Comcast Thinks About Stopping Zombies

LehiNephi writes "Comcast has finally admitted that its users are responsible for a large amount of spam, and they are thinking about how to stop it. Apparently they haven't been turning a blind eye to the problem after all. The simple, blanket approach of blocking all traffic on port 25 would have too many side effects, particularly for users running their own mail servers. However, they can block that port on individual cable modems-a sort of surgical strike. As far as I'm concerned, the sooner they implement this, the better!"

Comments

Nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is actually an 'official' alternate port for this purpose. See:

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2476.txt

Comcast's Agreements

[Roguelazer]

Anybody here ever read a Comcast Usage & Subscriber Agreement? I have. They're quite... chilling to read. Lots of people have posted about the forbidding of running a server of any kind, so here it is: Acceptable Use Policy

The area you're referring to is

(xiv) run programs, equipment, or servers from the Premises that provide network content or any other services to anyone outside of your Premises LAN (Local Area Network), also commonly referred to as public services or servers. Examples of prohibited services and servers include, but are not limited to, e-mail, Web hosting, file sharing, and proxy services and servers;

For example, take a look at this quote, which makes my browser's caching of Slashdot's GNAA posts illegal:

(ii) post, store, send, transmit, or disseminate any information or material which a reasonable person could deem to be objectionable, offensive, indecent, pornographic, harassing, threatening, embarrassing, distressing, vulgar, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive, or otherwise inappropriate, regardless of whether this material or its dissemination is unlawful;

Try reading this one: Subscriber Agreement. This section, in particular, gives Comcast permission to view any information transmitted over the network from or to you:

Comcast shall have no obligation to monitor postings or transmissions made in connection with the Service. However, you acknowledge and agree that Comcast and its agents shall have the right to monitor any such postings and transmissions, including without limitation e-mail, newsgroups, chat, IP audio and video, and web space content

Section 9's cool too. It says that you waive the right to sue them in a real court, but instead will have a hearing before a "neutral arbitrator". Anyhow, you should read all that stuff. Some of it's absolutely unique.

If I don't get modded up for this, I'll be amazed

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:How to tell?

[bigberk]

Is there an easy way to tell if your own computer is a zombie spambot?

Yes, there is! If your IP is sending spam, believe me, we will have noticed via our extensive spam traps. Just query your IP at OpenRBL or at dnsstuff to see if you're blocked due to spam received from your IP.

Note that you can also appear on blocklists for various other reasons. So look into why you're blocked. If you're listed on AHBL, CBL, SpamCop, WPBL for example then your host is probably infected.