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Microsoft's Vigilante Investigation of Zombies
Morgalyn writes "According to an article at Information Week, Microsoft has decided to fight zombie-launched spam in their own way. In conjunction with the FTC and consumer rights groups, Microsoft set up a clean computer and then infected it. They monitored the 'zombie' over the course of 20 days - 'In those 20 days, this one computer received 5 million connection requests from spammers, and sent 18 million spam messages'. This whole operation has led to the (partial) identification of 13 different spamming groups, some of which reside in the US and may be prosecuted under the CAN-SPAM act."
That's not a reasonable analogy. This is more like the car is broken into within 26 minutes.
The Internet is like Baghdad for computers but 10000 times more intense.
The operating system doesn't merely fall apart - it's broken apart by the equivalent of roaming street thugs.
I agree that microsoft it partially responsible (does rpc really need to be accessible by default?) - but on the other hand, until very recently your average linux install didn't take long to get 0wn3d either.
They blocked the spam from being sent:
0 5/10-27ZombiePR.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/oct