[Mimedefang] Viruses: Bounce or Discard?
David F. Skoll
dfs at roaringpenguin.com
Mon Sep 29 14:02:01 EDT 2003
On Mon, 29 Sep 2003, Jeremy Mates wrote:
> The ISP dutifully bounces the malware at the forged sender,
I used to advocate bouncing viruses, but now I've crossed over to
the "discard" viewpoint.
However, my absolutely preferred way to handle viruses would be:
1) Do a WHOIS lookup on the sending relay's IP address
2) Send a complaint to the contact point for the netblock containing the
relay. (Unfortunately, doing this properly is difficult and time-consuming.)
This would p*ss off ISP's, which would cause them to get tough with
users who propagate viruses. I believe that ISP's should write into
their terms of service that users will be liable for 10 cents for each
and every virus transmission from their machine. This isn't
censorship; it's merely charging different rates for different
"classes" of e-mail. It also pushes the true cost of viruses onto
those responsible (people who run M$ software in spite of warnings
from the likes of Dan Geer and Bruce Schneier.)
--
David.
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