* But customers of broadband ISP aren't going to want to pay more than $40 a month for any such thing you add,

You are right about the average customer. But this mythical beast is composed of some less than average customers who just want plain vanilla cheap service and some more than average customers who are ready and willing to pay for a service that adds value. Let's foist this problem off on the marketing department and ask them why we don't have a plain vanilla unprotected Internet service for advanced users and a deluxe high priced service including filtering and free AV software for the segment that is willing to pay for value add?

"You let that virus come into my computer" ... "It came over YOUR network!!!!".

Do people phone up the city to complain because the burglar drove over municpal roads to get to their house? I'm surprised that a first level support department isn't equipped with a set of "correct" analogies to help educate (and calm) the customers.

We had some users that were happy we had cut them off, and told them that they had a problem (virus or otherwise).

That is becoming the norm. Filtering port 135 or 92 byte pings is a service that customers don't want. They are justified in complaining if you implement such a service. But when the customer starts to violate the AUP (even unknowingly) they are disrupting other users and should be shut off. The correct analogy is when disruptive customers get ejected from a bar by the bouncer. Or when the police give a traffic ticket to the little old lady doing 30 mph on the freeway. --Michael Dillon