said by N O Y B :

Seatbelts and clean air are good things too. But both had to be imposed on the automakers as well as the consumers. Would be great if the ISP would do it of their own accord. But it doesn't look like they will. Given that it will inevitably end up being imposed by legislation.

said by HMS1 :

A computer licencing requirement is the sort of thing that appeals to people when they imagine it being administered in an idealized way - minimally restrictive, by competent bureaucrats, and only as needed for public protection.

In the real world it would quickly become a mighty engine of censorship, exploitation, special-interest protectionism, and political oppression.

* Criticize the government online? "Oops, we miscalculated your exam score! Your licence is no good." or some infraction of the myriad regulations is quickly found in something you do.

* Software vendor X gets a "sweetheart" deal with the regulators, then everyone has to buy, install and run X's product as a condition of being allowed online - "for public safety". And the legislature is not interested in any complaints about this product or the requirement of it, unless you can afford your own lobbyist.

* Do something online that regulators don't approve, you have to pay a fine. The list of fineable offenses may be somehow related to "safety" at first but soon expands without limit.

* Everything you do is monitored from inside your computer; encryption and foreign proxies are banned - otherwise unlicenced users could get behind the keyboard and the regulation could not be complete.

* All your data is sold to some murky private company that got a deal from the legislators - "to pay the costs of this essential protection system".

* Your computer is still hacked by some kiddie scripter because (a) you're no longer allowed to have control of it and therefore can't secure it (b) the vast regulatory apparatus doesn't actually work.

* Anyone who criticizes the scheme is denounced as a supporter of anarchy, hacking, viruses, child pornography, terrorism, etc..

said by HMS1 :

Imposing on ISPs the obligation to detect and remove them is a bad thing.

said by N O Y B :

Detecting and shutting down bots trying to break into peoples computers/networks has negative consequences?

said by N O Y B :

By the way, in the last three days I have reported 14 bots (the highest few offenders each day) using Verizon DSL connections to Verizon Online and none of them have been seen again. I applaud Verizon for whatever action they may have taken to shutdown these bots.

said by N O Y B :

Detecting bots really is easy and disabling their connection really is easy too. In fact it can be automated with an extreme degree of accuracy.
Verizon, as well as Comcast and others could very easily automate this detection and connection shutdown of bots.

said by HMS1 :

So anyone who favors some solution other than ISP snooping is "in support of the apathetic status quo" and must be a bot operator or spammer?

said by N O Y B :

What I don’t understand is why there are so many in support of the apathetic status quo. Are that many of you actually bot operators and spammers?

said by Khaine :

And what happens when a new bot comes out that the ISP doesn't scan for and a customer gets infected and sues the ISP for failure to do its job? You know someone would do it.

Currently ISP's are common carriers and don't have any liability for traffic that passes through their network. Buy forcing them to scan users or whatever you could change their legal status and their liability.

said by devicenull :

The answer to security is not software, nor is it hardware. It's education, plain and simple.

said by N O Y B :

Apathy is right. Especially on the part of ISPs that could very easily automate such things as bot detection and automatically shutdown the connection. They could also automate detection and blocking of certain automated types of email address harvesting.

Even if you pull the logs from your firewall and send your ISP major offenders nothing is likely to be done. Shutting down the easy to detect high offending bots would go a long ways toward protecting the ignorant computer operator. At least maybe for more the 4 minutes. With all the bots hitting my firewall it’s easy to see how an unprotected computer could be taken control of in a matter of minutes.

There are some other things ISPs and corporations need to do as well. Like untying account number and/or login ID from publicly used things such as email address and web space URL, etc. And make all authentication via secure methods, even for SMTP/POP and NNTP, etc.

said by devicenull :

You have to be very careful automatically shutting down clients. What if I want to run a Nessus or Nmap scan on a server I own? With any type of automated system, you run the risk of it flagging that and taking action.. Server could have many IP addresses with different services on each..

said by HMS1 :

Well it's rather hyperbolic. As you can tell from the title.

said by devicenull :

Lacking a perfect anti-everything tool (viruses, trojans, spyware, etc), the only acceptable response, in my opinion is user education....The answer to security is not software, nor is it hardware. It's education, plain and simple.

                  Security:
 
      The condition or quality of being secure. Specifically:
 
      Freedom from apprehension, anxiety, or care;
 
      Confidence of power of safety;
 
      Hence, assurance; certainty.
 
                              - Webster

said by N O Y B :

Suppose a corporation knowingly permits the use of their resources for illegal activity and does nothing meaningfully significant to prevent such activity, should they not be held responsible for resulting damages?

ISPs currently do knowingly permit the use of their resources (their privately owned and operated network) for illegal activity and in many cases could put automated systems in place to detect, block and shutdown offending customer connections.

said by devicenull :

[...]
The only way an ISP can provide a totally safe approach is with some sort of walled garden. Don't allow anyone onto the "public" internet, only trusted ISP sites. I somehow doubt this is a good idea.
[...]

said by N O Y B :

Not all road are state owned. Applies to privately owned roads too.

ISPs are a private road to the public internet.

said by N O Y B :

Owners of roads are also responsible for their condition is suitable for safe travel and if not setting up a road block to keep traffic out.