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(Mis)Uses of Technology

by Mike Masnick

Mon, Nov 7th 2005 4:24pm





Australian Government Fed Up With Zombies, Gets Proactive With Software

from the if-the-ISPs-won't-do-it... dept

It appears that the Australian government is fed up with the fact that ISPs aren't going out and stopping zombiefied computers from connecting to the internet. They've gone and written their own application to identify likely zombie victims and will send the data to ISPs, telling them to deal with those users. The idea is that, hopefully, the ISPs will help the infected users clean up their machines, but if that doesn't work, those users should be cut off. Of course, how successful this is may depend on how accurate the software really is. Still, this really raises the question of why the government is doing this at all? Why aren't the ISPs tracking down these users on their own?

6 Comments | Leave a Comment

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  1.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Nov 7th, 2005 @ 5:34pm

    No Subject Given

    Whats a zombie?

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  
    identicon
    Tabooyah, Nov 7th, 2005 @ 5:52pm

    Re: No Subject Given

    A Computer controlled by someone other than its user, usually via a trojan or some other type of malware. Sony will have amassed an empire shortly... ;-)

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  
    identicon
    Vacendak, Nov 7th, 2005 @ 5:54pm

    Re: No Subject Given

    zombie computers have been compromised by hackers, a computer virus, or a trojan horse, and perform malicious tasks of one sort of another, under the direction of the hacker. Many owners of zombie computers are unaware that their systems are zombies or that any hacker attack ever occurred.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Nov 7th, 2005 @ 10:22pm

    Re: No Subject Given

    zombies are who voted for howard, bush & blair...

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  
    identicon
    Daniel Barbalace, Nov 8th, 2005 @ 10:48am

    What is a zombie?

    Come over here with that juicy brain of yours and I'll show you. Arrrgh...

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  6.  
    identicon
    Anonymous of Course, Nov 8th, 2005 @ 12:08pm

    Re: No Subject Given


    "zombies are who voted for howard, bush & blair..."

    Perfect example of a zombie attack.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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