Broadband Access Leading to Internet Breakdown? 505
"Spam, adware, worms and viruses are now able to propagate much faster than ever before. Worms are also growing bigger, more advanced, as it's possible to transfer more viral code in less time. It's as if slow dial-up lines acted as a kind of immune system that prevented effective propagation of worms and made DDoS attacks so much less significant.
I'm not only worried about viruses and spam levels. Part of the reason the MPAA and RIAA are taking such an interest in Internet activity is that file sharing has become so much easier with the availability of broadband, and as usual there are murmerings of regulation. Before the broadband revolution, the involvement of the MPAA and RIAA in Internet affairs was small, and their argument was less convincing.
As broadband grows, will regulation become necessary not just to prevent illegal distribution of copyrighted material but more likely to protect Internet users from themselves (we're already seeing ISPs adding spam e-mail filtering to their default services, for example)? Will the Internet fall in popularity as it becomes more and more frustrating and dangerous to use, or will we simply see a massive improvement in coding practices and more secure software?"
the time to distribute patches and fixes... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:the time to distribute patches and fixes... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:the time to distribute patches and fixes... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:the time to distribute patches and fixes... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:the time to distribute patches and fixes... (Score:4, Insightful)
The scary part is that we find this comment funny because of the truth in it. M$ has been responsible for a disproportionate number of the worms going around through Windows INsecurity, and yet sadly they will be the first company approached for any legislation relating to this.
Re:the time to distribute patches and fixes... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:the time to distribute patches and fixes... (Score:4, Insightful)
What, like shut down almost all retarded services that come preinstalled and turned on like IIS?
"You want to see all hell break loose? Put Linux, which requires more clue to operate than Windows, on the desktops of 90% of the users."
As opposed to auto logging in as adminsitrator by default as almost all Windows XP machines come loaded from OEM's?
At least that lesson has been learned and Redhat et al should know better and make it extra difficult to set root to autologin and make root password requirements very strict while not so strict on the users so as to encourage them to use their non-root accounts.
Re:the time to distribute patches and fixes... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:the time to distribute patches and fixes... (Score:3, Funny)
Aha! Two Microsoft products sunk with one fell swoop?
Re:the time to distribute patches and fixes... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not Outlook's PIM features that make it a handy target for virus makers, it comes down to a few 'features' of both Outlook and Outlook Express that virus makers use to their advantage.
Microsoft do seem to be slowly catching on, and making modifcations to their applications, but it doesn't stop people using old versions.
Handy features of Outlook & Outlook Express for vir
We are all here, aren't we? (Score:5, Interesting)
Unless a large, physical attack on the wires carrying all this data occurs, everything is pretty much A-OK.
Re:We are all here, aren't we? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:We are all here, aren't we? (Score:5, Funny)
We would be without Slashdot though. Good god, productivity could skyrocket!
Re:We are all here, aren't we? (Score:3, Interesting)
Good job with the knee-jerk anti-Americanism though. Always good for a few quick mod points.
Re:We are all here, aren't we? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:We are all here, aren't we? (Score:5, Funny)
Depends on your definitions (Score:5, Interesting)
I suppose it depends on how you define the current freedom. I don't believe that it is going to lead to increased censorship. I don't believe it is going to lead to increased tracking or monitoring (although certainly other things, like the recent FBI/DOJ request for increased wiretapping ability may do just that).
I think that it will lead to increased filtering on the ISP side of things. More ISPs will be using Spam Assasin and similar programs behind the scenes. Undoubtedly, some legitimate e-mails will be caught by these SPAM traps, and the end-user might not have access to them.
Personally, since Dartmouth College starting running virus scanners and SPAM filters and the like, I constantly get e-mails where the "suspicious" file was automatically removed, and although most of those removals were viruses, I also lose legitimate files that are sent to me. As an end-user, I don't have access to change the settings or tell the system that a file is, in fact, OK. Instead, I have to e-mail the person back and ask them to resend the file to my AOL account.
I suspect that as more people use cable and DSL and the malware increases, this behind-the-scene tinkering will increase.
A serious blow to current freedoms on the Internet? I'm not sure. A pain in the ass? Absolutely.
A good reason to use encryption (Score:4, Interesting)
If your messages are encrypted, then you don't have to worry about automated programs kicking them for their content or attachments. That will be up to the decrypting party. I pity the ISP that starts blocking messages because they are encrypted.
Learn how to cryptographically sign your mail on Mac OS X 10.3 [joar.com]
Re:A good reason to use encryption (Score:5, Informative)
Of course that story was from 2 weeks ago so it's old news. This week the latest variant has no attachment at all [securityfocus.com]. It's just HTML that exploits an IE bug that downloads the worm from the infected computer that sent the message.
Re:A good reason to use encryption (Score:3, Interesting)
Seems to me that this is a natural virus filter. People who are dumb enough to open virus-laced e-mails will be too lazy or won't be smart enough to go through the hoops to open the virus payload, and those smart enough to go through the hassle will also be smart enough to recognize the trap they're facing and just delete the darned thing.
Although, as has been said before, "never underestimate the power
They've already tried. (Score:4, Insightful)
Can you say "Clipper chip"?
Unfortunately, governments (and especially ours) aren't exactly known for learning their lesson the first time around. This is likely a battle we'll have to fight again, and soon.
Re:Depends on your definitions (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Depends on your definitions (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Depends on your definitions (Score:4, Insightful)
This seems to be the only real workable and fair solution.
Re:Depends on your definitions (Score:5, Funny)
[checkbox] Don't show me this message again
Things ARE improving behind the scenes (Score:5, Informative)
We're installing dedicated spam/virus filtering machines. We're changing our network drastically, going from a very simple network structure to one where every DSL bridge's ATM channel is carried up to a router doing Proxy-ARP, so we can cut out broadcast traffic and regulate traffic for every customer's connection (cutting down on both viruses spread via broadcast traffic as well as DoS attacks).
On top of that, we police the network to find users with viruses, then call them and, if they can't do it themselves, clean their PCs for free.
Things are definitely picking up on the ISP end. Now if only the customers would take a few steps...
Freedom? its a paradox (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Freedom? its a paradox (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Freedom? its a paradox (Score:2, Funny)
Ah, Slashdot: Home of the made up sweeping statement.
Err Darwin? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Err Darwin? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, until a worm can "mutate" randomly into different strains, and if some of these mutations prove to be beneficial, then we have Darwinian evolution. However, having it randomly change "if" statements to "while" statements, or other such changes, wouldn't work too well, and changing or adding other things most likely wouldn't get anything useful.
Film at 11... (Score:4, Interesting)
Is the problem the "how" or the "with what" (Score:5, Interesting)
While unix boxes went through 25 years (since ARPA contracted UCBerkeley to make this "TCP" thingy) of evolution on networks that were, in retrospect, pretty safe.
The Morris Worm in '88 woke a lot of us up, but we've known for decades about "doors" and "locks" and such.
Windows is/was/and will be a consumer operating systems whose main impetus is features to push sales. Security hasn't appeared to be on their radar screen except as a check box ("did you think about security?" Um, yeah. "Good enough for us. Ship it").
I'm getting hammered by spam and worms and EVERYTIME I nmap back to the sender (okay 0.001% of senders, randomly chosen as I get pissed off), it's a windows box.
I love broadband.
I love VOIP to mom and video and streaming stuff to relatives (all legal)
I hate the bad neighbors running windows. The metaphorical slaughterhouse next door.
Re:Is the problem the "how" or the "with what" (Score:5, Insightful)
>>Windows, not that they are coming in high speed.
Ahh..... bullshit.
Most of the worms and trojans and crap that are going around lately are all user spawned. They haven't crawled in through a remote exploit. They've been emailed to/downloaded by some genius who will execute any damn thing. I swear, these people would probably pick up a used syringe off the ground and jab it into their own arm to see what would happen.
Do you think it would be any different if the world was all running Linux? Or Solaris? Or MacOS. Please - stupid people will be stupid no matter what OS you put in front of them. It isn't going to change anytime soon.
>>I'm getting hammered by spam and worms and
>>EVERYTIME I nmap back to the sender (okay
>>0.001% of senders, randomly chosen as I get
>>pissed off), it's a windows box.
Geee --- and what percentage of computers out there are windows boxes? What a shocking correlation.
Re:Is the problem the "how" or the "with what" (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah. Yeah I do. Because those OSs don't have (1) a dirty syringe attractor and (2) a dialog box that pops up and says "Would you like to jam this into your arm?".
The underlying windows platform is flawed. There are WEEKLY buffer overflows and it's clear that aside from the VAST amount of unsecure old code in it, that new code is rife with holes too.
How many times was outlook fixed to stop running code in preview mode (hint, it's >1).
In bending over backwards to make it easy for users to run things on windows, they leave themselves open. Anyone recall when the "good times virus" that promised a worm from opening an attachment was ridiculous because no program would treat data as executable code!? I miss that now.
Re: nmapping back?
When I scan 200 machines and ALL of them are running windows and ALL of them are sending me mydoom, that's not just bad luck of the draw.
I was blocking 140 mydoom.a messages a minute the day AFTER it started.
Most of the worms and trojans and crap that are going around lately are all user spawned
By "lately" you just mean that 12 or so since new years. I guess when you have so many, it's hard to recall back to last summer and the previous 30 security holes.
When a client groused about the cost of an antivirus program for scanning mail at their college, I pointed out that the WHOLE cost should be borne by the Windows support group. The 10-20% of the school taht wasn't using windows had no (zero, none, nil, nada) need for filtering out viruses that autoexecute in their environment.
At another (very very large wall st) client, I was delighted to see security and a manager show up and FIRE someone for using outlook. 3 warnings about it and AGAIN, he brought a virus in. They'd figured the cost of each incident and banned it. Bravo!
So YES, driving a line of cars through town filled with explosives is bad, even if you tell them not so smoke.
Letting a former addict go hang out with crackheads and spend lots of time with them is BAD.
Letting ignorant Windows users have machiens that can be reached for the net is BAD. That windows machine is just jonesing for a virus fix.
Re:Is the problem the "how" or the "with what" (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, may I remind you that a standard desktop Linux install has 0 open ports, so good luck with your buffer overflow.
fix mail (Score:5, Insightful)
When email gets fixed (through authenticated access), the worms and virii will need to find a new way to spread.
This is in addition to the more obivous effect of cutting down the overall flow of spam.
Re:fix mail (Score:5, Interesting)
More of consequence in my mind are the MILLIONS of machines acting as bots for a DDOS attack. It's less spam (spam is bad, m'kay?) than the ENOURMOUS connection points that are running and spreading viruses that can harm me.
My house has been Windows-free since it was on the Internet (1983 or so). When I helped remove a rootkit from a brother of a friends linux box (again, a nat box woulda done wonders), he looked at my rack with ~9 working machines (the others are elsewhere) and asked which windows *I* ran. I looked at the SGI, Sun, NeXTs, Alpha and couple Intel boxes and said, "none. But I have a linux box to play games on."
My systems are generally fine until 5000 windows boxes running worms wake up and decide to visit and visit and visit until my bandwidth is used up.
Spam annoying as hell.
Viruses dangerous to everyone around.
Re:fix mail (Score:3, Insightful)
When email gets fixed (through authenticated access), the worms and virii will need to find a new way to spread.
Feh! All you need to do to fix email is to, at the ISP level, go through every incoming message and strip out every executable attachment, be it a .EXE file, HTML with scripting or a Word document with embedded scripts. That would do it then and there with almost no loss of functionality.
But you know it won't happen, because Uncle Joe will get annoyed when he can't click-and-run the self-ex
ISPs (Score:5, Insightful)
Alot of the blame falls on the ISP, they helped turn the Internet into a always-on appliance, now they have to make it robust.
Why does my ISP allow packets off my network that obviously don't originate from it? Is it considered a feature to allow DoS attacks? Why is port 25 open by default? Why isn't NetBIOS closed by default? Where is the IPv6 testbed that my ISP was supposed to have had 3 years ago?
Granted, the average Joe User can be an idiot, but part of the ISP's job is to make the Internet more idiot-proof.
Re:ISPs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:ISPs (Score:5, Insightful)
The modern consumer Internet (Score:3, Interesting)
I also have an IPv6 tunnel to that remote (by 3k miles) box. Protocol 41/port25 is not filtered :)
The all new, shiny, "UhOh"'s (this decade) style CONSUMER internet is not the [D]ARPA-Net that some of us grew up with. Not even the "rough town" internet of the mid 90s to the late 90s.
No this is the network for those people wh
It's all been predicted (Score:2)
Plague... [slashdot.org]
Nonsense... (Score:3, Interesting)
I work for an ISP... (Score:5, Interesting)
All I can think is that she's just another virus infection waiting to happen on my network.
For some, it's senseless and stupid to have a broadband connection. I mean, my bread and butter requires that people DO have a DSL circuit, but there's no sense of responsibility with their internet connection.
People bitch all the time about spam, and how to get rid of it. That same person comes in and has a SMTP relay cleaned off their system a month later. They can complain about it, but they don't realize they're part of the problem as well.
Then there are those that come in and tell me to my face "Bah, I don't care if I have a virus, it just makes things a little slower." Those people piss me off the most. Those same people get pissed when I shut their connections off because they're sending out 20 messages/second, drowing their outbound pipe.
I swear. Sometimes I think owning a computer should require a license.
Re:I work for an ISP... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been amazed that more ISPs don't bundle some sort of hardware firewall, like a SOHO router/NAT box, with their service. It would appear to be in their own interests to promote the use of those things, as they'd help slow the propogation of worms a fair bit. Larger ISPs should be able to get them for dirt cheap, as there isn't much more to one of those routers than there is in a cable or DSL modem.
Now, I know, NAT isn't perfect and causes problems -- I run into a fair amount of "d'oh" moments myself when I want to do something, like BitTorrent, and my port isn't open. But, for "little old ladies" and the like, you'd think it'd be a net benefit to the ISP to distribute the firewalls.
Any ideas, besides hardware cost and "how do I set this up" support costs, why ISPs don't do this more?
Re:I work for an ISP... (Score:3, Insightful)
My retired neighbors are all getting DSL, so they can videophone their children, organise community web pages and brush up on their card games. So there are practical reasons why they want DSL.
But it completely amazes me that home computers come configured with so many open TCP/IP ports. Rather than having the various services disabled as default, the recommended solution is to require even more software (
Well you have the real answer (Score:3, Insightful)
My Take... (Score:5, Interesting)
We had one guy come in, who had always-on Comcast cable, the same provider I use myself. He had bought a PC from us roughly 2 weeks before, and was hell bent that the "piece of shit" we sold him was to blame. Of course, no antivirus, no firewall, AOL for broadband added...so much spyware. That AdAware count was, I kid you not, 3,250 or so.
As a person who has to deal with people like this quite often, it's not hard for me to see the side of an ISP who would LIKE to impose restrictions. There is also part of me who wouldn't be against it. As much as I would like unfettered access, I know most people (those on
So I have mixed feelings on all this. What would I like to see? You have no fetters, at first. Then, you start acting as a spam relay or something, you get restrictions (I know, this happens, and I applaud for it). You act as a waypoint to spread viri and trojans, cut back another notch. And so on. This should all be spelled out in the license agreement, but I think it's nearing necessary.
Internet usage is not a RIGHT. It's a PRIVILEDGE. And it's one you should have to be responsible to keep.
Re:My Take... (Score:5, Interesting)
Word, brother. I love it when people come in and bitch about how slow their new computer is that they just bought from us a month ago.
I smile, nod, and ask them to bring it in, usually to scoffs. They get the machine here, I fire it up, and there's Gator, WeatherBug, DateManager, Kazaa, iMesh, etc.
I smile, nod, and tell them it's going to be $65 (our hourly in-shop rate) for me to clean it up because their problem is a software one. Either that, or I can restore their machine back to the way it was when they bought it for free.
As much of a BOFH that makes me sound, I get pleasure out of the looks on their face when torn between their ignorance and their wallet.
Worse part is, they could do the same thing I'm gonna do for free at home if they had a clue.
Like they say, you get paid for what you know, and pay for what you don't know...
Re:My Take... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:My Take... (Score:3, Funny)
Considering that there seem to be hundreds or even thousands of uninformed people or every one informed one, perhaps some sort of mass-mailing would be in order?
Just send everyone an e-mail or two with a subject line like "Latest Microsoft Security Patches". Attac
Darwin = change (Score:5, Insightful)
Those who don't will find their computer experience horrible and "die off" as far as the market is concerned.
Tom
Depends (Bad Guys Restrict My Freedom, Too) (Score:3, Interesting)
If worms, virii, spam, etc. don't become more damaging than they are now, the status qou will be maintained.
If, on the other hand, bad guy capabilities increase until someone does something that takes lives and/or billions of dollars, then I think we'll see legislation to deal with it seriously.
Don't forget, too, that if the internet becomes too damn annoying or risky to use, people will stop using it. Seems to me that's a more likely way that my internet freedom will be restricted.
No (Score:2)
I just hope the media is smart enough to look at this as the symptoms of bad software instead of a problem on its own.
I, for one.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead i would like to say that the Internet is not a medium that should be regulated or cencored.
If the dumb users are getting hurt by its wildness, that same darwinism should do its work.
And if we will see more secure software? Dont hold your breath.
Connection? (Score:5, Interesting)
You'll be surprised at how fast ISP's implement manditory transparent virus/worm filering if the problem ever reaches the levels that you're implying. 2/4 ISP's that I've dealt with filtered back orifice without notifying customers.
Question:
Would anyone mind spending $2/month extra for an ISP to implement manditory WORM/Virus filters? If you want to play with them, use your LAN! This would solve all the worlds hunger problems!!!
Simple Solution #1 (Score:2, Funny)
Potentially the most useful Windows box ever built.
I wound't say that broadband is the problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Look at what is causing all of these outbreaks. Windows/Windows users.
If there were no windows users, none of the current virus epidemics would be a problem.
You think that virus's on another mainstream OS would take over? Doubtful.
Consider the distribution of OS's left (-windows): you get a melange of flavors. Virus writers would have to be far more sophisticated to hijack that number of dissimilar systems with one set of code.
A pair of sci-fi books that touch on this... (Score:2, Informative)
and its sequel
Maelstrom by Peter Watts, ISBN: 0812566793
The second book focuses more on the viral evolution but they are both good books overall
For crying out loud, INSTALL A FIREWALL, already! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, Windows could be better in terms of security, but that wouldn't even be a problem if all those insecure services were behind (even a minimal) firewall.
-Mark
(My DSL account came with a "free" firewall-enabled router)
Microsoft is taking care of that (Score:3, Interesting)
However, it's not going to be for long. Service Pack 2 is going to turn it on by default. This will cause plenty of whining and MS bashing, I'm sure, but hopefully it will help a little bit.
However the main problem these days is with attachment-clicki
Bill Gates in a meat grinder (Score:2, Insightful)
pet peeve (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps IPv6 could actually help here.... (Score:3, Interesting)
But you can't portscan 340282366920938463463374607431768211456 possible addresses very fast.
But IPv6 is a ways off, yet.
What we will see is an emergence of firewalls, etc, that make things more difficult for spam and viruses.
And my guess is that the backbones will also grow, as there is a lot of dark fibre left over from the internet boom. And for the RIAA, I think the genie is out of the bottle. Even mailing disks around would perpetuate it.
Not breakdown, probably divide (Score:5, Insightful)
I think from the history of technology advancement, things always get bigger, better, faster, strong etc, and they usually don't break themselves down in the process.
Take our transportation for example, when the gravel roads got too crowded, we paved them, then widened them, then built highway motorway causeway, then we moved to train, light-rail, bullettrain.
At first we only tried to travel a short distance if you had to do it by foot, when we have cars, we want to travel further and eventually it is too far for cars, and we move to flights etc etc.
The cycle just keeps going.
This is not the looming threat. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is the transformation of most nodes of the Internet from peers to clients. That's what's going on with broadband; they lure you to the service with speed and reliability then after you're in they let you know you can't run any services and they're putting a mandatory (and poorly-run) spam filter on your incoming mail.
You're no longer part of the network. You're only a consumer and spectator. Spam is bad but RBLs like SPEWS and the admins that force them on their users can be worse. There used to be a time when you could hook into the Internet and go pretty much anywhere you wanted to go; today everybody wants to lock you down and force you to pay for things you once enjoyed for nothing or move to a different server because of some political battle over spam. When people like John Gilmore get screwed for running a mailserver, or a website like Something Awful has its business operations hampered, I can see the writing on the wall.
We need to get back to the days of having Internet access being a utility, much like electricity or water, where one could hook in and use it any way one will. The looming threat is control, lockdown, and homogenization that promises to render this medium as stale as commercial radio.
Re:This is not the looming threat. (Score:5, Insightful)
No you are not. You can contribute to the content on the internet in a million ways. You can add content to forums and Wikis. You can chat with friends in IRC and IM. You can write email to anyone. You can have your own site at places who will give you space for free. Or you can pay for space on a multitude of hosts, at a wide range of pricing options. You can contribute to the internet as much as anyone on an unfettered T1.
The only thing you can't do is be a system administrator. And that is a good thing. These connections need to be administered - improperly administrated computers are what make virus and spam possible. 99% of people on broadband are not qualified to administer network security, and it is absolutely rediculus for slashdotters to get angry at them for failing to live up to that expectation. The ISP's are the IT department for the home user, and they need to start acting like it.
If you wan't to be your own system administrator, there are accounts for that. You will be much happier if you just get one, and everyone will be happier when the stability of the internet is not dependant on average users being network security experts.
Re:This is not the looming threat. (Score:3)
TOS reflect interesting trends (Score:3, Interesting)
Reading through thier various offers is interesting. Not only do they not want home users to run servers, but they even want to limit servers to certain business users, too.
In my opinion, this is going to lead to less people offering content on the web, as the bandwidth becomes more restrictive, and your choices decrease down to a few broadband options.This is in direct contrast to the mid-90's promise of the net where it was seen that anyone would be able to put up any thing.
I feel very sad, myself: I pay boupcoup bucks for a good connection (at least, compared to dialup) but I can't do jack shit with it (at least I can't do 2/3rds of what any healthy geek would want). Barely seems worth it.
Re: (Score:2)
Neither (Score:2)
> more and more frustrating and dangerous to use, or
> will we simply see a massive improvement in coding
> practices and more secure software?"
It will become more frustrating for us, but less dangerous to those to whom it's just a type of television. This will come about not through a massive improvement in coding practices and more secure software but through a massive increase in regulation and control. The cable companies will control what
Troll? Truthfull regardless... (Score:4, Funny)
No, because with a cable modem connection I can order a Powerbook faster than ever.
Network Biology (Score:4, Insightful)
The best defense against viruses is a healthy immune system, and an organism gains a healthy immune system through exposure to germs and viruses.
The current "epidemic" of viruses serves only to strengthen the immune systems various groups are developing to regulate the wider ecosystem - the net.
There will always be change, and one of the drivers of change is chaos.
So, will you eat your comments if you're wrong (Score:3, Funny)
Broadband or Human Nature? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the proliferation of broadband has helped the internet become a more valuable tool for the average 2.5-kids-having-explorer-driving-all-American-fami ly, which has caused it to be a greater part of all our lives. As such, it is now on the radar for the type of people who are threatened by anything beyond their control.
The more we become dependent on the internet, the more interest there will be in regulating it. The level of freedom, possibility, and power that the internet affords to the average person is simply unprecedented. Freedom of the press belongs to those who own a press. With the advent of the internet, the average soccer-mom now has a press that can publish to the entire world for pennies.
Attempts to regulate and lock-down the net are inevitable. It is the nature of those who seek power for themselves to deny and control the power afforded to others.
The possibility of always-on connections spewing a constant stream of malware and sludge is just an excuse. The proliferation of broadband is dangerous because it put the issue on the map and a very high level of power in the hands of the people.
The Dalai Llama
Citizen of a nation where freedom of speech, bought with the blood of heroes, is used to spread pr0n and reality TV shows.
ISPs can deal with this... (Score:3, Interesting)
Publicise it... make sure that the ordinary users are given every chance to comply (a CD that automatically installs Norton should do it), and that's 90% of the problem solved.
What about a test to be allowed to use the net? (Score:3, Funny)
No bandwidth... Users of it (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure with broadband their double clicking takes action faster, but I don't really think that's the problem. The problem is that there are so many more people online now than there was two years ago, and a large chunk of them do not have the knowledge to deal with viruses in their email. Double click now, worry later.
People do NOT pay attention to what they are opening, I do IT for a small business, and we haven't had any machines infected yet. All of the viruses are caught at the mail server and replaced with a text attachment stating "THERE WAS A VIRUS ATTACHED BUT IT HAS BEEN REMOVED BY THE VIRUS SCANNER.TXT" and the same people day after day will forward me the message or call me on the phone and ask if the message is a virus.
To fix the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I know. Everyone has their own fix for the problem, but I really think these steps would take care of most of it.
1. Free firewall software from an ISP for all Windows boxes. I really don't think ZoneLabs would charge too much for an ISP to distribute the free version of ZoneAlarm. Ditto that for AdAware or Spybot S&D.
2. Free virus-scanning of all email. Don't scan for spam and forward through all virus-stripped email just in case it contains important information. I know, most viruses are ONLY viruses, but you never know what may come later.
3. Have ISPs monitor port 25. If traffic is seen, test it for an open relay. This could be part of the contract the customer would sign. If it's an open relay, block it and tell the customer to clean up the machine if they want it open.
4. Once a new major virus such as MSBlast hits, monitor for it's traffic and block appropriately or take them offline until it's fixed. Of course the virtual network with cleaning tools is a good idea, also.
If this doesn't happen (and I don't expect it to) people with computers HAVE to learn that running a computer hooked up to the Internet is a responsibility. If they can't learn how to manage it properly, they should hire someone to do it. You have to maintain your car and people don't complain too much about it. If they do, people may feel sorry for them, but that's as much slack as they get. Don't fix it? Don't drive.
Oh, don't be silly (Score:3, Insightful)
Bandwidth is very good it kills faster (Score:3, Funny)
ISP Irresponsibility (Score:5, Insightful)
ISPs that can't be bothered to filter out the viruses are the primary cause of all this damage.
Today, almost all viruses are weapons to attack home PCs, installing spambots. If the ISPs had even been marginally responsible as these epidemics started, rather than fostering the spread of ever-more-dangerous virii, today's problems would be several orders of magnitude less than they are.
That has nothing to do with broadband per se. It has to do with trying to make a buck by externalizing all costs ... changing the Internet from a place where
organizations were responsible, to one where irresponsibility
became the norm.
There are lots of real-world examples of people being held responsible for their actions. You can't just go screwing people to give them AIDS, for example. Or firing guns into crowds. And there are plenty of places where littering gives reasonable fines (hundreds of dollars).
Newcomers versus Old Timers (Score:4, Insightful)
I have moderated some large message boards, by way of an analogy. They always start off with a small group of people that get comfortable with the tone of voice, the technology involved, and they then set the trend for that one site. If the tone is right (i.e., inviting) tons of people start showing up. If you build it, they will come and all that. You'd think that would be a good thing, but it invariably leads to becoming "a victim of your own success".
You get people that have no idea what have gone on before, but show up and start demanding to be heard. Major soap box time. And God help 'em if they don't get taken seriously, or get criticized because they are reinventing the wheel or any of a number of other things.
This dovetails nicely with the
Is there a crackdown on surfing habits in the future? Maybe. On the whole, it probably wouldn't be a bad thing since most issues would be related to security type items (antivirus requirements, firewalling, OS patches, etc) as has been noted. Would things like this impact the "old timers"? Probably not, and the noobs wouldn't even know the difference anyway.
Remember, the question wasn't about freedom of speech, copyright issues, IP, etc., but the propagation of crap.
Broadband connection, analog connection, it doesn't matter. The abuses are the same (read "deranged indifference" as abuses). It's like the Austin Powers movie where the guy gets run over by a steam roller. The end result is the same, it just takes a lot longer than getting hit by a Porsche. The outcome is inevitable, in my mind. It is just a matter of how quickly we get there.
Saving people from themselves... (Score:5, Informative)
I have made it standard practice to install 3 applications on all Windoze machines that I fix anything on...
1) Install Avast! Home Edition [avast.com] and set it to do automatic updates of both the Core Program and Virus Database. Because most people don't pay for Anti-Virus upgrades after their free trial version runs out...not to mention the fact that Avast! is better than Norton and most for-pay AV apps anyhow...
2) Install Spybot Search & Destroy [safer-networking.org] and make sure that the primary user(s) see what the result of the initial scan is (shock value) with instructions on how to use the app...
3) Install FireFox (no link needed) with the follofing userContent.css [texturizer.net]...
If they still insist on using IE I will install Google Toolbar and enable popup blocking...
I then proceed to replace any spyware apps with free non-spyware apps (WeatherBug -> Weather Pulse [tropicdesigns.net], etc)
As for a firewall, I talked most into buying a wireless router (generally a cheap 802.11b router) to use as a firewall and future network upgrades. I don't think any windoze software firewalls are very good...IPTables is about the ONLY software firewall that I trust...
After doing this, I find that these systems stay fairly clean and have much fewer problems. Not to mention the owners of said machines tend to be much happier afterward.
Re:Saving people from themselves... (Score:3)
I have never run Windows, and I have never needed any of this stuff. Do you really get your Windows box owned just because Windows is insecure out of the box? Or are these people clicking on e-mail attachments, or downloading all kinds of closed-source freeware (Kazaa,...) and then acting surprised that it does bad stuff?
My mother bought a new Windows machine, and instantly got it
Re:Saving people from themselves... (Score:3, Insightful)
Strange definition of freedom (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're using the internet to violate copyright laws, that is not an exercise in freedom, but instead an exercise infringing on someone elses rights. The fact that you weren't caught before doesn't mean the internet is becoming less free. It means there is less anarchy on the internet.
Solutions? (Score:3, Informative)
Let's talk about spam and adware: Outlaw it. Why is it proving to be so hard to kick congress off their fat lazy asses and make it easier for people to smack these bitches where it hurts, their wallets? Given what happened with the do not call list you'd think this would be a piece of cake. Why is adware even permitted to exist? You'd think with all the heightened security concern that methods of running unwanted code without a user's consent or knowledge of its installation would be a major issue.
Viruses/worms/trojans: Change the way email works. Step one, NO ATTATCHMENTS. Seriously, why the hell are we using email to shuttle files around? It was not designed for this. What alternative is there for people to share files? I dunno, maybe P2P? Or maybe personal web servers? But wait, that's bad, then broadband providers would have to allow upstream that isn't horribly crippled or god forbid minor webservers on their networks. Let's look at the advantages of sending a link to a file on your machine in an email versus attatching the file:
1. Reduced mail traffic. If your mail goes out to a 100 person list, and only 5 people care to check out the file, only the bandwidth for those 5 is used.
2. Traceable distribution path. We know where the file came from, even if it's malicious code, someone is accountable for hosting it. It's just slightly harder to infect a user's machine, start up a webserver unknowingly, host a file, and trojan a link into their emails than just spew an
Peer to peer copyright infringement: Face it, it's here, it's not going away. Either make what people want to watch and hear available when they want it for a price they won't balk at, or suffer. I mean how impractical is this? Itunes doesn't seem to be having any problems. Maybe it's not so much people are unwilling to pay for a movie or a CD as they are unwilling to go down to a store and get something overpriced or find out it's out of stock. Maybe it's easier to consume TV by watching exactly the episode you want of the show you like without having to plan your day around it. Not everything downloaded is even available for sale. People want it, but companies aren't supplying it, so they're going the less than legal route to get it. There will always be piracy for any medium, people taped CDs and the radio and copied VHS tapes. P2P is just making access to content easier. If there isn't enough legal content or the access isn't easy enough, guess what people will go to instead? I would rather pay what the average monthly cable bill is and be able to search for and download whatever TV episodes or movies I wanted to watch than pay it to have to wait for them to come on so I could watch them or record them. It's not about the money.
Dialup not standard (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's take a look at your assumptions.
There is no such thing. Dialup just happens to be cheaper if you don't use the Net heavily, and to be universally available. There ain't anything standard about it.
Nor is broadband what people really need. Rid them of the actual dialing time delays, and they will live happily with 128Kbps or even 64Kbps. This would be somewhat cheaper, would make these users less interesting to be targetted by spammers, and would help webdesigner go slow with flash and fancy graphics.
So what we need is competition in the last mile Net connections, so that this bandwidth madness is checked.
Now, perhaps MS users should be required to have firewalls by default, and to give permission for ISPs to routinely check them for virii, spyware and the such? Perhaps partition all ISPs in MS Windows and the sane world, the MS Windows world being firewalled at the ISP so that MS Windows users can only do so much harm to their fellow sufferers?
The internet went to hell May 5, 1992 (Score:3, Interesting)
-S
Mitigation (Score:3, Interesting)
Every communication line is multiplexed. In other words, a telephone trunk line open to the public at large may actually only be able to handle 1/10 of the total possible traffic.
But broadband lines have been multiplexed much worse.
So that as long as everyone does not use broadband, the speeds are high; but as soon as everyone goes over to it, guess what will happen?
And then those who want the speed they had in the beginning will get a new offer: pay twice as much again and you can have it back. And so forth.
So things are faster now, but it's not a constant upward curve.
Broadband access vs. human global mobility (Score:4, Interesting)
With the increase in human mobility due to cars, trains, planes, etc. more people can come in contact from disparate places more rapidly and more often. This has resulted in once isolated diseases with limited scope becoming important health concerns. SARS is a prime example. Toronto became an infected city, though thousands of miles away from the epicenter. Yet we develop technology to aid in the detection and treatment of diseases. We don't, though, regulate people's movement. Temporarily there might be economic forces that isolate areas (i.e. airline travel stops due to lack of demand) but such effedts are temporary.
I don't see a need to necessarily worry that broadband access's negative effects will trigger overregulation. Instead, I think that systems will be developed that mimic biologic systems. Oftentimes, evolution has produced solutions to complex problems in very elegant ways that we could not have developed using traditional methods.
ISPs become more sophisticated too (Score:4, Insightful)
Also more and more mere users have come to understand the importance of patching, disabling services, not trusting attachments etc and even Microsoft is supposed to be shipping some kind of firewall software as standard now.
Things are not as one-sided as it looks.
Not an accurate estimation (Score:4, Insightful)
*Internet* breaking down? (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe the inter... ahem, software would heal with new development philosophies?
This is the most foolish headline I've seen on /. (Score:3, Insightful)
Believe it or not a free scall network and the Internet:
Can not be destroyed
Can not be owned
Individual or single entitites on it only have minimel impact (HUBS having the most influeance, and I don't me devices)
No one can even fully understand the complete workings of the internet.
These are almost FACTs, I know some may despute them but with out going to deep into the concepts I can asure you that Broadband or a Nuclear War will not destry the internet (Though it might lower its usage a little)
Re:More mod abuse (Score:3, Funny)
Re:More mod abuse (Score:3, Funny)
I need to verify this, but it appears there is an epidemic of of conceited self-victimizing individuals who tragically suffer from grand, paranoid delusions about their posts being intelligent yet relocated.