nanog mailing list archives
Re: Is there anything that actually gets users to fix their computers?
From: Kee Hinckley <nazgul () somewhere com>
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 00:57:31 -0400
At 2:11 AM +0000 10/5/03, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
For more fun, consider that you are postmaster () somewhere com, and get those
It's the anti-virus ones that drive me nuts. "Someone in your domain sent us a virus which always forges the from line, but we're going to tell you anyway because we'd like you to buy our software..."
Reply to that and you will, as likely as not, get your reply sent back to you and your upstreams as a spam complaint.
When I moved somewhere.com to a new ISP, the very first thing I did was contact the abuse desk there and warn them what to expect. That was helpful when Universal Studios tried to come after me because someone at somewhere.com (literally :-) had posted a stolen movie on usenet. (Only one?)
on that cc list for the same reason that you are - Outlook Express being set up to add all people that you reply to, to your address book.
> been told right and left not to open mail from strangers (acompletely bogus concept, given that viruses tend to come from friends). What I found was that they take that quite literally.Say what? I have received virii from people I don't know from Adam, from countries where I don't know anyone at all.
Those of us who post widely get that. But your average "just use email to talk to friends and family" is more likely to get it from friends--unless of course they forwarded a joke to everyone in their address book, who forwarded it....
> They either need to be contacted out of band, or their email softwareneeds to support a secure channel of communications that they can really trust.Hotmail, for example, clearly marks mail from hotmail staff (service announcements etc) with a different colored text in the inbox ... I guess if you control the client your user uses (using a custom built web interface is one way, a customized browser / mail client is another way) ... But other than that, you could well ask for the moon.
Bringing this back to the more relevant topic. Is there something that ISPs could do to notify users and get in their face more without shutting off their connection? Perhaps a custom piece of notification software that only took signed messages, and made some attempt to keep its bits secure? Unfortunately I don't see much way to keep it from being subverted without OS support. If it became common enough, then the virus writers would just simulate messages from it and disable the real one.
-- Kee Hinckley http://www.messagefire.com/ Next Generation Spam Defense http://commons.somewhere.com/buzz/ Writings on Technology and Society I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate everyone else's.
Current thread:
- Is there anything that actually gets users to fix their computers? Sean Donelan (Oct 03)
- Re: Is there anything that actually gets users to fix their computers? Daniel Karrenberg (Oct 03)
- Re: Is there anything that actually gets users to fix their computers? Erik-Jan Bos (Oct 03)
- Re: Is there anything that actually gets users to fix their computers? Daniel Karrenberg (Oct 03)
- RE: Is there anything that actually gets users to fix their computers? Terry Baranski (Oct 03)
- Re: Is there anything that actually gets users to fix their computers? Laurence F. Sheldon, Jr. (Oct 03)
- RE: Is there anything that actually gets users to fix their computers? Kee Hinckley (Oct 04)
- Re: Is there anything that actually gets users to fix their computers? Suresh Ramasubramanian (Oct 04)
- Re: Is there anything that actually gets users to fix their computers? Kee Hinckley (Oct 04)
- Re: Is there anything that actually gets users to fix their computers? Suresh Ramasubramanian (Oct 04)
- Security v. Privacy (was Re: Is there anything that actually gets users to fix their computers?) Sean Donelan (Oct 05)
- Re: Security v. Privacy (was Re: Is there anything that actually gets users to fix their computers?) Suresh Ramasubramanian (Oct 05)
- Re: Security v. Privacy (was Re: Is there anything that actually gets users to fix their computers?) Sean Donelan (Oct 05)
- Re: Security v. Privacy (was Re: Is there anything that actually gets users to fix their computers?) Suresh Ramasubramanian (Oct 05)
- Re: Security v. Privacy (was Re: Is there anything that actually gets users to fix their computers?) Matthew Sullivan (Oct 05)
- Re: Security v. Privacy (was Re: Is there anything that actually gets users to fix their computers?) Suresh Ramasubramanian (Oct 05)
- Re: Security v. Privacy (was Re: Is there anything that actually gets users to fix their computers?) Valdis . Kletnieks (Oct 05)
- Re: Security v. Privacy (was Re: Is there anything that actually gets users to fix their computers?) Matthew Sullivan (Oct 05)
- Re: Security v. Privacy (was Re: Is there anything that actually gets users to fix their computers?) Sean Donelan (Oct 05)
- Re: Is there anything that actually gets users to fix their computers? Erik-Jan Bos (Oct 03)
- Re: Is there anything that actually gets users to fix their computers? Daniel Karrenberg (Oct 03)