[Scspamcop] Re: OT, Ralsky Indictment (Link)

[Antispam Knight]

"Sofa King Tyred of Lar Ting" <nobody at devnull.spamcop.net> wrote in message 
news:flon24$7ja$1 at news.spamcop.net...
> Geoffrey Hyde wrote:
>> "Mike Easter" <MikeE at ster.invalid> wrote in message 
>> news:flm7pu$7m3$1 at news.spamcop.net...
>>> Sofa King Tyred of Lar Ting wrote:
>>>> Bar0 wrote:
>>>>> The Indictment of Ralsky is published at:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2008/January/08_crm_003.html
>>>> Three+ years to come up with a 41-count indictment against 11 people.
>>> Ralsky's name is on an indictment list.  He isn't arrested and he isn't
>>> currently in-country.
>>
>> The real question is when is anyone going to stand up and do something 
>> about all of these compromized zombie PC's on the internet.  Have any of 
>> the news services actually published headlines about infected zombie PC's 
>> being cleaned up and removed from the zombie pool?  I'll bet I know why 
>> because it hasn't happened, and won't, for quite some time.
>
> Zombies *are* being taken off line every day. It's happening. However, the 
> rate that new zombies are created with existing and new malware is likely 
> higher than the rate that zombies are being cleaned up. Hence the zombie 
> pool is most likely growing globally.
>
> New PCs are coming online constantly, and the versions of an OS "out of 
> the box" tend to have security holes until they get patched. Patching 
> requires automatic downloads. Not all software is smart enough to do 
> that - I always have to manually install my Adobe Flash plugin updates, 
> for example. I'm subscribed to the SANS newsletter, which sends out a 
> weekly list of security holes so that I can update proactively.
>
> Developing countries will go through the same learning curve for "security 
> competence" that European, North American, etc. countries went through. It 
> spans across the entire sector: from the ISPs, to the PC retailers, to the 
> end users.
>
> There will be zombie "markets" that are available for a long time to come, 
> IMO.
I agree. For many, many people, especially non-technical people, the PC is 
an applicance, like a toaster, which you plug in, and make toast.
For the PC, you plug it in, and send/receive email. And look at neat 
websites. I personally know many, many people who operate this way. 
Firewall, what's that? Antivirus? You mean my computer could catch a cold? I 
try to educate, where appropriate, but in many cases, it falls on deaf ears. 
People just don't have hours and hours to devote to it. Even if you cleaned 
up the infections, the behavior which allowed the infections continues, 
resulting in reinfection. Tell people *not* to double click on random 
attachments, but they do anyway. They just can't resist. Tell people to 
configure their email client to read in plain text only, and they don't know 
how, or don't want to miss those nifty special effects of html. However the 
pc comes out of the box, is how it stays, in many cases.
Keep up the good fight, but I'm not optimistic.
AK