spam and cyber attacks
Dealing With Spam and Cyberattacks: Control vs. Openness
Posted: 04/02/2013 9:11 pm
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United Nations , Internet , Internet Governance Forum , Cyberattack , Cyberbunker ,Spam , Spamhaus , Technology News
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Back in the early '90s, then Vice President Al Gore spoke of the Internet as an "information superhighway." While that's a somewhat imperfect analogy, the Internet and highways do have some things in common. Both can move traffic and both can become too clogged up for traffic to move swiftly.
A traffic jam on a real highway can affect that road and any other roads that connect to it and the same can be true for the information highway.
And while most traffic jams are a result of an accident or too many vehicles (or data packets in the case of the Internet) legitimately trying to get from place to place, they can also be slowed down deliberately, as happened in Brussels last September when about 100 trucks slowed traffic entering the city as part of a planned protest.
Last week, a small Dutch Internet service provider called CyberBunker initiated a traffic jam of its own. Its apparent goal wasn't to slow down the entire Internet but to bring down the services of Spamhaus -- a spam fighting organization that had added CyberBunker to its block lists for allegedly allowing its customers to send spam around the world. CyberBunker advertises that customers "are allowed to host any content they like, except child porn and anything related to terrorism. Everything else is fine."
According to published reports, that traffic jam affected servers around the world and impacted ordinary people thousands of miles away who weren't able to watch online video or access other Web services as a result of a protest on another continent.
It's a scary thought and a reminder of how this "global village" we live in is so interconnected that we can no longer afford to ignore problems that affect "other people," because they
Posted: 04/02/2013 9:11 pm
Follow
United Nations , Internet , Internet Governance Forum , Cyberattack , Cyberbunker ,Spam , Spamhaus , Technology News
SHARE THIS STORY
9
43
1
Submit this story
Back in the early '90s, then Vice President Al Gore spoke of the Internet as an "information superhighway." While that's a somewhat imperfect analogy, the Internet and highways do have some things in common. Both can move traffic and both can become too clogged up for traffic to move swiftly.
A traffic jam on a real highway can affect that road and any other roads that connect to it and the same can be true for the information highway.
And while most traffic jams are a result of an accident or too many vehicles (or data packets in the case of the Internet) legitimately trying to get from place to place, they can also be slowed down deliberately, as happened in Brussels last September when about 100 trucks slowed traffic entering the city as part of a planned protest.
Last week, a small Dutch Internet service provider called CyberBunker initiated a traffic jam of its own. Its apparent goal wasn't to slow down the entire Internet but to bring down the services of Spamhaus -- a spam fighting organization that had added CyberBunker to its block lists for allegedly allowing its customers to send spam around the world. CyberBunker advertises that customers "are allowed to host any content they like, except child porn and anything related to terrorism. Everything else is fine."
According to published reports, that traffic jam affected servers around the world and impacted ordinary people thousands of miles away who weren't able to watch online video or access other Web services as a result of a protest on another continent.
It's a scary thought and a reminder of how this "global village" we live in is so interconnected that we can no longer afford to ignore problems that affect "other people," because they