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February 04, 2005
The E-Mail Meltdown
Posted by Dana Blankenhorn
The final destruction of e-mail as an Internet service has begun. (This is as serious as Comic Book Guy's heart attack, right.)
Mainline spam software publishers have added a new worm to their product that not only turns PCs into spam zombies, but runs that spam through the zombies' e-mail server. This on top of an "industry" that already costs legitimate businesses $22 billion.
The result is spam that looks like it's coming from a legitimate address, and despite all the warnings most people still don't update their anti-virals so as to prevent this kind of infection.
Killing this bug is going to be very difficult, says Steve Linford of Spamhaus
- Users must be forced, as the price of admission to the Internet, to have updated anti-viral software that can kill this zombie program, and all future variants.
- Blacklists are going to have to become far more nimble, adding seemingly legitimate addresses and taking them off when firm proof of vaccination has been established.
- The people writing this software need to be jailed, if necessary extradited, and publicly. The people on Spamhaus' Top 10 Spammers' list, at least in the U.S., need to go on the FBI's Top 10 list as well.
- Nations that refuse to cooperate with investigations should have all their outgoing Internet traffic blocked until they comply.
This is as serious as a heart attack. And it needs to be treated as a heart attack would be, stat.
Comments (3)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Internet | Journalism | Security | Software | ethics | law | spam
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Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for over 25 years and has covered the online world professionally since 1985. He founded the "Interactive Age Daily" for CMP Media, and has written for the Chicago Tribune, Advertising Age, and dozens of other publications over the years.
1. Mac user on February 4, 2005 06:46 PM writes...
The price of dealing effectively with this sort of thing is now down to $500 - a Mac Mini. PC users are paying a HECK of a price by insisting on using Windows. Mac, Linux, and UNIX users are getting full use out of their computers no matter what the "Windows virus / spyware / exploit-of-the-week happens to be.
Permalink to Comment2. Jesse Kopelman on February 4, 2005 07:15 PM writes...
Mac user, your solution is self-defeating. While UNIX-based systems may be somewhat more inherently secure, the real reason there is so much Windows malware is because Windows is so popular. If 90% of people used the Mac there would be a lot more malware written for it.
Permalink to Comment3. Mac user on February 5, 2005 07:23 AM writes...
Jesse, the relevant measure isn't how many attacks are being directed towards the system, it's how many of the attacks are SUCCESSFUL. By that measure, the Mac is much, MUCH more hardened than Windows because the underlying OS is much more mature and robust.
Even if your point was valid... I'll settle for "minority" status if it means I'm getting work done using a Mac.
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