The Carrot & Stick Approach to Internet Pollution

["Paul Ferguson" <fergdawg () netzero net>]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Brian Krebs:

[snip]

Study after study show that ISPs in the United States lead the way in
providing connectivity to computers that are a major source of malicious
activity online, from bot-infected, spam-spewing PCs to compromised
computers acting as download sites for malicious software or hosts for
phishing Web sites. While it is true that some network providers do a much
better job than others in cleaning up problem sites and PCs that are part
of their networks, in far too many cases problematic customers are allowed
to pollute the Internet for weeks or even months at a time.

Experts say it often costs ISPs more to field a support call from a
customer seeking help in cleaning up a virus-infected PC than the provider
will make from that customer in an entire year. The result is that --
unless problematic customers are consuming way more than their share of
Internet bandwidth -- network providers often find it more cost-effective
to simply ignore problematic customers.

I'm not suggesting that taxing online access is the way to fix this
problem. But perhaps the time has come for Congress to at least hold out
the threat of more government involvement in this space as a means of
encouraging Internet providers to do the right thing on security.

[snip]

More:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2007/10/the_carrot_stick_approac
h_to_i.html

- - ferg


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP Desktop 9.6.3 (Build 3017)

wj8DBQFHF5tEq1pz9mNUZTMRAsvAAKD2OmSoHA9gdG3u28lzJ30ql3NnxACg2jxp
E4hUMSFlt3MBc2AkcZWr0XA=
=69HI
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawg(at)netzero.net
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/


_______________________________________________
Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts.
https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec
Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list.