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Over a Million Zombie PCs
Doyle writes "A BBC article discusses new research revealing that over 1 million computers have been compromised and are being used in bot nets. From the article: 'The largest network spied on by the team was made up of 50,000 hijacked home computers.'"
... the breakdown of that million by operating system?
You never know, it might be a nice bit of PR for some Apple/Linux/BSD organisation to casually slip into a Press Release.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Governments?, What about ISPs? They are the ones having to pay for the added bandwitdh on both sides. I'm surprised most ISPs dont run IDS that can detect Zoombie Networks and automatically send emails to its infected customers. This will not only pay for itself by reducing bandwidth, but also make the customers more happy.
mnewberg.com
...that all these botnets themselves seem to compromised that journalists and researchers can so easily get into them. If you're going to compromise other people's computers for whatever nefarious use, do you want your system itself wide open for someone to steal away from you or document your doings for law enforcement? The best back doors and holes are ones that no one sees until you're using them and it is too late.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Because it is not in the ISP's best (i.e. financial) interests to do so. Finding these machines, teaching users how to clean them up, and then reactivating their access would require a great deal of manpower and money. Since not doing it is consequence-free, there is no incentive to do it. It's like dealing with hazardous waste; it's difficult and expensive. Without some outside force compelling companies to dispose of it appropriately, they would deal with it the cheapest and easiest way possible. That is, dumping it on the rest of us, like these ISPs do.
They won't clean up, they will go to an ISP that doesn't care. I run a small ISP, I've called customers and informed them of these issues... nothing happens... threaten to cut them off... nothing happens... cut them off... they call angry say "Fine! Don't bother!" and a customer is lost. A customer lost, is a customer lost. Police != Profit unfortunately, and it's a fine line to walk.