on Thu, Dec 02, 2004 at 08:58:03PM +0000, Christopher L. Morrow wrote: > > On Thu, 2 Dec 2004, Steven Champeon wrote: > > > > > on Thu, Dec 02, 2004 at 02:56:29PM -0500, Hannigan, Martin wrote: > > > Possibly. What will happen if the Lycos botnet gets hijacked? > > > > > > The conversations between the clients and the servers don't appear > > > to be keyed. If a million clients got owned, it would be the > > > equivalent of an electronic Bubonic Plague with no antidote. > > > > You mean, like the existing botnets we already know exist but are > > already under the control of spammers? > > > > What's the difference? Why is everyone so upset about Lycos and nobody > > seems to be doing much of anything about the /existing botnets/, which > > conservative estimates[1] already put at anywhere from 1-3K per botnet > > to upwards of 1-5M hosts total[2]? > > perhaps the difference is 'reponsible people' don't go out and recruit > botnets... Lycos, as a corporate entity with it's business model dependent > upon the health and wellbeing of the Internet would try to be > 'responsible', or so I would have thought.
I agree. I also think it's up to the companies providing the Internet connectivity to the non-Lycos-"owned" botnets to prevent such activity from affecting others. > arguing that there are murderers and rapists out there and that 'nothing > is being done' is hardly reason to become one yourself. I couldn't agree more that vigilantism isn't the answer. My earlier remarks were directed to the shock and awe evident in the possibility that - via Lycos - there might be, heaven forbid, /large numbers of computers under the control of spammers, that could be used in spamming and abuse/. All I was pointing out was that, surprise, surprise, there already are. So why anyone thinks Lycos' botnet being hacked is /any different/ from /the current situation/ is utterly beyond my ken. Why would any spammer bother to hack Lycos' botnet? They /already have their own/. -- hesketh.com/inc. v: +1(919)834-2552 f: +1(919)834-2554 w: http://hesketh.com join us! http://hesketh.com/about/careers/account_manager.html join us!