MEDIA: Major ISP's declare war on zombies

[integrate]

FULL STORY: http://tinyurl.com/237ut

E-mail providers: Unplug spam-sending PCs

Tuesday, June 22, 2004 Posted: 12:49 PM EDT (1649 GMT)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Consumers who allow their infected computers to send out millions of "spam" messages could be unplugged from the Internet under a proposal released Tuesday by six large e-mail providers.

Internet users also could be limited on the amount of e-mail they send out each day to ensure they haven't become unwitting spammers, under voluntary guidelines proposed to curb unwanted junk e-mail.

The proposal was developed by Time Warner Inc.'s America Online, Yahoo Inc., EarthLink Inc., Microsoft Corp., Comcast Corp. and BT Group Plc.

[Miss Betsy]

My first reaction is that the spammers will just use more machines and send fewer emails on each machine.

And it will create a nuisance for large families or people with a lot of internet friends or business.

But I didn't read the whole story.

Miss Betsy

[jseymour]

My first reaction is that the spammers will just use more machines and send fewer emails on each machine.

And it will create a nuisance for large families or people with a lot of internet friends or business.

The article appears to be a distilled version of the Anti-spam Technical Alliance (ASTA) Recommendations that were released yesterday.

Among the many recommendations are rate limits for outbound mail. They suggest limits of 150 per hour or 500 per day. I've got a large family, but it's not that large!

All in all, I'd say this is a good thing. If the spammers have to infect more machines and send fewer messages per zombie, then it'll make their job that much harder. And that's the name of the game. We provide the pressure. They are forced to adapt. Eventually, the cost to do business will rise to the point that the spammers will have to get real jobs...