Monday, June 23, 2008

All You Zombies...

by Ken Houghton

They are heavily discussed at EoB. (Most recently here.) Now, Zombies have made it into The Economists' [sic] Voice:
The problem with this assumption is that there is a significant amount of spam that is currently being sent via "zombie" computers...Should the owners of these zombie bots then be made liable for their contribution to the worldwide spam problem?

Sounds like a good idea. But YOU may be (running) a Zombie:
Perhaps, the responsibility of maintaining a sound firewall lies on the owner of the machine. But, even if we do make the owner legally liable, what good would it do? The subtleties of security technology lie beyond the average user of the Internet.[emphasis mine]

I think I prefer Steve's version.

Lim, Jamus Jerome (2008) "Letter: Zombies May Mean Attention Bonds Will Not Cure Spam," The Economists' Voice: Vol. 5 : Iss. 2, Article 5. Available at: http://www.bepress.com/ev/vol5/iss2/art5

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Comments:
I have no joke, I just like saying, "Zombies May Mean Attention Bonds Will Not Cure Spam". A person waking from a 15-year coma would not understand _anything_ in that title.

Anyway, legal liability should not be necessary; it should suffice to use DNSBLs to block all network traffic (not just email) from spam sources.
 
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