Open, anonymous services and dealing with abuse

Tue Feb 17 20:17:26 UTC 2004

On Tue, 17 Feb 2004, Daniel Reed wrote:

> I am not sure it will take any major coordinated effort. For many outbreak
> incidents, the CDC would respond in the U.S., other agencies would respond
> elsewhere.

To perform a traceback in the US the CDC works with hospitals,
doctors, etc. since they have the authority to do so.  Which body has
that authority within the US (and knows how to use it).  Law
enforcement comes to mind, but that doesn't scale.

Nor is this the right place to discuss that issue ;)

>
> Coincidentally enough, CNN.com just posted an article "Your PC could be a
> 'spam zombie'" <http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/02/17/spam.zombies.ap/>.
> The provider mentioned appears to be turning off customers [unwittingly]
> involved in abuse without any major coordinated effort behind them. (And I
> am sure there other examples of providers taking such action.)

Everyone knows about/of spam.  Does everyone know about DoS?  I'm just
throwing it out there as an example, I don't really want to get in to
who should know what, etc...  These problems [as all issues] are
a topic that only those passionate few [those typically affected by
it] truly seek resolution.  I believe it is human (or maybe just
American?) nature to not care until something affects you.

alas, i'm lacking operational content, so this is my final bit of
input on the matter.

-mark