[Scspamcop] Re: Kudos again to zombie-slaying Sky.com

[Sofa King Tyred of Lar Ting]

John Malmberg wrote:
> While they have a financial interest in doing so, it seems that only the 
> ones that are small enough that the owner(s) directly notice the costs 
> of the bandwidth theft and potential paying customer loss seem to 
> actually act that way.

OK, here's a scenario that makes zombies profitable. I actually pay a 
basic rate for broadband internet, and if I exceed my upload or download 
rates, I'm billed a surcharge per Megabyte. So, "bandwidth theft" is 
actually charged to me.

Now, if I'm a P2P user, my bandwidth is hard to limit. I can look at my 
daily usage and try to keep it under my monthly limit. I know some users 
on my ISP who even developed a .NET application that will tell you how 
close you are each day to going over...

So, if my PC had a zombie and I was scrutinizing my daily consumption, I 
might realize I'm experiencing "bandwidth theft" -- my ISP isn't going 
to want to tell me about it if it means I'm paying them more money each 
month. Unused bandwidth, if it's not hurting the QoS, doesn't make them 
money.

If I'm really naïve, I'm going to think it's my own fault for having 
downloaded all those The Sopranos episodes... If I get hit with the 
surcharge enough, I may actually upgrade my bandwidth plan... You see 
where this is going?

I have no proof, but I would not be surprised if some person within an 
ISP didn't see zombies as cash cows from this perspective.