an interest in Internet activity is that file sharing has become so much easier with the availability of broadband, and as usual there are murmerings of regulation. Before the broadband revolution, the involvement of the MPAA and RIAA in Internet affairs was small, and their argument was less convincing.

As broadband grows, will regulation become necessary not just to prevent illegal distribution of copyrighted material but more likely to protect Internet users from themselves (we're already seeing ISPs adding spam e-mail filtering to their default services, for example)? Will the Internet fall in popularity as it becomes more and more frustrating and dangerous to use, or will we simply see a massive improvement in coding practices and more secure software?"

Comments

We are all here, aren't we?

[ObviousGuy]

The web is in danger of nothing. More importantly, the Internet is more important to commerce than ever before.

Unless a large, physical attack on the wires carrying all this data occurs, everything is pretty much A-OK.

Re:We are all here, aren't we?

[z0ink]

Actually, a few smaller attacks could be more damaging. Imagine if the location of NOC's across the US were exposed and attacks were carried out on them. Goodbye internet, hello 404 (if you're lucky enough to have a dns to attempt resolving domains).

Depends on your definitions

[dartmouth05]

I suppose it depends on how you define the current freedom. I don't believe that it is going to lead to increased censorship. I don't believe it is going to lead to increased tracking or monitoring (although certainly other things, like the recent FBI/DOJ request for increased wiretapping ability may do just that).

I think that it will lead to increased filtering on the ISP side of things. More ISPs will be using Spam Assasin and similar programs behind the scenes. Undoubtedly, some legitimate e-mails will be caught by these SPAM traps, and the end-user might not have access to them.

Personally, since Dartmouth College starting running virus scanners and SPAM filters and the like, I constantly get e-mails where the "suspicious" file was automatically removed, and although most of those removals were viruses, I also lose legitimate files that are sent to me. As an end-user, I don't have access to change the settings or tell the system that a file is, in fact, OK. Instead, I have to e-mail the person back and ask them to resend the file to my AOL account.

I suspect that as more people use cable and DSL and the malware increases, this behind-the-scene tinkering will increase.

A serious blow to current freedoms on the Internet? I'm not sure. A pain in the ass? Absolutely.

Re:Depends on your definitions

[MagicDude]

Slightly offtopic, but I always wondered if it wouldn't be a better idea for virus checkers not necessarily to delete all viruses. Certainly, there are known viruses out there it could delete, but there are also files that the virus software has to make a judgement call on some file it has never seen before. Thus sometimes it ends up deleting useful files. Couldn't the software merely add a large red "WARNING - WE THINK THIS FILE IS A VIRUS. DON'T OPEN IT UNLESS YOU KNOW ARE EXPECTING THIS FILE AND KNOW WHAT IT IS" at the beginning of the E-Mail text so you know that something out there wants to make sure that you're being careful about this file?

Freedom? its a paradox

[jeffmeden]

99% of the people you ask would say not having broadband would be the biggest blow to their freedom on the internet... unfortunately we have to take the good with the bad, or start kicking people off the net...

Film at 11...

[douglips]

Imminent death of net predicted.

Is the problem the "how" or the "with what"

[MrChuck]

As I see it, it's that the users are using Windows, not that they are coming in high speed.

While unix boxes went through 25 years (since ARPA contracted UCBerkeley to make this "TCP" thingy) of evolution on networks that were, in retrospect, pretty safe.

The Morris Worm in '88 woke a lot of us up, but we've known for decades about "doors" and "locks" and such.

Windows is/was/and will be a consumer operating systems whose main impetus is features to push sales. Security hasn't appeared to be on their radar screen except as a check box ("did you think about security?" Um, yeah. "Good enough for us. Ship it").

I'm getting hammered by spam and worms and EVERYTIME I nmap back to the sender (okay 0.001% of senders, randomly chosen as I get pissed off), it's a windows box.

I love broadband.

I love VOIP to mom and video and streaming stuff to relatives (all legal)

I hate the bad neighbors running windows. The metaphorical slaughterhouse next door.

Nonsense...

[bobbyque]

How could you make a case to go back to dial-up? How about ditching your phone and just using snail mail? I have difficulty seeing how faster communication is ever bad. Not perfect, certainly, and the flaws need work, but the the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

I work for an ISP...

[grioghar]

...And every little old lady that comes in and purchases a DSL circuit for email makes me cringe.

All I can think is that she's just another virus infection waiting to happen on my network.

For some, it's senseless and stupid to have a broadband connection. I mean, my bread and butter requires that people DO have a DSL circuit, but there's no sense of responsibility with their internet connection.

People bitch all the time about spam, and how to get rid of it. That same person comes in and has a SMTP relay cleaned off their system a month later. They can complain about it, but they don't realize they're part of the problem as well.

Then there are those that come in and tell me to my face "Bah, I don't care if I have a virus, it just makes things a little slower." Those people piss me off the most. Those same people get pissed when I shut their connections off because they're sending out 20 messages/second, drowing their outbound pipe.

I swear. Sometimes I think owning a computer should require a license.

Re:I work for an ISP...

[mmurphy000]

For some, it's senseless and stupid to have a broadband connection. I mean, my bread and butter requires that people DO have a DSL circuit, but there's no sense of responsibility with their internet connection. People bitch all the time about spam, and how to get rid of it. That same person comes in and has a SMTP relay cleaned off their system a month later. They can complain about it, but they don't realize they're part of the problem as well.

I've been amazed that more ISPs don't bundle some sort of hardware firewall, like a SOHO router/NAT box, with their service. It would appear to be in their own interests to promote the use of those things, as they'd help slow the propogation of worms a fair bit. Larger ISPs should be able to get them for dirt cheap, as there isn't much more to one of those routers than there is in a cable or DSL modem.

Now, I know, NAT isn't perfect and causes problems -- I run into a fair amount of "d'oh" moments myself when I want to do something, like BitTorrent, and my port isn't open. But, for "little old ladies" and the like, you'd think it'd be a net benefit to the ISP to distribute the firewalls.

Any ideas, besides hardware cost and "how do I set this up" support costs, why ISPs don't do this more?

My Take...

[ItMustBeEsoteric]

I work at a local mom and pop computer store, and it seems like somewhere around half of all PCs brought in with problems stem from broadband used improperly.

We had one guy come in, who had always-on Comcast cable, the same provider I use myself. He had bought a PC from us roughly 2 weeks before, and was hell bent that the "piece of shit" we sold him was to blame. Of course, no antivirus, no firewall, AOL for broadband added...so much spyware. That AdAware count was, I kid you not, 3,250 or so.

As a person who has to deal with people like this quite often, it's not hard for me to see the side of an ISP who would LIKE to impose restrictions. There is also part of me who wouldn't be against it. As much as I would like unfettered access, I know most people (those on /. aside) can't deal with it. They destroy the usuability of their PCs with it.

So I have mixed feelings on all this. What would I like to see? You have no fetters, at first. Then, you start acting as a spam relay or something, you get restrictions (I know, this happens, and I applaud for it). You act as a waypoint to spread viri and trojans, cut back another notch. And so on. This should all be spelled out in the license agreement, but I think it's nearing necessary.

Internet usage is not a RIGHT. It's a PRIVILEDGE. And it's one you should have to be responsible to keep.

Re:My Take...

[grioghar]

Internet usage is not a RIGHT. It's a PRIVILEDGE. And it's one you should have to be responsible to keep.

Word, brother. I love it when people come in and bitch about how slow their new computer is that they just bought from us a month ago.

I smile, nod, and ask them to bring it in, usually to scoffs. They get the machine here, I fire it up, and there's Gator, WeatherBug, DateManager, Kazaa, iMesh, etc.

I smile, nod, and tell them it's going to be $65 (our hourly in-shop rate) for me to clean it up because their problem is a software one. Either that, or I can restore their machine back to the way it was when they bought it for free.

As much of a BOFH that makes me sound, I get pleasure out of the looks on their face when torn between their ignorance and their wallet.

Worse part is, they could do the same thing I'm gonna do for free at home if they had a clue.

Like they say, you get paid for what you know, and pay for what you don't know...

Connection?

[ADRA]

I don't know about you all, but if you have an open node in the net you WILL be owned on 56K or broadband. The virus might -spread- faster, but it won't destabilize the long term growth of the net.

You'll be surprised at how fast ISP's implement manditory transparent virus/worm filering if the problem ever reaches the levels that you're implying. 2/4 ISP's that I've dealt with filtered back orifice without notifying customers.

Question:
Would anyone mind spending $2/month extra for an ISP to implement manditory WORM/Virus filters? If you want to play with them, use your LAN! This would solve all the worlds hunger problems!!!

TOS reflect interesting trends

[RLiegh]

I have mediacom cable internet. Quite fast but if DSL was here, I'd consider taking it. Why? because mediacom does not allow servers.

Reading through thier various offers is interesting. Not only do they not want home users to run servers, but they even want to limit servers to certain business users, too.

In my opinion, this is going to lead to less people offering content on the web, as the bandwidth becomes more restrictive, and your choices decrease down to a few broadband options.This is in direct contrast to the mid-90's promise of the net where it was seen that anyone would be able to put up any thing.

I feel very sad, myself: I pay boupcoup bucks for a good connection (at least, compared to dialup) but I can't do jack shit with it (at least I can't do 2/3rds of what any healthy geek would want). Barely seems worth it.

Re:fix mail

[MrChuck]

Except for all the other threats.

More of consequence in my mind are the MILLIONS of machines acting as bots for a DDOS attack. It's less spam (spam is bad, m'kay?) than the ENOURMOUS connection points that are running and spreading viruses that can harm me.

My house has been Windows-free since it was on the Internet (1983 or so). When I helped remove a rootkit from a brother of a friends linux box (again, a nat box woulda done wonders), he looked at my rack with ~9 working machines (the others are elsewhere) and asked which windows *I* ran. I looked at the SGI, Sun, NeXTs, Alpha and couple Intel boxes and said, "none. But I have a linux box to play games on."

My systems are generally fine until 5000 windows boxes running worms wake up and decide to visit and visit and visit until my bandwidth is used up.

Spam annoying as hell.
Viruses dangerous to everyone around.

A good reason to use encryption

[MacDork]

If your messages are encrypted, then you don't have to worry about automated programs kicking them for their content or attachments. That will be up to the decrypting party. I pity the ISP that starts blocking messages because they are encrypted.

Learn how to cryptographically sign your mail on Mac OS X 10.3

Broadband access vs. human global mobility

[Noco]

This idea of broadband access creating a "breeding ground" for new malicious code as well as allowing the code to be spread more rapidly and universally seems to parrallel the problems that have been facing public health officials for the last century.

With the increase in human mobility due to cars, trains, planes, etc. more people can come in contact from disparate places more rapidly and more often. This has resulted in once isolated diseases with limited scope becoming important health concerns. SARS is a prime example. Toronto became an infected city, though thousands of miles away from the epicenter. Yet we develop technology to aid in the detection and treatment of diseases. We don't, though, regulate people's movement. Temporarily there might be economic forces that isolate areas (i.e. airline travel stops due to lack of demand) but such effedts are temporary.

I don't see a need to necessarily worry that broadband access's negative effects will trigger overregulation. Instead, I think that systems will be developed that mimic biologic systems. Oftentimes, evolution has produced solutions to complex problems in very elegant ways that we could not have developed using traditional methods.

*Internet* breaking down?

[Jugalator]

Are you sure about that? I thought it was signs of some *software* breaking down. Keep in mind that the vast majority of regular users who doesn't have much insight in security are coincidentally also using one of the least secure operating systems with Internet access.

Maybe the inter... ahem, software would heal with new development philosophies?