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Sporkman
June 23rd, 2010, 03:17 PM
Aussies: Get a virus, no Web for you!

Tue Jun 22, 5:51 pm ET

How do you deal with an epidemic like the spread of computer malware? Australia thinks it has the answer: Blame the victim.

I’m not entirely joking: A new plan floated by the country’s House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications suggests that Australia should allow ISPs to mandate anti-virus and firewall protection among their customers. If a customer does get a malware infection, the ISP would be allowed to cut off that customer’s connection until the problem was fixed...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ytech_wguy/20100622/tc_ytech_wguy/ytech_wguy_tc2777

whiskeylover
June 23rd, 2010, 03:36 PM
LOL Aussies

alphaniner
June 23rd, 2010, 04:10 PM
No arguments here.

dragos240
June 23rd, 2010, 04:27 PM
That's actually smart. Sure, they have no internet, but only until it's gone. Besides, we use linux here, and there are far less viruses for linux then there are for windows.

Sporkman
June 23rd, 2010, 04:33 PM
That's actually smart. Sure, they have no internet, but only until it's gone. Besides, we use linux here, and there are far less viruses for linux then there are for windows.

What about the "mandate[d] anti-virus and firewall protection"? What happens when you tell then that you can't install their software package because you are running an unsupported OS?

Sporkman
June 23rd, 2010, 04:34 PM
Also from the article:


That said, the difficulties with implementing such a solution seem almost insurmountable. How exactly would an ISP identify infected machines? And would it be able to distinguish among Windows, Macs, Linux, and other devices? How would false positives be avoided? What’s the process for fixing a machine that’s been knocked off the Net? After all, if a user is unsophisticated to the point where he doesn’t know he has a virus, how will he be able to correct the problem without Web access? (I suppose that’s what that 24-hour helpline is for.)

98cwitr
June 23rd, 2010, 05:58 PM
haha DDoS attack from none other than....your ISP. That's some backward *** logic. Only a politician could have come up with something so stupid.

Xianath
June 23rd, 2010, 09:57 PM
A guy I know down there often says he's never seen a roo except at the zoo. Now I know. Them bloody roos are in their parliament!

Chase: "I'm not British, I'm Australian"
House: "You have the Queen on your money, that makes you British."

:D

madjr
June 23rd, 2010, 10:03 PM
i would suggest them to migrate to linux

Penguin Guy
June 23rd, 2010, 10:17 PM
Seems unfair, but I can see the logic behind it - although I think it's OTT.

lisati
June 23rd, 2010, 10:17 PM
One possible solution would be for an ISP to redirect the user to a landing page managed by the ISP if the user is suspected of sending out malware. The ISP then could check the user agent information provided by the browser, and make recommendations or take action based on what it discovers.

There are, however, a couple of limitations to this approach. There are user agent switchers and other factors which could mislead the server. Based on the IP address assigned by my ISP, I'm supposedly in Auckland. I'm not. And then there are proxies...... :)

del_diablo
June 23rd, 2010, 10:25 PM
In the end, there is just no good way of doing this :/

Dustin2128
June 23rd, 2010, 10:38 PM
haha DDoS attack from none other than....your ISP. That's some backward *** logic. Only a politician could have come up with something so stupid.

Agreed.

blur xc
June 23rd, 2010, 10:47 PM
Agreed.

Well meaning, misguided, ignorant politicians...

BM

Spike-X
June 24th, 2010, 11:08 PM
This has as much chance of actually going ahead as the recently-shelved Internet filter plan does.

Which is to say, none at all.