Even you can be hacked

Thu Jun 10 22:17:51 UTC 2004

I completely agree that the customers in these cases should be held 
responsible for the services they purchased from their ISPs.

Let's all try to keep in mind that the two customers mentioned in the 
article as being on the receiving end of large bills were businesses, 
not consumers.

In the course of running his "small high-tech company," Mr. Liber could 
have hired a part-time IT guy to watch over his systems and keep them 
patched and healthy.  Doing so could have cost him less than the 
$85,000 his ISP billed him for.  He also could have procured liability 
insurance for his business.  Perhaps he also could have bought a 
firewall, or a better one.

Any of these options would have cost Mr. Liber's business some money.  
He appears to have chosen instead to accept higher business risk in 
exchange for a higher potential profit margin.  And, when the bills 
arrived, he could have chosen to pay them.  Instead, he chose to file 
for bankruptcy.  Each step of the way, he had options, and he made his 
choices as he saw fit.

Was this truly negligence, or a calculated business risk?

-DaveU