Good Guys Bring Down the Mega-D Botnet
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We spend money on local law enforcement and the military to secure us from physical threats, but digital attacks can probably have the potential to damage our infrastructure (especially as we move more towards a digital dependency) just as much as a physical attack. So I think it makes sense that computer security should become a right for the country as a whole.
At the very least a distributed "virus scan" that's present on all US computers, and controlled by the good guys can be used to undermine the bad guys who have illegitimately infected people's computers.
There are plenty of free virus scanners out there, this isn't a technology problem but a education problem.
Obviously such a thing would have to be voluntary. That means you can opt to remove it, or not install it. But the point is to provide it for free, as a free beneficial tool, paid by the collective interest to secure our way of life, and to make it easily available.
Hey we have a military and they have the power to take over the US if they wanted to. Such a thing funded to protect our computers is necessary too, and obviously we don't want to give some people secret control of this powerful tool, but that doesn't mean it's not possible to secure our computers without such a threat.
Also, the idea of a distributed country-wide virus scanner is terrifying. Who are the 'good guys'? Do you really want them having access to your computer at any time?
What govt would resist the obvious temptation?
Then the guys at McAfee or Norton can use this to curtail infections because they now have access to more computers, whereas right now they only have access to those willing to pay for their stuff.
My point was that if we can keep in checks and balances from the military from being abused, we can do the same for national computer security.
Free trial. See for yourself.
Then you have the issue of unmaintained systems. Most machines friends give me to fix already have a virus scanner bt are still infected.
No, as already said this is not a funding problem it is an education one.
1) Security online is an international problem. One government cannot solve the problem, even it were a good idea.
2) Your arguments comparing this to the military are fundamentally flawed. The US military has its basis in the Constitution, and has been refined by many further laws/acts over the course of US history. That structure is what keeps them in line. No such structure exists for your proposal.
2) My point is that such a structure can be created for my proposal too. Simply letting the government contract out to multiple private corporations, or providing subsidies for antiviral software, is one way to prevent "big brother" from controlling computers.
It's a whole lot of work to do so. Govts are lazy. Waging war on their people is hard work, so they tend to avoid it.
"Misusing" equipment or information is easy, so they do it.
Remember "Joe the Plumber"? As soon as he hit the news, various govt flunkies were rummaging through govt databases looking for dirt and releasing it to the press. (And, in at least one case, they either made up stuff or didn't know the law.)
And no, they don't do that as a matter of course whenever someone is on TV.
And yes, Repubs are probably no better. That's why we can't fix these things by voting for different people - we have to take away their toys.
A: If you are serious about 'mandating', you just toasted alternative operating systems, and have grotesquely complicated server operators lives, among others; the world is full of more situations than could even begin to be covered by such a policy.
B: What you want won't work anyhow, as your first premise is false: "virus scanners prevent computers from being infected from this stuff". They aren't perfect. Mandating a monoculture of security software simply means that people have to use hacks that work against the current software. (Or a de facto monoculture brought on by a small set of legal choices, or a de facto monoculture brought on by a wide array of choices but one "default" choice. Note that "allowing people to opt out" is simply recreating the current situation, only with a lot more government for no apparent reason.)
Of course, quite a lot of those hacks will involve forging the presence of the software, making it look like the anti-virus is still running when it actually isn't. A task that is very difficult today, you made easy by "mandating" which software it needs to be, which is whatever the gov provides by default.
Even beyond the legitimate concerns expressed by the other posters, your idea is worthless from a security point of view. Security problems go well beyond "not everybody is running a virus scanner", or any other set of defined software, and you would actually make things worse, not better.
Of course you will disagree, because in your head security software is perfect and you can't perceive the massive problems that would result from your suggestion, since you're working with mental ideation primitives that don't correspond to anything that exists in the real world. There isn't much I can do about that, other than point it out.
When I say "opt out", I simply mean that the security software is freely available, but not forced onto your computer. I'm not proposing some sort of communistic action plan. I'm simply suggesting that if the the government provided security software for free, more people would have access to it, and the effect of viruses on businesses can be curtailed.
> Of course you will disagree, because in your head security software is perfect and you can't perceive the massive problems that would result from your suggestion, since you're working with mental ideation primitives that don't correspond to anything that exists in the real world.
You're absolutely right. My suggestion is predicated upon the idealization of antivirus software. Which is exactly why I started out my suggestion with a question about whether or not virus scans can detect this stuff that cause botnets. And then I followed with an if this is true ... then take my suggestion seriously. I never meant to imply that I know much about the efficacy of a virus scanner. In fact, I use a mac, so my exposure to them has been limited.
I don't know how you got a look inside my head, but you clearly need glasses.
Second of all I think you, and a lot of other people who down-modded me may have jumped to conclusions when I used the words "mandate" and suggested the government do something for the greater good. I'm not suggesting something akin to the communist green dam software. My suggestion is probably less controversial than the healthcare plan, since it would be cheaper to implement. It's more like the government digital converter box subsidy program if anything.
So assuming if everyone had virus scan, would it help? If it doesn't, then why did I waste money on Norton antivirus on my PC? Surely virus scan must be able to do something. Definitions can be easily updated across the installed base to counter the latest zombie virus. If you have evidence that this would all be futile, then I retract all my statements about giving this supposedly useless product out to everyone. You probably know more about virus scanners than I do, and I'm not here to argue with you about their efficacy. So unlike what you thought I wiould do, I am not going to disagree with you about their efficacy.