white knight" worms/viruses

[Brian Densmore]

Maybe I'm a left-wing commie, but, I think
any 'owned' PC that is on the 'net that has been 
'owned' for more than 2 weeks should be disconnected
from the 'net. Any PC so affected should be formatted.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Brian Kelsay 
> Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2004 11:24 AM
> To: kclug at kclug.org
> Subject: white knight" worms/viruses
> 
> 
> http://slate.msn.com/id/2104432/
> 
> This article raises the question of the ethics of using 
> viruses or worms to repair vulnerabilities on Windows boxes.  
>  While this may not affect most Linux users, the 
> bandwidth/network usage/abuse affects us all.  While I think 
> it is not ethical to breach someone's PC to fix a 
> vulnerability, the ethics of the situation are starting to 
> not matter to me.  I look at all the hits on my Linux 
> firewall from old worms (2 year old code red and nimda) and I 
> think that there are some irresponsible users out there that 
> need their OS fixed for them.   Maybe the better thing to do 
> is have the ISP block them for a week, and mail them a fix 
> CD.  The worm traffic often looks like a broadcast storm.  I 
> get a blinking traffic light on my cable modem even with no 
> computers plugged in.
> 
> Brian Kelsay
> 
> 
>