After Links To Cybercrime, Latvian ISP Cut Off

alphadogg writes with this Network World story, excerpting "A Latvian ISP linked to online criminal activity has been cut off from the Internet, following complaints from Internet security researchers. Real Host, based in Riga, Latvia was thought to control command-and-control servers for infected botnet PCs, and had been linked to phishing sites, Web sites that launched attack code at visitors and were also home to malicious 'rogue' antivirus products, according to a researcher using the pseudonym Jart Armin, who works on the Hostexploit.com Web site. 'This is maybe one of the top European centers of crap,' he said in an e-mail interview. 'It was a cesspool of criminal activity,' said Paul Ferguson, a researcher with Trend Micro."

Comments

They'll move elsewhere

[Canazza]

The questions that should be asked is "Are they closing in on the criminals who set up these sites?"

Surely with all the information they can get from this rogue ISP they can track down the wankers who run them.

Re:They'll move elsewhere

[Anonymous Coward]

Thing is rogue antivirus products and such isn't exactly illegal. In USA it can count as misleading advertisement but as we know USA laws dont apply everywhere. This case also is not police investigation, but their upstream provider TeliaSonera just cut them off because it made them look bad.

We demand net neutrality for pirates and defend laws of other countries. Now botnets and phishing are really bad, but instead of getting to root of the problem these security researchers are purposely destroying net neutrality. TeliaSonera is also upstream provider for The Pirate Bay so they could just suddenly cut TPB's access to the internet. Then everyone would be saying how they're legal in Sweden and they should not be allowed to do that. Well, its the same issue here.

Censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this being cast in a good light? We should demand net neutrality and not just when it suits us, but always. If you have an issue with their content: sue them, block them, ignore them. Also, how do we define "criminal activity" when talking about an ISP in Lativia? I'm no expert in Lativian law myself, but is spam or a command-and-control center illegal there? Bandwidth suppliers should be doing that, supplying bandwidth. Leave the politics and legal issues to the governments.

Re:It's not criminal activity when we do it

[cbhacking]

You may have noticed that there have been stories recently about ISPs who *do* cut off the access of copyright infringers. Without deep packet inspection (which I'm wholly opposed to without a warrant, just making that clear) it's not like they catch anywhere close to all of it, but if they do catch you the contract you signed lets them cut off your access, and they will.

Re:Throw the baby out with the bathwater

[houghi]

A real problem here is that if upstream providers do this sort of thing, there is no limit to their power.

Well, all providers have this power and are using it. You bet that my (and hopefully your) upstream provider will cut me off very fast the moment I start spamming the world.

What I then must do is either look for another (upstream) provider or stop spamming.

If I would start moaning "but I was not accused by law of anything" they would just show me the AUP I agreed with. The same should be happening with anybodies provider. You spam? We disallow you to do that over our network.

Re:Throw the baby out with the bathwater

[Bakkster]

If I would start moaning "but I was not accused by law of anything" they would just show me the AUP I agreed with. The same should be happening with anybodies provider. You spam? We disallow you to do that over our network.

Exactly. Network Neutrality shouldn't (IMO) preclude ISPs from banning harmful acts over their networks through their contracts. You should be allowed to prohibit illegal activities and those whose primary purpose is to disrupt the service of others.

Network Neutrality should simply say that you should be treated the same, no matter who you are and who you're talking to. It doesn't matter if you interrupt your neighbor's connection or a foreign connection, both are blocked. If they limit high-bandwidth applications, they do so for all customers evenly, regardless of whether the remote client is owned by themselves or a competitor, and enumerate it in their contract.

That said, we also need the ability to choose amongst more than 2-3 (or fewer) broadband ISPs so that we can choose to avoid usage agreements we don't agree with, but that's separate from Net Neutrality.