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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!"

17 of 592 comments (clear)

  1. Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    What a coincidence! I'm trying to get rid of a few ghosts myself.

  2. I maintain a list of zombies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I have a list of Zombies maintained on my website here The number is always going up, it's insane. There are still plenty of clueless people out there with mailservers set to relay.

  3. And the plan's manager's name is 'Van Helsing'! by SensitiveMale · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    nyuk nyuk

  4. Fai7zor\s by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
  5. Re:Here's an idea. by rolocroz · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Nah, we love having even the tiniest amount of usabilty. (I'm assuming parent was a Linux troll.)

    --

    I meta-mod all positive moderation Unfair, because it's abuse of the system.

  6. Re:Port 25 by tokachu(k) · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Better yet, they should block all the ports (135-139, 1025, 5000, and others, both ways) that are used by the thousands of Netsky, Bagle, and Sasser variants out there. Save Windows users from themselves. Also, they should keep a look-out for those pesky DDoS zombie hosts. Reverse-engineer the worms, find out which IRC host they're using, and block all access to those controlling IRC servers (this ain't too hard to do). Let the script kiddies cry in their parent's basement because their 5,000 zombies can't be reached.

    Oh, and there should be some sort of waiver that a customer can ask for if they're running a Linux server or something that lets them use all those ports. This, of course, should be administered with a short computer competency test to weed out the fakers.

  7. MOD PARENT UP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Awesome website man. I'm remailing from those as I type!

  8. Re:How to tell? (The Slashdot Evidence) by gandalphthegreen · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    But imagine if you administrate a beowulf cluster...then you must be able to fly/leap tall buildings in a single bound or something similar.

  9. is it the answer? by GoatPigSheep · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Should we also surgically break the legs of everyone who walks around passing flyers out ?

    --
    GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
  10. Re:Poll Troll Toll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I love the fact that sex with a mare is winning.

  11. Re:Running mail servers.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Redundant my ass!

  12. Re:Port blocking by Openstandards.net · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    I just went through the steps to install Yum and do updates for RH 9, using fedoralegacy.org. I was blown away how easy it was. Just had to run a few lines I copied from their web page, and boom, it worked. One more line of code, and it becomes a nightly cron job.

    If you don't want to use the cron job, you simply run "yum update" whenever you want to update.

    Apt-get looked simple too, but I decided to try Yum.

    You could easily automate the installation process with a simple script or bin.

    In contrast to Windows, the updates cover a lot more software than Windows, which only covers software supplied by Microsoft. However, if you manually upgrade to a newer release than was included in your distribution, then the updates will no longer be automatically applied. Thus, if I upgrade from Mozilla 1.4.x to Mozilla 1.6, I'll no longer get updates for the RH9 release, as my current version will always be newer than the one included in the release. Of course, if you manually upgrade your software, then in theory, you've demonstrated a bit of technical proficiency above what you described.

  13. Re:read your usage agreement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I have ran my own mail server

    "have run".

  14. I don't give a shit by taustin · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Comcast will come out of my local block list someafter the heat death of the universe.

    May they rot in hell, up to their necks in viagra and penis cream.

  15. Re:read your usage agreement-The Geek Party. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    Oh please, give the Republican a bit more credit than that. If they were going to influence the election, they can do a much better job. I dunno, how about:

    - Raise the alert level, that should be sufficient to swing enough votes alone.
    - Finding WMD weapons in Iraq again a week before the polls. There has been many false positives so far. Though, I'm not sure whether there have been any true positives (even the one last week).
    - Capture/kill Bin Laden or even just announce it.

    Fear, Uncertainly, Doubt. It's not just IBM, it's a staples of politics the world over.

  16. Re:read your usage agreement-The Geek Party. by RogL · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    And if your ever-so-slightly paranoid scenario unfolds, look for the Congress (House and/or Senate) and Supreme Court to call "shenanigans". We've had elections during wartime before. No-one's managed to derail the system and turn us into a dictatorship yet. Regardless of what happens, Bush has to win the scheduled election to keep his seat.

  17. Re:read your usage agreement-The Geek Party. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    Finding WMD weapons in Iraq again a week before the polls.

    He might be more lucky looking for them in North Korea...

    But for some reason, he doesn't want to find any WMDs in North Korea. Because that would mean he would need to wage war against North Korea, for consistency's sake. And he doesn't want to wage war against North Korea, because North Korea has WMDs, and, as we all know, GWB is a coward.