[LINK] Infected dsl users lose access

[Grant Bayley]

On Fri, 28 Sep 2001, Jan Whitaker wrote:

> At 05:56 PM 27/09/01 +1000, Tony Barry wrote:
> >"If people haven't applied the
> >patches, they are obviously clueless," said London systems
> >administrator Tony Monty. "Denying them access until they fix
> >their system is the only thing that will get their attention."
> >Even those who run computers invulnerable to viruses suffer
> >from slow connections due to the increased network traffic
> >that results from infected machines that continuously scan
> >the Internet for other potential hosts.
>
> OK, if they take them off the net, and the DSL connection is the only
> access the person has, how do they get the patches?
>
> Clueless is a bit harsh.  As I've said before, MOST computer users,
> especially 'moms and pops' don't know about the procedures needed.  They
> are defenceless, I'd say.  But where the responsibility lies, I have no
> thoughtful opinion.

A reasonable thing to do might be what I noticed Optusnet does when a user
enters a slightly incorrect password (ie uppercase instead of lowercase) -
give the user an IP address in a range which is not routed to the outside
world and transparently proxy and redirect all web browser requests
through to a page informing them of the interruption to their service with
information on how it can be restored.

On such a page, the ISP could offer information on the need to apply
patches and so forth, offering a local download of particular hotfixes or
updates for Windows and Mac users, and a phone number for everyone else.
We were talking about doing a similar-ish thing the other day on
2600-list when a user asked how he could locally cache the software from
windowsupdate.microsoft.com so his users wouldn't be downloading the same
thing over and over again.  The same approach to locally offering such
information to users whose connection to the outside world has been
suspended could probably work here.

Grant