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It's funny. Laugh. Government Security Politics

U.K. Says Botnets Good Sign 123

Posted by Zonk from the a-little-too-chipper dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A UK government official has claimed that botnet infections should be celebrated, as they prove that Britain is a prosperous place with high broadband take-up. Is this an interesting new spin on hacking attacks, or sheer madness?" From the article: "The suggestion that botnet infections have their positive side sparked some surprise within the audience. One attendee pointed out that he 'wouldn't want the value of being number one in infections to be extended to bird flu'."
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U.K. Says Botnets Good Sign More

U.K. Says Botnets Good Sign

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  • Don't worry about me! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Winckle ( 870180 ) <mark&winckle,co,uk> on Thursday November 24, 2005 @02:01PM (#14108298) Homepage
    As a UK citizen and windows user, I help out by.. --NO CARRIER-- Buy v1agr4 n0w!1 p1ll5 4 ch34p!

  • yawn (Score:2, Funny)

    by shudde ( 915065 )

    Politician says something moronic about the internet... I'm shocked and horrified.

  • we should be glad car stereos are stolen (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Fox_1 ( 128616 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @02:03PM (#14108307)
    it shows the healthy consumption of motor vehicles by our populace, a sign of a prosperous and strong economy. Putting regulations in place to require cars to have locking doors might slow the distribution and growth of cars.

    • Re:we should be glad car stereos are stolen (Score:4, Interesting)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @02:18PM (#14108389)
      Thought experiment: somebody gives you a piece of paper with a list of numbers (and nothing else). The numbers are car stereo theft rates. You have to pick a number, and move to the country with that theft rate.

      Would you pick a high number, a low number, or something in between?

      • Cause im smart enough to do something to defend myself. If I went to a low number country, undoubtedly the number is low because the market doesn't exist. The high number countries have a good strong market, you just have to be smarter than the average consumer.
         
        -everphilski-
        • Better yet, don't buy a car stereo. Just like the best way to avoid having your bike stolen is to ride a cheap bike.
          • Yep, and the home office over here have just started an ad campaign to reduce crime. The idea is that you shouldn't use a mobile phone or an MP3 playing in public lest it be stolen.

            I was just reflecting this evening on my way home that it's not much of a generalisation from that to the idea that the best way to avoid being robbed is not to own stuff. Looks like it's an idea whose time has come.

            Let's hope it goes away just as quickly.

          • I prefer music in the car, I have a long commute and I regularly make long (20+ hour 2+ times/year) roadtrips, but whatever works for you... I think the better solution is a moderately priced car with a car alarm.

            -everphilski-
      • A rate requires a numerator and a denominator. You've given the numerator: (number of) car stereo thefts. What's the denominator? Population? Number of cars? Number of car stereos?

        • A rate requires a numerator and a denominator. You've given the numerator: (number of) car stereo thefts. What's the denominator? Population? Number of cars? Number of car stereos?

          A rate is a rate, it doesn't require anything, silly. The original poster's point is that a rate of 1%/yr could be 100,000 out of 10 million, or 10 out of 1000. In other words, North Korea and Monaco probably both have lower car-stereo theft rates than the USA and Iran. That's why he called it a thought experiment, not a math

        • Crime statistics are typically reported per capita per year and I was assuming the same in this case.

          I agree it's better to be explicit, so it's unfortunate the article doesn't specify whether Britain is #1 in botnet infections per person, per computer, per broadband link, or something else.

    • Re:we should be glad car stereos are stolen (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mikael ( 484 ) on Friday November 25, 2005 @10:19AM (#14112786)
      According to this article [timesonline.co.uk], Britain also has the highest Cocaine consumption rate. Perhaps, we should take this to be a good sign of prosperity and open borders?

  • That's like... (Score:5, Funny)

    by oopsdude ( 906146 ) <oopsdude@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Thursday November 24, 2005 @02:03PM (#14108308)
    saying that herpes is good thing, because at least you're getting some ass!

  • Erm (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LSD-OBS ( 183415 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @02:03PM (#14108312)
    Of course, it's not even necessarily an indicator of rapid broadband takeup. It just means too many of the users are pathetically unsavvy and that the government isn't creating enough of an awareness about this sort of security issue.

    Living in the UK myself, I can tell you that I still know lots of people who don't have broadband, and many of those that do are so uninformed that I don't go near their computers for fear of punching them in frustration.

    What the heck is that government official smoking?
    • Crack

    • Re:Erm (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jacksonj04 ( 800021 ) <nick@nickjackson.me> on Thursday November 24, 2005 @02:50PM (#14108541) Homepage
      I second that motion. I wish I had a penny for every time I have been trying to explain why Automatic Updates is a good thing, and why you should leave the firewall turned on by default.

    • many of the ISPs are also unsavvy (Score:4, Informative)

      by CdBee ( 742846 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @03:11PM (#14108630)
      the major UK broadband providers, NTL/Telewest (Cable) and Wanadoo, BT, Tiscali, etc (Asynchronous DSL) provide ethernet or USB modems rather than proper routers, meaning unpatched PCs tend to be taken over by RPC infections relatively quickly.

      Also, because of the purchasing price disparity between the UK and the USA (a US$399 PC might cost UK£399 here), system builders tend to skimp on the additional software provision, as on a spec sheet, throwing in a copy of MS Works often looks better than a decent software firewall. 30-day trial AV subscriptions are also disappointingly frequent
      • Routers aren't cheap, not good ones anyway. Of course, I don't know how much it costs them to provide the modems, but I suspect that a router with a built in modem costs more than the modem on it's own.
        Also consider the fact that cable modems (as opposed to ADSL ones) aren't found built into routers (at least, I've never seen one), if the cable providers started providing them instead of the basic modems they'd have to start giving out a considerably more complex piece of kit and wouldn't be able to get of
        • You can't rely on software to close ports. It's inherently unsafe especially when there are programmatic interfaces to the firewall, as in Windows FW and Zonealarm.

          ISPs in other countries often distribute routers (Speedtouch 510/530 is reliable and a common choice outside the UK) - and remember more UK broadband is provided by DSL than Cable anyway. (Linksys do make a cable modem-router integrated unit, but I accept the point in that they aren't common.)
          • And if software isn't closing the ports then what exactly is? Perhaps you don't understand the concept of ports, and how they exist 3 levels above the physical layer?
      • For Telewest, the upload speed using Scientific Atlanta cable modems is only 64K while the download speed can reach a whopping 500K/second. Not bad when downloads on the university connection gets restricted to 32K/second. It's quicker ssh'ing into my home system, doing the download, and then reuploading back to the university computer.
    • ...many of those that do are so uninformed that I don't go near their computers for fear of punching them in frustration.
      What, the users or the computers?
    • Dutch pot I think. It is the closest place where they can get the stuff legal, and as long as they smoke it in the smoke zones on Schiphol, nobody will stop them. Oh, wait a moment: UK is not in Schengen, have to pass douane before entering the airport lobby. Better smoke it at the trainstation adjacent to the airport then. No problem, just again, stay in the designated smoking areas.

      And yes, being happy with a computer virus is complete madness.

    • Re:Erm (Score:3, Interesting)

      by KanSer ( 558891 )
      Isn't it just proof the UK has some of the least-informed and competent computer using populations in the world?

      Getting pwned is never a good thing, no matter what spin machine processes the data.

  • Note to self: (Score:5, Funny)

    by ColdWetDog ( 752185 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @02:05PM (#14108318) Homepage
    Whilst at friends and family's houses over the holidays, be sure to just reinstall Windows from the CD without bothering to go through update hell. Will save lots of time and I'll be doing a service to society!

    Thanks to Bill & Company for creating new metrics to measure civilization's progress.

  • Wow (Score:5, Funny)

    by 4D6963 ( 933028 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @02:06PM (#14108332)
    Damn, weird reaction, maybe one day we'll see Mac OS XII computers get infected with lots of viruses and Apple will be just glad "Now we're so big that we can directly compete on the attacks and virus with Microsoft's Windows"

  • This idiot should be sacked immediately. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 24, 2005 @02:08PM (#14108337)
    Nigel Hickson, head of European e-commerce and telecoms regulation at the DTI,

    This idiot should be sacked immediately. Someone with such a powerful position should not be so ignorant. Given that he is so ignorant he should be removed from his position immediately.

  • Freedom (Score:2, Insightful)

    by drivinghighway61 ( 812488 )
    While I can see where the official is coming from, there's another thing to look at. The massive presence of botnets also shows the dominance of Microsoft in the field. Perhaps the officials should point out that the botnets could be reduced or eliminated by changing to alternatives such as Linux or BSD. Heck, even OS X would be better than Windows from a security point-of-view. So while it is indeed a great thing to celebrate that the UK has such broadband penetration, we need to remember that the market i

  • Madness! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by isecore ( 132059 )
    Is this an interesting new spin on hacking attacks, or sheer madness?

    It's sheer madness. There's NOTHING positive about botnets. Hello??

    • Re:Madness! (Score:3, Informative)

      by arivanov ( 12034 )
      Neither.

      It is a "Bliar Cronie Droid" serial number Pinokio653 speaking. They will more likely die then present you with negative news. Everything has to be spun up, presented positively and be used in an advertisement of some government policy.

      People keep comparing Bliar's UK with 1984. Wrong comparison. The right comparison should be "This Perfect Day".

      Going full steam ahead for it.

  • Nigeria: #1 in IT (Score:5, Funny)

    by spejsklark ( 913641 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @02:10PM (#14108347)
    And all those e-mails coming from Nigeria. They must have a really highly developed IT infrastructure.

  • Nice spin, slashdot. (Score:5, Informative)

    by gowen ( 141411 ) <gwowen@gmail.com> on Thursday November 24, 2005 @02:11PM (#14108353) Homepage Journal
    How did "sees silver lining in botnet cloud" become "Botnets a Good Sign".
    The official quite clearly said "I'm not saying bots are a good thing".

    Still, at least it wasn't a dupe.

    Similarly, if a NIH official pointed out that "The rise of obesity in the West is better than malnutrition", that wouldn't be a endorsement of obesity, merely a reasonable nuanced assessment of facts.

  • bad != good (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Gyorg_Lavode ( 520114 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @02:11PM (#14108356)
    Saying "people are maliciously exploiting our technology is great because it means we have technology!! is not addiquate logic unless just having technology was your only goal."

  • In Other News... (Score:5, Funny)

    by GearheadX ( 414240 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @02:12PM (#14108357)
    Said governemnt official has apparently been replaced by a short shell script...

  • "wouldn't want the value of being number one (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 24, 2005 @02:12PM (#14108358)
    ...in bird flu"? Why, it shows you are a hub for both migratory birds and a popular tourist destination for those from the Far East.

    Next up, how malaria shows you have abundant surface water.
  • this is almost as stupid as saying that the widespread AIDS virus is a good sign - because it must show in some way that people are 'socially active'...

    obviously, i'm stretching things with this comparison -- botnets don't slowly kill people.

    but this kind of view is still a crock of sh*t, isn't it?

    spindoctors. grrrr..

    (now i'll go and read the article, and find out what kind of government official made such a comment)
  • This sounds suspiciously like the person who comes in last at golf joking about "Algiiight! I got the highest score! that means I win! right?"
  • It seems that the current UK government can find a 'silver lining' to almost every story - however negatively it reflects on their incompetence, arrogance and cronyism.

    e.g.

    Drunkeness arrest rates at an all time high! - THIS IS GOOD - because police are being more effective at arresting drunks.

    Overall crime rates are massively up - THIS IS GOOD - because while VIOLENT CRIME and MURDER is way up, PETTY CRIME is declining. As there are many more petty crimes than violent ones (or murders), this is a clear win
  • You could use the same kind of argument to give credit for lots of things. There must be some kind of positive link between obesity, depression, cancer, salt, UFOs, and porn on the net, but I'm not quite sure without loads more research - particularly on the latter.
  • Botnets at record low per capita in Antarctica. Early reports seem to indicate a low takeup of Broadband technology, and a high proportion of penguin computer owners.

  • something similar in Spain, but with real state (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    One right wing politician said something similar in Spain about the mad rise in houses' prices: this is good because it means that the Spaniards have plenty of money to buy these extremely expensive houses. Sure: my salary (and the mayority's) has raised about 6% in the past two years, and flats cost maybe 30% more, and raising.
  • But I think we all know what he means is that the number of botnets shows that there is a lot of broadband takeup in the UK which is a good thing. It's like saying that a lot of BMWs have been keyed means that there are a lot of BMWs around. As per usual, someone at the DTL appears to be incapable of getting their meaning across but at least interpret it as you think it was meant. PS: I don't entirely agree that a lot of botnets means a lot of broadband in a 1:1 ratio, but I think this is what TFA was supp
  • It must be a good sign that the USA is prosperous since there are so many hand-gun deaths (per capita)!

    After all, it means even the criminals can afford these weapons instead of resorting to cheaper ones such as knives and/or manual fighting.

    And I have a feeling that the home and office computers of this "U.K. Official" are participating in these celebrated botnets... Maybe he'll find out one day... Then again, likely not.

  • Monday's headlines.. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by TheHawke ( 237817 )
    "co.uk domains get depeered by Cogent, Level3 for hosting large numbers of botnets".

    To be painfully honest, 'crats all over the world needs to keep their brains disengaged and let their IT specialists do the speechwriting.

    That brit just found his "career in decline" light lit.
  • It's like saying UK houses having lots of rats are good because it shows people have left-over food. Gah.
  • he increase in muggings shows that citizens are now more prosperous (after all, no one mugs a poor person)

  • "antivirus" to blame (Score:4, Insightful)

    by osssmkatz ( 734824 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @02:40PM (#14108479) Journal
    In truth, most PC users are happy to install antivirus software, sales people will push it on people..

    The problem is that most of these people who install antivirus software (esp. Norton and Mcafee.. the top vendors pushed by sales reps.) have an unpleasant experience. It slows down their computer, it fails to protect them from {{trojan:general}}, and many consumers feel like they are being scammed.

    There is another problem too.. people feel that "antivirus" software should be enough. These are the people who buy antivirus software at "bargain prices" that doesn't include a firewall (which is probably good because it would drive them nuts.) or spyware protection.

    These security systems are indeed scams. Norton Internet Security 2006 is practically an advertisement for their Systemworks package. The web browsing security is rated as "limited coverage" because it doesn't include parental controls. Instead of blocking ActiveX using a white list, they use a blacklist. Only minor vendors like Panda actually ensure your Windows Updates are applied. People feel ripped off when the trialware that ships with most PCs wears off.

    The security software vendors, the retailers, and the computer manufacturers can all do better. The government needs to rate security software, and comission studies to find out why people aren't applying them.

    Cybersecurity is something they can actually do something about.. combatting terrorism (especially to our allies) is a much more vague proposition.
    • Hence the sig:

      "If your app/OS can't live securely in a networked environment w/o a firewall then it shouldn't be using TCP/IP anyway"

      The big problem here is that paying customers have been convinced that design defects are normal. Of course the only place they get information these days is from the vendors who sell the defective products or other vendors which have business models dependent on high maintenance defects in them.

      Why not celebrate all defects: salmonella in the food is a sign of thrivi

  • There's a very big difference between something being a sign of something good and the thing in question being good.
  • In the same way that the clap means you're a popular lay.
  • It means you're getting laid...

    Whoohoo!!!
    • All this proves is not that we are prosperous but that we have a nation full of stupid people who need educated, 3 year old antivirus software doesnt protect, windows firewall doesnt protect, servicepack 2 doesnt improve much and the shame is most people think it does :( EDUCATION should be the word in this post, lets not have a pop at Billy Boy Gates lets just get people smart on how to use his inadequately security equipped products. *rant over*
  • It shows you have sex and make babies!

    stupid fuck....
  • So the Labour guy says:
    "we should celebrate that we are number one for [botnet] infections. It says something about our importance and the value within UK Plc"

    and the Lib dem guy:
    Richard Allan, former Liberal Democrat MP and head of government affairs for Cisco, said he was confident that the problem of botnets would be addressed in the coming months, as network operators wake up to the need to tighten security.

    "It's like antivirus. Two years ago, virtually nobody had it. Now, ISPs offer antivirus protectio
  • Swaziland celebrates achieving a 64% HIV infection rate as evidence of the virility of their menfolk.
  • Last week another government official explained that the new licensing laws (extending drinking hours) would probably increase the number of arrests for drunkenness-related crime, and this should be taken as a sign that those laws are a success.
  • ... Mexico announces sharp rise in the National Kidnapping Index. "The indications are positive," commented the Chairman of the Mexican Reserve, as masked men bundled his wife into the trunk of a car.
  • What is distressing is that the chap in charge of European e-commerce and telecoms regulation is waffling away like this while the record labels are hijacking EU anti-terrorism regulations so they can get everyone's browser histories to start vexatious prosecutions [openrightsgroup.org].
  • Since when are we supposed to take anything a government says serious?

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