E-Dribble

Although it’s long been the most logical solution, this is the first time I’ve seen it seriously proposed.  Australia is proposing to kick botnet zombie computers off the internet.  The only ambiguous aspect of the article is they plan to determine which computers are bots.  I would guess a mix of port 25 activity, a known list of “phone-home” IP’s and the like.

With some real forward thinking going on, they’re proposing that the owner of the infected computer is notified and from there, an escalation of action including slowing the connection and ending with terminating service.  I imagine if the U.S. were proposing this, you’d be reading about prison time and compensation to your ISP for the lost bandwidth.

I hope it actually makes it to fruition, simply for the reason that I’m interested to see what the bot owners will do next.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has decided that he has figured out how to save the internet from DDoS attacks and other nefarious actions happening inside the various tubes of the intardnet.  His proposal?  Kick Windows off of the web.  His reasoning is along the lines that Windows is terribly insecure and linux is impervious to bad people.

After his attention grabbing headline, used to ensure that he’s gotten you all riled up, he completely dismisses his proposal and waters it down to “patch your OS before being allowed on the web”.

Regardless, his points concerning the inferiority of Windows made me smile.  People being completely wrong tend to elicit that reaction from me.

(continue reading…)

Not only do they act as the chlorine in the gene pool, but they also do their part to ensure that their customers don’t breed.

Let’s face it.  If you think it’s a good idea to purchase medicine that affects the little general through nameless people via unsolicited bulk mail subscribing to this spelling methodology, then chances are great that you should not be allowed to influence the thoughts of those younger than you.

A report was recently published, linking pharmaceutical spam botnets to the Russian criminal underground. All of the Canadian pharmacy emails you get are actually routed to Ivan. Of interest in the report is the following quote:

However, IronPort-sponsored pharmacological testing revealed that two thirds of the shipments contained the active ingredient but were not the correct dosage, while the others were placebos. As a result, consumers take a significant risk of ingesting an uncontrolled substance from overseas distributors, the researchers say.

This is fantastic. Chances are great that the Viagra that the dipshits purchase will either do absolutely nothing, or may make them violently ill. Both of which will keep them from procreating.

And to think we were trying to put a stop to this.