[wplug] Be afraid ... interesting research on botnets

[John Harrold]

Sometime in March Patrick Wagstrom assaulted the keyboard and produced:

| It's likely that if anything happens its going to be the providers that
| do some work on it, at least here in the US.  I could see a company that
| is being attacked by these networks deciding to sue Comcast because they
| knowingly allow infected zombie machines to stay on their network.  It's
| not quite aiding and abetting, but it's getting to be pretty close.

I think the word you are looking for here is 'negligence'.

| The real issue that vendors need to take some responsibility for their
| products.  If I release a product that can cause harm shouldn't I be
| liable for it?  If I were to sell radio controlled cars that could be
| easily taken over on a global scale to force them to go screw with
| physical traffic (cars) I would probably be liable for selling the
| product.   Unfortunately, those wonderful EULAs that everyone agrees to
| somehow make software companies immune to these issues.  Oh yeah, and
| Linux has the same disclaimers, read the GPL.

I think individidual users sued for negligence might make people consider
being members of a global network more responsibly.

-- 
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                            | /"\                         
 john harrold               | \ / ASCII ribbon campaign   
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 the most useful idiot      | / \                         
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 What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, 
 and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is brought 
 under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of 
 liberty and democracy?
 --Gandhi
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