Re: How should ISPs notify customers about Bots (Was Re: DNS Hijacking

[Joe Greco <jgreco () ns sol net>]

> On Mon, Jul 23, 2007 at 02:48:05PM -0500, Joe Greco wrote:
> > > On 7/23/07, Joe Greco <jgreco () ns sol net> wrote:
> > > > All right, here we go.  Please explain the nature of the bot on my freshly
> > > > installed (last night) FreeBSD 6.2R box.
> > >
> > > %age of freshly installed freebsd 6.2R boxes v/s random windows boxes
> > > on cox cable?
> >
> > That's fairly irrelevant.  The fact is that this isn't targetting infected
> > boxes, it's targetting everyone.
>
> its relevant because you specified freebsd and hence it becomes necessary to consider what % of users have freebsd 
> boxes and how many of those are infected

No, it's not necessary to consider what % of users have FreeBSD boxes.  I
simply used that to indicate that the box in question /is/ /not/ /infected/,
and yet I'm being redirected.

The point here is that it is inappropriate to break legitimate services in 
the pursuit of the "greater good".

> > > Like anything else, its a numbers game.
> >
> > All of computing is a numbers game.  That doesn't make it right to go around
> > breaking random services just because it might fix some random problem.
>
> "right" .. whats that then? you're buying a product, you have T&Cs,
> you are protected by consumer law.. what moral of society is being 
> breached for it not to be "right"?

If I'm buying Internet access, and I ask for irc.vel.net, I expect to be
connected to that site.

> and neither the services are random or the problem. they are quite 
> specific and the solution has been calculated to be the path of least 
> resistance for the whole.
>
>
> you sound a lot like a consumer more than a network operator.. 

Every network operator is a consumer and a provider.

> i'm not
> saying i would like what cox do if i were a consumer of theirs but 
> they are dealing with an issue on their subscription service and 
> they dont seem to be doing anything particularly radical

This isn't radical?

> do you have a better suggestion for them?

Sure.  Posted already.  If they need some professional advice, there's a
ton of people who could provide highly effective solutions.

> incidentally, if you are a consumer and a tech-savvy one, why dont 
> you just circumvent the restriction?

For the same reason I don't support having multiple incoherent DNS roots.

... JG
-- 
Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net
"We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I
won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN)
With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.