Microsoft proposal: Virus on your PC = lose your Internet connection

[Newsjock]

Source: The Guardian

Virus-infected computers should be blocked from the internet and kept in quarantine until they are given a "health certificate", a top Microsoft security researcher suggested on Thursday.

Under the proposed security regime, put forward by the technology giant's trustworthy computing team, an individual's internet connection would be "throttled" to prevent the virus spreading to other computers. But security experts today warned that cutting people off from the internet could be a drastic step too far – and that the question of who would issue and verify the "health certificate" was troubling.

... The new proposal, Microsoft claimed, is built on the lessons of public health. Scott Charney, corporate vice president of Microsoft's trustworthy computing team, wrote on the company's blog: "Just as when an individual who is not vaccinated puts others' health at risk, computers that are not protected or have been compromised with a bot put others at risk and pose a greater threat to society."

But Ram Herkanaidu, a global researcher at computer security firm Kaspersky Lab, told the Guardian that cutting people off from the internet was a wrongheaded solution. He said: "This would be a bad idea in practice. Just say your machine was infected – if you could not access the internet, how would you be able to update your anti-virus and also apply any software patches required? Technically, though, an ISP could give limited access to a safe area so that they could get the relevant updates but this would be done by individual ISPs themselves."

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/oct/07/microsoft-virus-computers-quarantined

[kenny blankenship]

1. The party most responsible blames end users! maybe they should have their sales interrupted instead?

Oh well why not? Why not blame the little people? America's big banks converted the largest asset class in our economy into a multitrillion dollar fraud scheme, and they get to put the blame for their criminal acts onto individual home buyers. Govt makes the banksters whole, and then kicks out defaulting mortgagees even though the banks can't actually prove they own the house anymore. Bill the govt for your fraud and you get to keep the loot, too. It's the American Dream. Write shitty insecure software and make your captive users the goat when it gets hacked. Sure, fits the pattern perfectly.

[Gormy Cuss]

3. No kidding. This sounds like Microsoft's solution to the endless stream of security patches

that are needed only because Microsoft products are so poorly designed.

[L0oniX]

2. Scott Charney = teabagger? ...sounds like it.

[Newsjock]

6. Donated $1,200 to Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA)

I looked him up and was surprised.
http://www.opensecrets.org/usearch/index.php?q=scott+charney&searchButt.x=0&searchButt.y=0&searchButt=Submit&cx=010677907462955562473%3Anlldkv0jvam&cof=FORID%3A11

[Wickerman]

4. So, if you chose not to buy their protection

they won't let you use their services when you really need them?

:popcorn:

I know, I know, I actually use the Security Essentials program. Free. Micro$oft.

[rocktivity]

5. And who gets to SELL those clean bills of health?

Microsoft, perhaps?

:eyes:
rocktivity

[Skink]

7. Gotta get that single payer computer security moving through congress.

[divideandconquer]

8. Sounds like a good thing for Apple and Linux