[IP] FTC plans spam "zombie" crackdown: a good idea? [sp]
Begin forwarded message:
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@xxxxxxxx>
Date: May 24, 2005 8:53:29 AM EDT
To: politech@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Politech] FTC plans spam "zombie" crackdown: a good idea? [sp]
http://news.com.com/2010-1071_3-5715633.html
Feds to fight the zombies
May 23, 2005, 4:00 AM PT
By Declan McCullagh
Remote-controlled "zombie" networks operated by bottom-feeding
spammers have become a serious problem that requires more industry
action, the Federal Trade Commission is expected to announce on Tuesday.
The FTC and more than 30 of its counterparts abroad are planning to
contact Internet service providers and urge them to pay more
attention to what their customers are doing online. Among the
requests: identifying customers with suspicious e-mailing patterns,
quarantining those computers and offering help in cleaning the zombie
code off the hapless PCs.
To be sure, computers infected by zombie programs and used to churn
out spam are a real threat to the future of e-mail. One report by
security company Sophos found that compromised PCs are responsible
for 40 percent of the world's spam--and that number seems to be
heading up, not down.
But government pressure--even well-intentioned--on Internet providers
to monitor their users raises some important questions.
[...remainder snipped...]
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