Friday July 1, 2005

Dear Visitor:

Wired News has an article about a "Net Pioneer", one David Clark, who believes the Internet should be redesigned from scratch. The interesting tidbit to me was, "Look at phishing and spam, and zombies, and all this crap," said Clark. "Show me how six incremental changes are going to make them go away."

This argument is fundamentally flawed. Show me any fundamental change that will leave the network usable and still stop these problems! What, you can't provide any? Why?!? Well, for starters most of the problems mentioned come from two main elements: human stupidity (or gullibility) and flaws in software (see human stupidity). Sure, making each host authenticate and each router check for bad packets, etc. dropping them might make some of these harder to implement, they may make it easier to find the spammer and block him, but it doesn't stop the problem. And, software (open and closed source, though closed seems to get fixed slower and have more bugs) will always have bugs. The routers and systems will always be able to be attacked. Also, if you make it so the routers drop bad packets, increment updates to the Internet protocols will have to be rolled out to every system all at once. No more experimental standards, no more research projects for protocols using the standard Internet (or any other "compliant" router), etc.

The real problem is people need to stop click on spam. People need to be careful where they browse and with what. They need to use Windows Update (or similar functionality) frequently. If you are a Windows user and you are sick of the spy-ware and spam, please download and install "Spy Bot Search and Destroy" and Adaware. They do similar things but they catch different problems that the other won't. Please, download them and run them frequently. Also, get a virus scanner. Most work fairly well. If you want one for free (for personal use), get AVG Free from Grisoft. Also, use some firewall, even the built in Windows Firewall is better than none. These won't solve all the problem, but they will help you be less of the problem and more of the solution. Who knows, you may even have a better Internet experience yourself with these actions.

Sincerely, Trever Adams