The fine people at the FBI are recommending people call their ISP for home computer technical support, even though most ISPs don't sell home computers, operating system software or application software.
No, the ISPs merely sell the channel through which the home computers get infected with worms and viruses, and through which the home computers vomit the reults of those infections. The biggest reason that we are making no progress against zombies is that everyone wants them to be someone else's problem. I entirely agree that the prime responsibility lies with the computer vendors and particularly with operating system vendors, such as one near Seattle, that year after year ship easily compromised software. Whenever someone tries to ask me a Windows question, I tell them to call Microsoft and demand they support the software they sell. But ISPs are not wholly without responsibility. If one of your customers reloaded Windows from CD and then needed to download all of the patches, do you provide a way for them to do it without getting re-wormed before the download is done? R's, John