Slashdot Mirror
Should ISPs Cut Off Bot-infected Users?
richi writes "There's no doubt that botnets are a major threat to the safety and stability of the internet — not to mention the cleanliness of your inbox. After years of failure to act, could we finally be seeing ISPs waking up to their responsibilities? While ISPs can't prevent users getting infected with bots, they are in a superb position to detect the signs of infection. Contractually, the ISP would be reasonably justified in cutting off a user from the internet, as bot infection would be contrary to the terms of the ISP's acceptable-use policy."
Because you've apparently never been blacklisted because one of your members sent comcast.net 250,000 spam emails in a 24-hour period. Because you've never had your SMTP server so overloaded with botnetted messages that delays of up to an hour were occurring for legit traffic. Because you've never had to block port 25 for out-of-area SMTP traffic because of complaints from other local partner ISPs. Yes, we disable access for identified botnet members and spammers. The infections of a handful of our members' PCs aren't going to ruin the experience for our other 6500 members.