[SATLUG] ATT Thanks you

[Daniel J. Givens]

Luis Garza wrote:
> I think that it is the ISP's duty as a good net citizen by threatening to 
> temperary drop the customer until the Windows Wimp installs SP2 and other
> patches.  This will greatly reduce the zombie DDOS attacks and SPAMMERS
> from using them to send out their junk.  This ISP's sit on the IPs like
> they are gold but they let anyone abuse it.  I think that the INTERNIC
> should make them be more responsible for their IPs or start taking away
> blocks of IPs and sell them to a more responsible ISP.

I think it is an unfortunate side effect of the current market where
small ISPs are pretty much non-existent. My first job was at a small,
rural ISP with about 400 subscribers. When we got emails in saying
that one of our users were spamming someone or there was a virus or
worm originating from one of our IPs, we would be on it right that
moment. Everything would stop and all of our attention would go to
getting to the root of the problem even if that meant driving to the
customer's house to help them rid their system of the malware. We
didn't charge extra for it because we knew most of the subscribers
from associations outside of the customer/provider relationship.

I'm not saying every ISP should be this way, but these sorts of things
become near impossible when the ratio of knowledgeable technicians to
customers gets thin. In the interest of business, I suppose you aim
for more subscribers for lower investment, but overall support suffers.

> Is just my thoughts on the matter.  Its just me remembering when being on
> the internet was a priviledge.  If it was abused then you were kicked off.

The commercialization of Internet connectivity has done that.

> It just seems to me that these hackers are using the zombie pc's to do
> their dirty work.  Take away their tools then you take away their
> livelyhood.  Can you just imagen how the internet would be :-)

I think this is the result of two things. First, the crappy software
that is being created that is allowing there to be a means to exploit
systems. Second, and possibly even deeper than the first, the use of
general purpose computers by mostly ignorant users. Most people never
come close to truly utilizing their computers, at work or at home. For
what most people do, a specialized appliance would do just fine. In
this high speed connected world, thin clients could do the job even
better. Granted, you end up with a whole other set of potential
problems, but my point is that most people don't need general purpose
computers and it only leads to greater confusion by end users,
increased expense of ownership when they have to take their system to
Geek Squad to have it fixed, and in-directly, a thriving bot-net market.

> A dreamer's rants....

We can all dream, can't we?