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Comcast's War On Infected PCs (Or All Customers)
thadmiller writes "Comcast is launching a trial on Thursday of a new automated service that will warn broadband customers of possible virus infections if the computers are behaving as if they have been compromised by malware. For instance, a significant overnight spike in traffic being sent from a particular Internet Protocol address could signal that a computer is infected with a virus, taking control of the system and using it to send spam as part of a botnet." Update: Jason Livingood
of Comcast's Internet Systems Engineering group sent to Dave Farber's "Interesting People" mailing list a more detailed explanation of what this trial will involve.
Comcast Gold PCGuard+ Express Pro has detected a significant overnight spike in your network usage that suggests your PC may be infected with a virus. This process has been identified as utorrent.exe. It is recommended that you delete all files related to this program immediately to keep your personal information secure.
I'm sure the conversation would be more like this:
Tech: "heylo plase tern off your computer and wait for ten seyconds"
User: "What are you talking about, I'm calling because you say I have a virus"
Tech: "Dayd you tern off your computer yet?"
User: "Did you hear anything I just said?"
Tech: "Comcast tern off not responsible kittens"
User: "Every word you say makes me angrier and angrier."
Tech: "Good, resolve glad issue. Bye"