[brlug-general] The size of the botnet

[John Hebert]

Will, I agree with your argument (MS security sux) but I disagree with your methods (usually irrational conjecture).

The article you mentioned below was very interesting, and if Cerf's estimates are correct, very disturbing.

However, I believe in freedom and free market capitalism. I believe that Microsoft is dooming itself with efforts like Vista, and that alternatives like Mac OSX and Ubuntu will gain more market share as the drawbacks of Vista become apparent. I'm willing to let consumers come to their own conclusion that there may be better OSs than MS.

Finally, I know I kid you somewhat (ok, maybe a lot) here, but you need to realize that you are preaching to the choir (except for Andrew :) ). We already _know_ about alternatives to MS. We are all very technical users here, relative to the rest of the population, and sometimes your arguments become a bit pedantic. Your energy would be better used to help convert unknowing Windows users to Linux users. BTW, what's the status of the Newbies group?

Good luck!
John

----- Original Message ----
From: willhill <williamhill2 at cox.net>
To: general at brlug.net
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 10:57:01 PM
Subject: [brlug-general] The size of the botnet

Have you wrapped your head around this?

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070125-8707.html

According to Vint Cerf and others, one in four internet connected computers is 
part of someone's botnet.  That's 150,000,000 computers ready, willing and 
able to do whatever their remote owners want.

I would put the figure at 90% because I can't imagine what's protecting the 
other three from their neighbors.  

On Tuesday 23 January 2007 10:37, John Hebert wrote:
> My brain just assploded.
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: willhill <williamhill2 at cox.net>
> To: general at brlug.net
> Sent: Monday, January 22, 2007 10:28:02 PM
> Subject: Re: [brlug-general] [SAGE] The danger of SSH keys..
>
> That's an interesting physical security story but why bother breaking in
> when you could just send an email that installs a bot on the secretary's
> desktop? With that, is the user really the weak point?
>
> On Monday 22 January 2007 16:42, -ray wrote:
> > Always.  Users are always the weakest point.
>
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