Politech is the oldest Internet resource devoted to politics and technology. Launched in 1994 by Declan McCullagh, the mailing list has chronicled the growing intersection of law, culture, technology, and politics. Since 2000, so has the Politech web site.

http://news.com.com/2010-1071_3-5715633.html

Feds to fight the zombies
May 23, 2005, 4:00 AM PT
By Declan McCullagh

Remote-controlled "zombie" networks operated by bottom-feeding spammers 
have become a serious problem that requires more industry action, the 
Federal Trade Commission is expected to announce on Tuesday.

The FTC and more than 30 of its counterparts abroad are planning to 
contact Internet service providers and urge them to pay more attention 
to what their customers are doing online. Among the requests: 
identifying customers with suspicious e-mailing patterns, quarantining 
those computers and offering help in cleaning the zombie code off the 
hapless PCs.

To be sure, computers infected by zombie programs and used to churn out 
spam are a real threat to the future of e-mail. One report by security 
company Sophos found that compromised PCs are responsible for 40 percent 
of the world's spam--and that number seems to be heading up, not down.

But government pressure--even well-intentioned--on Internet providers to 
monitor their users raises some important questions.

[...remainder snipped...]

Posted by Declan McCullagh on May 24, 2005 in category spam

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