Raymond Dijkxhoorn wrote:
[Mimedefang] monkeys.dom UPL being DDOSed to death Jon R. Kibler mimedefang@lists.roaringpenguin.com Tue Sep 23 14:15:01 2003 The computer security industry really needs to figure out how to get law enforcement to take these attacks seriously. It would only take a few good prosecutions to put an end to these types of attacks. Any thoughts/suggestions?
This is really a dark day for those of us fighting spam. I looks like the spammers have won a BIG battle. The only question now is who will be the causality in this war?
This goes beyond spam and the resources that many mail servers are using. These attacks are being directed at anti-spam organizations today. Where will they point tomorrow? Many forms of breaking through network security require that a system be DOS'd while the crime is being committed. These machines won't quiet down after the blacklists are shut down. They will keep attacking hosts. For the US market, this is a national security issue. These systems will be exploited to cause havoc among networks of all types and sizes; governmental and commercial. Windows Update may be protected for now, but it still has limitations. It can be killed to the point of non use. Then how will system get patched to protect themselves from new exploits? The problem will escalate. There are many financial institutions online. Does anyone doubt that their security can be penetrated? What about DoD networks? There are a lot of social aspects to internetworking. Changes need to be made. Power needs to be allocated appropriately. A reconing needs to occur. All the businesses that make and spend mass amount of money due to the Internet need to strongly consider that there won't be a product if the social ramifications are solved. Users don't want to be online and check email just to find hundreds of advertisements, pornography, and illegal material in their inbox. Users don't want to hear that they've been infected with the latest virus and can no longer be online until they fix the problem; usually resulting in money. Users don't want to hear that they can't reach site X because of some change in architecture. If the general masses get fed up with the Internet, there won't be an Internet. Millions of dollars are easily being lost because of malicious activity on the Internet. Millions more are being lost due to differences of opinion in the governing bodies of the Internet. Is everyone so short sighted and greedy as to not recognize that they are dying a slow financial death? -jack