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Paul Vixie On DNS Changer: We're Dealing With Malware the Wrong Way
AlistairCharlton writes with this snippet: "Victims of the DNS Changer malware think they have better things to do than check their internet security, and as a digital society we're dealing with malware in completely the wrong way. These are the thoughts of Paul Vixie who worked with the FBI in intercepting servers used by a gang of Estonian hackers who made millions of dollars from redirecting internet users away from the websites they requested, directing them to advertisements instead." The linked article also offers an interesting description of how the FBI's quiet takeover of a botnet came to be.
I'm not sure why it's even the government's obligation to "close the deal" (from TFA) and help a victim fix their infected systems. If the victim felt they "have more important things to worry about" than prevent infection, then felt they "have more important things to worry about" than routinely scan their system, AND THEN when told that they were infected they "have more important things to worry about" than fix it themselves and pay out of pocket... maybe the government has "more important things to worry about", too. tl;dr If you didn't wear a condom, and you didn't get tested, and you found out you had syphilis and didn't care - why should I?
"Taking the Cornficker virus as another recent example of computer malware, Vixie predicts an uncertain future where computer users don't understand or simply don't care about the risks involved."
Cornficker is related to the Conficker malware, but prefers to fick it's victims with vegetables instead. Many vicitms did not mind.
From TFA:
Summing up, Vixie says: "These victims seem to feel that [they] have more important things to worry about. My gut feeling is that they're wrong, but I can't seem to prove it. My other gut feeling about all this is that we, as a digital society, are doing this all wrong."
My gut feeling is that International Business Times didn't really have a useful article but needed some more ad space, so they wrote this thing.
For the few of you considering actually reading the article: There is nothing new to see there. Move along.
"I'll get round to doing backups one day"
"I'll renew my antivirus licence next day pay"
"The cheque is in the post"
"I'll pull out in time"
All are the many lies people tell themselves and each other.
Basically as humans we tend to only do things which will have an immediate impact, and are capable of doublethink over things which might not happen or can be deferred.
But presumably somebody at the FBI realised that they could collect all that lovely data on where everybody was going on the internet, and all without the need for a single warrant
Care to show a source, even a single one, for that? The FBI handled this right, asking ISC to install and run the DNS servers. I really doubt the ISC would play ball with any extra-legal requests for data.
Amazing how much pure paranoia is modded up around here
As has become all too common the /. summary is linked to a negative-added-value article at the totally worthless IBT.
Paul's actual post is at CircleID: http://www.circleid.com/posts/20120327_dns_changer/ and is over 3 months old. Not news. As is normal for Paul it is well written and smart but if you've been following DNSChanger, you've read this already.
Or better - all requests to lemonparty.org.
NOT work safe, in case you were wondering. That was awkward.