On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 06:52:17 GMT, bonomi@c-ns. (Robert Bonomi) wrote:

In article ,
Roger Halstead wrote:


On thing about this thread:

Posting on a group to get users to check for viruses is unlikely to
accomplish much, although I do have to say this one at least generated
a lot of discussion. Some of it has been down right educational.
snip

There's no need to 'share' the information with anybody else. Just
disable their access, "temporarily", and don't let 'em back on until
they 'prove' that the problem has been fixed.

The sharing would prevent them from just getting on another provider
although that might not be necessary.

"I think" it would do far more in a few days than any
amount of education we could give those users.


*ABSOLUTELY* YES!!!


Monitoring for viruses at the source and terminating the user (or
just suspending their account) as soon as a sent message is detected
would keep the effect of viruses contained and the effect to a
minimum.


There's the rub. That "monitoring". First, you have to 'detect' the
problem. *WHATEVER* approach you take to that monitoring/detection,
it takes resources, and costs money. There are some relatively simple
approaches, but they involve 'adding inconvenience' to the 'non misbehaving'

I'm not even approaching the spam issue, but yes, it would have to be
something like Norton AV does. Scanning all outgoing mail and the
first of any virus or worm is likely to get through. It also means
being able to differentiate between a normal macro and one that is
malicious. It also means checking any attachment for some specific
functions, but you still can't take them all into account.

customer; the 'good-guy transparent' ones require a significant amount
of technical sophistication on the part of the provider, *and* a non-trivial
amount of high-priced equipment.

My wife and I are members of several clubs and handle the news letters
and member notification, so our ISP allows us to exceed the normal
mail limits as we may send out hundreds of news letters and
notifications. In a couple of instances the mailings exceed a
thousand, but those only happen a couple times a year.


The ISP business is rife with cut-throat competition, and, literally, $1 or $2
per customer per month can make the difference between being in the black, and
bankruptcy.


Sometimes it's less than that. However they still have to have enough
positive cash flow to stay afloat.

As I have my own dot com, but use an isp with web hosting the internet
costs are second only to the cost of flying which I also do.

Roger Halstead (K8RI EN73 & ARRL Life Member)
www.rogerhalstead.com
N833R World's oldest Debonair? (S# CD-2)