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Europe Home to Majority of Zombies
Rei writes "According to a recent CipherTrust study, the majority of Zombie PCs reside not in the US or China, but in Europe. Of the European zombies, 2/3 were either in Germany, France, or Britain. The results were released with the announcement of CipherTrust's new ZombieMeter. As a response to previous reports of high zombie activity, the London Action Plan launched Operation Spam Zombies in cooperation with numerous governments around the world."
... as to where the evil clerics are.
This has been obvious to me ever since Wolfenstein 3D almost 14 years ago.
See why the EU is being so hard on Windows this time around?
Can you hear the European Union chanting off in the distance?
We're number one! We're number one!
This just goes to show that no one knows where spam and zombies reside. Everyone's "research" (obviously riddled with bias) says it's some place else.
Voud u like to touch my zombie?
Call in Shaun of the Dead!
Ed: Any zombies out there?
Shaun: Don't say that!
Ed: What?
Shaun: The "zed" word. Don't say it!
Ed: Well... are they any?
Shaun: I don't see any. Maybe it's not as bad as all that.
Shaun: Oh, no wait, there they are.
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
Haven't you ever been to the movies? The only way to stop a zombie is with a head shot.
I expected something like this might happen some day, but I'm ready, thanks to this. Bring it on!
Top 10 includes the US at 28.5%. No EU country is in the top ten list. "during the first three weeks of May, approximately 26% of daily new zombies originated in the European Union, including 6%, 5% and 3% of new zombies originated in Germany, France and the United Kingdom, respectively." That's NEW zombies. The EU share of zombies is increasing, but it isn't the major source (yet).
Whether hacked computers and their clueless users or hideous undead out for brains, nothing beats the tried and true shotgun.
Really? We have internet here in The Rest of the World? Thanks for noticing!
550 : Recipient address rejected: cleric casts repel undead at spam zombie;
(filler)
How do you know they weren't patched? Patching doesn't really help you when the user runs the executable attachment they got in their email, or installs something shiny they found on the web.
Back in the 1990s, Spam was a big problem. The problem was that a number of ISPs would ignore Spam complaints, or would even encourage spammers to be on their networks. Once enough ISPs refused to listen to complaints, Paul Vixie started the Realtime Blackhole List, which would allow people to find out if a given IP was blacklisted, and refused to receive email from a blacklisted IP.
I worked at Netcom when we ended up on the RBL. We did not have strong Spam protection; for example, our credit card verifier did not contact the credit card company before giving someone internet access. Even after being placed on the RBL, management was unwilling to expend the resources needed to stop our Spam problem; they thought the RBL would just go away. Meanwhile, the number of people calling or emailing technical support doubled because they could not send mail increased (I helped make some graphs showing the increase in emails to tech support to convince management that this was a real problem). It took months for management to wake up, smell the coffee, and make it harder for spammers to get throw-away accounts on Netcom's network.
(For NANOG regulars at the time: It was I who wrote the "Keman-bot")
A similiar list needs to be set up; if a given ISP has zombies and does not cut off said zombies from the internet, the ISP needs to be blacklisted RBL style. Maybe then management will do something about the zonbie problem--such as cutting of zombie machines from the internet (redirecting all HTTP queries to a "You're a zombie so we cut you off page" for example).
Unless the trojan writer has it deactivate the firewall before it launches any internet communication...
Don't you play video games? Zombies are weak against fire and cure spells.
Remember RFC 873!
Please do not photograph the Zombies.... It will only make them angry.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Well then that won`t work here as blowing up the monitors will do nothing to stem the flow of crap comming from the zombies, and if they are headless they are prob. running *nix and are not part of the problem.
Feed my eyes...
Fascinating. But what is a "worm" or a "virus"? Did the article define those too?
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
I was working on the mail server today, and going through logs tracking a clamav/amavis problem.
I started to notice that...one...after...another...the buggers were connecting. We're not even a very big site (just got a bunch of mailing lists). The DNS names were xxx-yyy-zzz-aaa.(something).(insert european country code).
They outnumbered legitimate connections easily 5:1 or more, and the sessions all consisted of:
client: "HELO, I'm in your domain! Here, have some email"
Postfix: "take a flying leap."
client: "HELO, I'm in your domain! Here, have some email"
Postfix: "take a flying leap."
client: "HELO, I'm in your domain! Here, have some email"
Postfix: "take a flying leap."
Every single one would try and send between 3 and 5 messages before finally realizing it wasn't going to work, and disconnecting. It's irritating, because we do actually run a couple of DNS blacklists, but it seems a lot of european systems aren't on them.
When are we going to stop taking the "oh, we'll just filter it" attitude? Feels like all we've accomplished in half a decade is to do spammer's work for them and make users complacent by hiding all this shit from them. It's a classic white elephant problem if I ever saw it...
Please help metamoderate.
anything named "operation" anything is propaganda
Yeah, cos Operation Overlord really sucked didnt it!
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
Where is this "Rest of the World" place? Is it past The Ocean, or somewhere in the suburbs? There's Northern Nowhere starting in upstate, Western Nowhere over the river, and Southern Nowhere on the other side of Jersey, so I can't think of any other places it could be. Though I suppose it could be nestled somewhere in Queens or Long Island, those are far enough out of the way to hide in. Oh, I get it, it's like those "other cities" all the teams that show up to lose to the Yankees supposedly come from. Quite a fine piece of showmanship, that "other cities" idea!
Europe Home to Majority of Zombies
Which explains the smell.
Remember. Europe is a continent. It's like saying that the world has the largest meat producing industries in the Galaxy, while comparing it to moons. Or something.
I thought most people saw 28 Days Later...
Everybody knows '28 Days Later' started out as a warning about the dangers of spam.
So too, if you own a computer and want to be part of a community of connected computers, not bothering to inform yourself of how to do that does not excuse your responsibility for whatever damage your computer causes.
So what we do to spam zombies is:
a) block them totally and stop them from causing any more damage
b) send them an email telling them how much it cost to clean up their mess (usualy around $500), and that we will bill them if they do it again
c) only unblock them when they give us their assurance they understand what the future costs may be an will never allow it to happen again
d) permanently disconnect them and bill them the full amount of sysadmin and helpdesk time and materials of they allow it to happen again.
It's a really tough line, sure, we have lost maybe 3 customers as a result in 18 months (average spend per customer is $34 per month), out of 20,000. But it is far, far cheaper that the cost of just letting it happen unchecked.
*Insert obligitory comment referencing zombies, and their relation to Europe in one form of media or another*
Remember who they're targeting: whether directly or through their ISPs, the owners of zombied computers. People who are either too gullible to resist clicking on pop-ups in IE, too ignorant to realize the dangers ActiveX pose to their computers, or too dumb to understand even the most rudimentary online safety concepts, or that even online there's no such thing as a truly free lunch.
I don't know about you, but I think "Operation anything" fits the bill perfectly in this case. You and I, we're not the ones whose acts they're out to clean up.
Maybe with mainstream attention called to the problem, they'll finally start listening when their ISP tech support keeps telling them to at least turn on their friggin' firewalls and stop disabling their antivirus because of all the "stupid virus warnings."
It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
Well, maybe it would be a Good Thing(tm), then, if MSFT withdrew from the EU market??, (in suggested response here to the impending possible EU antitrust fine).
Heh, the russians were tearing the Nazi's the shreds by the time that happened. If Hitler hadn't gone completely nuts and kept his end of the bargain with Stalin, d-day would have been an utter disaster for the brits/americans/canadians/aussies. They didn't get lucky, they just planned well, knowing Nazi hardware wouldn't be the deciding factor.
When I first saw this, I though oh cool something informative that I can forward to users during spam outbreaks.
Then I saw it was a vague graph that doesn't show up under Firefox.
I wondered would it show up on Slashdot, based on the premise of coolness, even though it sucks rocks?
Now I know.
This sig is alpha and shouldn't be viewed on production machines
Cole: I see dead people... ...They don't know they're dead
Crowe: In your dreams?
Cole shakes his head
Crowe: While you're awake?
Cole nods
Crowe: Dead people like in graves and coffins?
Cole:
Crowe: How often do you see them?
Cole: everytime I go to Europe, (pause) they're everywhere...
[sig]www.masterslate.org[/sig]
Man. If you could go back in time to 1980 and tell everyone that in 25 years, European governments would be spearheading an initiative called "Operation Spam Zombies", and that this name was not in any way meant to be humorous, the looks on peoples faces would be priceless.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
>While we generally thing of the internet as USA only...
you're either very retarded or a very subtle troll. the "EU hating MS" non sequitur and the AC posting leads me to believe you're a troll.
nice try though. you even bagged a few mods on crack.
Socal action? Here ya go.
Circumcision is child abuse.
well, duh. where do you think transylvania is?
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
It's true. One of them turned me into a newt!
Guns are outlawed in most of Europe, right? How will they defend themselves?
[o]_O
Judging by the URL (I'm not clicking!), it's not safe for human viewing, period.
"Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you."
In Soviet Russia, the Zombie is YOU!
Can you imagine a beowulf cluster of zombies? (Wow that works on so many levels...)
In Korea, only old people are zombies.
and of course...:
1) Lots of Zombies buy a Non-linuz operating system with a browser that has a blue E logo
2) ????
3) Profit!!
My Favourite Meme
Actually, the people in 28 Days Later were not zombies, they were humans infected with a Virus.
All true zombies are as seen in the "of the Dead" series. Although some current theories show that these zombies are in fact caused by the Solanum virus, conclusive evidence still remains to be seen.
It should be noted that, regardless of your situation, you should not attempt to fight a zombie unless absolutely necessary. Remember, should a zombie outbreak occur near your place of residence you should immediately relocate to a rural area. Avoid common motorways and if possible travel by bicycle or motorcycle.
For more information, see The Zombie Survival Guide or check out The Official Zombie Hunters Website
Remember, preperation is key.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
Can you hear the European Union chanting off in the distance?
What European Union? It's falling apart as we speak.
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
The zombies are a clear reference to the House of Lords, so the evil cleric must be the Blair Witch Project.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
There are other efforts (in addition to RBL style lists) to fix some of the problems which derive from the assumed trust that's built into the SMTP protocol. For a brief shining moment last year, I thought that we might all hold hands and sing together on this one, but Microsoft managed to drive of their early Sender ID adopters and alienate potential allies in the battle against spam by making vague patent claims and apparently refusing to even clarify.
Adoption of the Sender Policy Framework seems to have slowed, probably caught up in the confusion around Sender ID and the Microsoft patent claims. The linked site claims that SPF is unencumbered.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Go here for a free service from if you have real control of your email server's ip address:
http://postmaster.msn.com/
The geek shall inherit the earth.
from TFA:
"Using a tool that can track zombie machines, CipherTrust found that 26 per cent of them were hosted in European countries, with most of them in Germany (six per cent), France (five per cent) and the UK (three per cent)."
so now the article establied that the *most* infected country is Germany, with is 6%. now the immediate next paragraph:
"The company's ZombieMeter found that hackers were hijacking around 172,009 computers every day. Approximately 20 per cent of those machines were based in the United States, and 15 per cent were found in China. CipherTrust did not provide details of where the attackers resided."
and US account for TWENTY percent compare to Germany's SIX percent. Even China's FIFTEEN percent is higher. I don't mind it do a country by country comparation, or even a continent by continent. I wonder what's the overall percentange if you really compare it continent to continent. I wonder what's the overall percentage of Americas, Europe, and Asia is...
but IMHO grouping Europe all together and compare it against nations like US and China is just wrong.
... ...
I got better...
I like mine fried, stired, and fried again.
Mmmmmm, zombies.
I for one welcome our new zombie overlords.
"With rare exceptions people cannot use that picture to masturbate, therefore it is not the internet."
The problem with SPF is that it doesn't stop spam. It stops Joe jobs (forged emails where some innocent person gets a bunch of bounces and auto-replies), but doesn't stop hit-and run domains and what not. SPF is also needlessly complicated, is vulnerable to DNS forgery attacks (if you control the reverse DNS lookup of a given IP, you can fool SPF), and makes using a given email address from a mobile internet connection more troublesome.
The other issue is that there is a lot of nastyness done with zombies, such as Wiki-spamming (This is a popular target), DDOS attacks, and what not that SPF doesn't address at all.
It's not just "stupid people" who have zombied machines, who operate open proxies, who allow unlimited anonymous connections to their machines...
As nations crack down on the free exchange of information of all sorts you can expect this type of activity to rise. It's called "creating plausible deniability." Not everyone knows the details of how the internet works, but everyone knows if you have sub7 on your machine and you're caught doing things your government might frown on, you've at least got a chance of defending yourself.
Actually, it is not. More than anything, a "European Constitution" was rejected by the popular vote in .fr and .nl, in part because of some almost libertarian ideas expressed in that document, in part because they (fr and nl) are pissed off with their governments and were misusing the voting on a rather unrelated subject just to give their governments a slap on the wrist.
By looking at the first of the two aforementioned reasons, I'd say it's a *good* thing the constitution in its' current form was shot down, both for the citizens of Europe, as well as for the EU itself.
Makes sense really considering EU has a higher linux usage rate, especially in germany :-). yeah yeah I know flamebait.
So should I be cheering for my country (Australia) to get up to the top of the list or not :)
they are all zombies with all their legalized weed smoking and techno trance listening
No question about it, the parent poster is an idiot.
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
A continent has more zombie PCs than a country ... ..n dex.php
Shocking that
http://www.ciphertrust.com/resources/statistics/i
Event hough the statistics infact disagree with the report..
I think we have some odd reporting here , IT should be that may saw the largest rise in Zombie PCs in Europe .
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Sheesh, visiting 3 times for this? I just leave a fake computer magazine open on the article "how to speed up your PC". Especially the part on switching that little switch on the back of the power supply from 230 (slow) to 130 (fast!) is definitly a killer.
they get infected by Rage
Well, duh. Everyone knows the people in 28 Days Later had funny accents.
I for one welcome our new Zombie overlords.
Such a "study" is merely a measurement of broadband penetration. There is no relevancy in grouping trojaned PCs per country, continent, or whatever, and not doing the same with the secured and uncompromised systems.
Maybe their next study is going to point out that the majority of torjaned systems run Windows XP?
Urm isn't that precisely why there are more zombies in europe?
tom-george.comBecause geeks rate higher t
Monty Python's Holy Grail....
Europe Home to Majority of Zombies
Well, of course. Just ask Shaun about them!
The spamhaus xbl is meant to be an RBL of spam zombies.
As ever there are lies, damn lies and statistics.
China has a population of about 1.3 billion. The USA has a population of about 295 million. South Korea has a population of approximately 48 million, less than a fifth that of the US, and under 1/20th that of China, yet it has about half the number of zombies of the US.
Proportionally South Korea is by far the worst offender on the list.
How difficult is it to keep your OS up to date and run virus scanners?
The "May Top 10" chart on CipherTrust's web site of course features the "European Union", yet on the same list we see Germany, France, UK and Spain, all member states of the EU.
EU has 460 million people. USA has 300 million people.
Assuming the same level of spread of Internet access, the EU should have 1.5 times more zombies than the USA.
The site mentioned in the article shows that in May, EU had 1320985 zombies and the USA had 964020. That means the EU has 1.37 times the zombies of the USA, despite having 1.5 times more people.
In 2004, Internet usage rates were at 47% in EU and 52% in the USA.
Conclusion: the zombie rates don't vary between USA and Europe. Population, on the other hand, does vary. Therefore, you can expect the EU to continue to have more zombies than the USA. Also, as China's and India's internet usage grows, they will probably pull ahead in the stats.
Disclaimer: The numbers were pulled from various sites online using Google for searching. If someone has conflicting figures one way or the other, I wouldn't be surprised.
Populations:
o rder/2119rank.html o mbie.php
EU : 457million
USA: 296million
Zombies in May:
EU : 26.16% (1320985)
USA: 19.08% (964020)
So, zombies per capita:
EU : 0.00289 (1 zombie per 346 people)
USA: 0.00326 (1 zombie per 307 people)
Sources:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rank
http://www.ciphertrust.com/resources/statistics/z
Fortunately, they are from the UK, France and Germany, so no problem here(Denmark) :-)
Hell, we might try to persuade our dumb people to go there, yeah, that would be so nice...
-H
[rant]If you "generally consider the internet as USA only", that probably says a whole lot more about you than it does about the internet. Are you aware you wouldn't even be reading /. if it weren't for the Swiss CERN, creating the WWW? Do you know that broadband penetration is as high (if not higher) in many EU countries as it is in the US? Don't you think it's about time for many Americans to drop the conceited attitude, and to look around and notice they're not alone on the planet?[/rant]
That being said, according to TFA, The origin of the zombie machines may change on a daily basis as machines can be infected anywhere in the world. CipherTrust has found that during April and May, the largest percent of zombie originations have alternated between China and the United States. In addition, during the first three weeks of May, approximately 26% of daily new zombies originated in the European Union, so let's not jump to any conclusions about Europe's supposed backwardness here. The figures may very likely show an entirely different picture again tomorrow, as they apparentely did just a few weeks ago.
Well then...I'll be sure when going to Europe to pack the right guide...just in case
0 049628/qid=1117706602/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/102-6130 001-2949707?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/140
What kind of moron compares one country against a group of several countries? What kind of comparison is that? Look at the individual numbers:
U.S. - 20%
Germany - 6%
France - 5%
U.K. - 3%
Only by lumping everyone together as "Europe" are they able to claim that the majority of zombies are not located in the U.S. Even though I live in the U.S., I find this article totally stupid.
you don't mention the growth of number of zombies in the EU.
if group A is 30% big and group B 70%, group B is bigger.
if group A is growing at a rate of 50% and B at 10%, A eventually will get bigger.
since your quote doesn't mention growth in the EU you just can't compare them based on growth.
Privacy is terrorism.
How To Survive A Zombie Attack
Noise Is Music Podcast.
Well this is just great. First Google turns eval, now we have zombies taking over Europe. Whats next?
"What does slashdotting mean?"
"You've never heard of slashdot?"
"I know it makes websites not work."
Europe has less obscenely fat people than the USA...
realkiwi
All the reports say the spam problem is worse "over there", with "over there" being decided by the report writer. Rather than falling for the distraction let's look at the common denominator: MS still needs constant tinkering, it's not for amateurs or home users. Use OS X, BSD or Linux instead.
MS is like the old style Harleys. You know the ones from decades ago, before the retooling, where you had to have your toolkit with for any serious road trips. Neither is practical for your casual user.
Even recent versions like XP, still aren't ready for the desktop. Though some claim that XP about even with KDE. For home users that surf, check e-mail, listen to music, watch DVDs and maybe edit a few digital images, there's no need to waste time and money on a system which required esoteric knowledge and constant tinkering. A machine with a pre-installed and pre-configured Linux distro or OS X will save home users AND their ISPs weeks of headache per year. And, unless your time is free, this means substantially less burden.
For businesses you get economy of scale. Plus, zombies are not your only threat. If MS can read your business files and mail so can your competitors.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Yes! - Block port 25 per default to any destination other than the ISP mailserver(s) and allow for individual unblocking per sane request (i.e. requests from the geek/nerd customers who run their own mailservers or similar).
This will kill off 99% of all mom'n'pop zombies because they already use the ISP mailserver (or some webmail) and have no need to port 25 to the world.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Seriously, I've always thought to myself "A horde of Zombies would never stand up to group of Ren Festival Nerds!" since they'll never run of out ammo seeing they will just keep hack/slashing away and zombies can't bite through chainmail.
Unless your the cheap kind of Ren Fest kind of person and get the plastic armor.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
This is the first, and probably last, time a US citizen is able to say that to Europe. As a side note, the number of trolls on Slashdot is on the rise.
Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach him to fish and he'll wipe out the species.
Any ISP that doesnt have a virus checker on their mailserver in this day and age is a crappy ISP (either that or they are too cheap to buy a copy of whatever virus checker is available :)
...) ...
...
... in the above text with more actual information)
the big email providers like hotmail and yahoo already scan for viruses (gmail doesnt scan for viruses AFAIK, it just throws away anything potentially executable)
That alone would stop most sources of infection for the newbie (unless its been compromised by a hacker, its unlikely that any respectable website is going to be installing viruses on your machine)
Combine this with a set of clear instructions that any newbie can follow that is issued to every new customer. Something like:
WARNING: Your PC is at risk of infection by viruses and worms. Infections can do any of the following nasty things:
Steal your personal information (including information that could be used to steal money from your bank account, take out a credit card in your name, read private communications or
Delete important files on your computer (which could result in your computer becoming inoperable or the loss of important data)
Steal files and data on your computer (which could include private stuff you dont want anyone else to see/read)
Make your computer run slower and take longer to do things
Enable your computer to be used by hackers to attack other computers
To prevent infection, take the following steps:
Install a virus scanner and run it regularly
Do not open files that are sent to you by email except from people you know and trust as they could be viruses
(repace the
Basicly, it would be a short blurb that your computer is at risk from viruses and trojans.
Then something explaining what a virus is and what nasty things it can potentially do. Anything that any virus has done is potentially fair game (we want to scare the newbie users into thinking that viruses are nasty nasty things so we want to think of things that newbie computer users would be fearfull of and use them here)
Then, after that, clear steps on how to prevent infection, how to tell if your computer is infected and how to clean up your system if you do get infected (including how to set things up to check automatically so you dont have to remeber to do a scan every week). This should include details of where to get virus checkers (including the online scanners and the various free checkers you can download, in case people dont want to spend the $ for software like Norton or Mcafee).
And it should mention stuff about keeping your virus checker up-to-date too.
The bit at the top should be in BIG letters and really clear words so people will notice it and then realize that this is important and is something they need to read.
We start by scaring people into thinking that the internet is full of nasty viruses and worms which will do all these really bad things.
Then we show them how to prevent viruses in ways that dont require much effort on their part (especially ongoing effort)
Yeah, cos Operation Overlord really sucked didnt it!
;)
Well... "Operation Land on the Beaches and Get Shot at for 9 Hours by Angry Germans" wasn't as inspiring to the Allied troops going off the landing craft.
That and the original name "Operation Pink Butterfly" got voted down by Monty and Patton.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
People of Europe (especially Germans): That email that promises sexual bliss is a zombie load. I know this will be tough for those Germans, but, just delete porn mail.
All true zombies are as seen in the "of the Dead" series.
I know you're joking but real zombies are alive. Just ask Clairvius Narcisse - poor guy!
Is there a simple way for me - a non-tech - to determine if my PC has been turned into a Zombie?
While a boom to the European continent, this will be devastating to the Carribean economy.
"This will kill off 99% of all mom'n'pop zombies because they already use the ISP mailserver" If they already use their ISP's mailserver, blocking ports is ineffective as they already have permission to same mailserver...jeez.
The geek shall inherit the earth.
Your car analogy is interesting and understandable, but flawed, and represents the similarly flawed thinking on the part of ISPs. It puts the blame on the driver of the car, but it fails to account for the fact that every driver must first be LICENSED by the government. If you don't prove at least minimal profficiency at operating a motor vehicle, then you don't get a license.
To apply this analogy to PCs & ISPs, it would then be the responsability for the ISP to make a customer prove that they know how to keep their PCs 'safe' before they are allowed to connect to the 'net. An interesting stance, but also one that would most likely induce potential customers to go elsewhere.
Given the distributed and 'personal' nature of PCs, it is highly unlikely that any government, or even a concerted effort by all ISPs, could enforce some kind of manditory minimal 'PC Security Profficiency' policy. There are simply too many PCs scattered over the world, and it also fails to account for the actual source of the problem, the hackers themselves. Think that they would comply with any laws?
This battle must be waged by ISPs, and managed by the internet infrastructure. ISPs are the gateway to the Internet, and so they become the front line. The rest of the net infrastructure (DNS system, authentication, et al) must also adapt to allow ISPs to effectively fight. The technology providers need to fight this battle, not PC owners.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Many new viruses are not recognized by virus scanners and get passed over by them. A lot of spreading can be done in the many hours between when a virus is reported, a definition for it created, and the email virus scanners machines updating with the new definition list.
Do not open files that are sent to you by email except from people you know and trust as they could be viruses ...
Sorry dude, but that is moronic advice. Most email viruses these days scan your computer for your email programs address book and send themselves to everyone in it. You are VERY likely got get a virus sent to you from someone you knows email address. I tell my users not to open any attachments, even from people they know, unless they are specifically expecting that attachment. Otherwise take two seconds, email the person back, and make sure it's real.
No that is what the Russians actually believe and Americans think they won the war and tend to even discount the efforts of UK holding out alone in 1940 ;)
Historically, it was a mix of everyones effort and the poor decision making process of the Axis.
You could say Hitler lost the War in the Fall of 1941 by failing to take Moscow before the winter came in before the US even got involved with sending supplied to the Soviets (they were giving lend lease to the UK at the time in full force).
In 1942, the victory at Stalingrad did benefit from extra supplies but it was mostly won directly through shear loss of life. The Soviets lost about 3 million men in the battle while the German and their allies lost somewhere around 300,000. Some victory eh?
However, the Soviets actually were contemplating a white peace with the German in 43 or least threated so to the Allies at Yalta (sort of) saying they might be satisfied with a return to the 1939 borders is the Allies didn't attempt an invasion on continetal Europe.
This said we won't really know what would have happened if the Allies didn't invade or not. Would the Soviets actually win and then push on to France or would they just make their way to the border of Poland and declare victory and go home or without Allies support would they have given up at Kursk in 43 and ceeded the Ukraine and other vital regions to the Germans?
On the Flip side if the Germans were not fighting the Russians then America would have had way more casualties than 500,000 in the war that's for sure. The Allies in France and Italy were only facing 25% of the German forces while the Russians were facing the brunt of the rest. Than and Germans also had 90% of their casualties on the Eastern front. (That said Germans had greater amounts of troops surrendering en masse on the Western front... Well mostly because POW camps in the US and the UK were more pleasant than labor camps in Siberia).
That said it was a collective effort on both sides (mainly while the US paid for victory in material and while Soviets paid for with blood).
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
No, you missed the point-- you don't photograph them, you send them your audition photos!
I don't moderate anymore. Karma penalty for 90% fair mods? Can I mod that unfair?
Yes I am aware of that, and I wasn't claiming otherwise.
;-)
Like many Europeans (or Africans, or Asians, for that matter) I wouldn't care a bit about Americans boasting about the sizes of their dicks, if only they were remotely aware that we have dicks too
Its pretty rampant, and we're noticing a gradual increase as weeks go by. More and more "different" attacks, worms, zombies and probes are happening. I can't ban them fast enough, because at this point, there are over 3,200 unique IP addresses that we've found so far.
Reporting it does nothing anymore. Since providers are getting so many abuse@ complaints, many of them are just sending them to /dev/null. Not a smart move.
I've started working on a process to auto-report the trash as it comes in, and for providers that reject the "abuse@" address, I block them too. If your customers are abusing our production services, and you don't allow us to report that abuse, we'll just lock you out. Piss off if you can't control your own customers or your own network.
So far we've done this for about 900 separate IPs, and about 200 full /24s. We also block the entire country of Brazil (the whole 200.0.0.0) on 25, 53 and 80.
Either we'll block the whole Internet, or providers will get so many complaints from their users that they can't get to sites they used to, that they'll begin to investigate.
Regarding spam zombies, most of them do attempt direct SMTP access instead of sending mail through the ISPs mail server.
The flavor of the month outlook worm is a different story, but not what most of the discussion today has been about.
That's voodoo zombies, different from infected zombies. If you had read The Zombie Survival Guide then you'd know the difference.
-An operation through which zombies' computers are spammed with junk mail.
-An operation involving feeding zombies the nation's supply of spam, so that they satiate their hunger for flesh.
-An operation involving throwing spam at zombies for some reason.
The possibilities are endless!
Many Bothans died to bring you this sig.
If you had truly read The Zombie Survival Guide then you'd know that any zombie seen on screen is an example of the "hollywood zombie" and thus unreliable for critical survival analysis.
Also, movement during an outbreak from an urban to a rural area depends on the situation. If you are in an urban area and are unaware of a growing outbreak until it hits then news, then it is probably too late to safely evacuate the area. Your best bet would be to hope that the outbreak is still containable by authorities and that such containment does not include razing the city.
Almost every route out of a city involves moving past significant choke points and biomass. Both of which add up to a zombie party. To truly prepare: plan an unorthodox escape route now and make routine tests of its effectiveness. Or simply move to a rural or semi-rural area now, while its still safe.
If you are in a semi-rural area then you still have movement options once an outbreak occurs. Obviously roadways are suspect (thus motorcycles are an awful choice for their use of roads, gas, and noise generation), but you can generally use land routes (where a mountain bike could possibly be handy) and choke points are eliminated.
If you are in a very rural area then you have to assume that you will be on your own if an outbreak occurs. You will be out of the eye of authorities until the outbreak is contained, and that may mean that you will have to deal with zombies on your own should they wander into your vicinity. DON'T kill them out of hand, it would be best if they believe that your home is abandoned. If you are detected then kill them quickly but more importantly silently. Where there is one zombie there can be many, and noise attracts them.
Now read The Zombie Survival Guide for full preparation. If you are on thefacebook.com join the Anti-Zombie League and watch the news for suspicious reports that may indicate an initial outbreak. E.G. stories about strange murders where one family member kills the rest and is then killed by police; murders involving decapitation or severe head trauma (often the ones that stop an outbreak are then indicted for their trouble); etc.
Is there a tool to determine if your machine is a Zombie?
Seriously. What would be the best way to know this?
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
European Union:
Number of countries: 25, Population: 460 million, Number of Zombies (May figure): 1320985
USA:
Number of countries: 1, Population: 295 million, Number of Zombies (May figure): 964020
So, the EU has a fair few more zombies than the US, but the US is the single country with the largest number of zombies, and has more zombies per head of population than any other country (including the EU as a single block).
I'm sure it's just as easy to knock down my stats as it is to undermine the ideas presented in the article, but then as Churchill once said, "there are lies, damn lies... and statistics".
It was good that the EU Consitution was shot down because it had libertarian ideas??
My favorite quote from The Official Zombie Hunters website: "If you should encounter the undead menace, then don't hesitate to call Zombie Squad. Find out for yourself why Zombie Squad is the world's premier non-stationary cadaver suppression task force."
-Solo
Libertarian as in "free market uber alles, down with the government, privatize everything now, the sole meaning of life is to make profit, to hell with public health care and education"? Definitely YES, it was a good thing this constitution was shot down.
Given that Europe's population is comparable to the US, and much smaller than China's, what possible objection could you have to grouping the European countries together?
Sean
You are apparently confused. You are mixing a political philopshy and an economic philosophy together. Granted, most libs are "Free-Market" ones, but there is nothing in the political philosophy saying that "the sole meaning of life is to make a profit". The libertarian political philosophy is basically complete personal freedom as long as you don't harm someone else and goverment is only there to protect the citizens.
And what is wrong with having no public health care and education? Everything in life has a price, the Libs are just more honest about how it is paid.
It is naive to think the politics and the economics can be viewed separately.
You know, this is Europe, after all. We know to value our social system, our public health care, our low violent crime rates, and our rather good public education system. We sure know it's very expensive (we'd have to be complete idiots to think it somehow comes free of charge), but we find it worth the money (well, most of the time we do). Just like the majority in the USA seem to view throwing obscene amounts of money at the military as justified.
If your time is not valuable or you're not concerned about actually getting work done, than MS-Windows is just fine. It'll keep you off the street. If, on the other hand, you are more concerned about the computer as a means to get work done, than look elsewhere than MS
Anti-virus and firewalls don't help much. If your application or operating system can't live securely in a networked environment w/o a firewall then it shouldn't be connected to the network anyway. Besides, many (most?) of exploits nowadays come through ports the firewall must leave open. e.g. outgoing port 80 for MSIE.
MS won't back port anything, those sales are already made. The services packs for the remaining, supported versions are another problem. If they included only the patches needed to improve security, that's one thing. But they usually include all kinds of undesirable changes to configurations and to licensing.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I don't constantly tinker with Windows, My work box I don't think I've tinkered with month and my home box I haven't tinkered with either. Unless you include patching Windows "tinkering" or configurating a 3rd party app tinkering. My Windows 2003 server doing IIS, Mail and DNS hasn't been tinkered with either except for yet again patching.
I have my conceal handgun permit, for the same reason I have my firewall. I probably don't need it but why risk it? Name the last virus that has come through firewall and attacked IE without IE being on web. If I need my computer to get work done I will most likely either sit down at my WIndows XP desktop or my Mac OS X laptop. I will never sit down at my Linux box to actually do work because it drives me nuts. Linux makes a great server and crappy desktop OS in my opinion.