The Infected are Quarantined
If you didn't already know about this then here's a little background. Typically a number of spammers do their work by hijacking hundreds or thousands of computers with worms or viruses and then they send out their untraceable spam through these "Zombie" machines. Typically these Zombie computers are Moms, Dads, Grandmas and casual users who don't do enough to protect their already unsecured Windows computers.
Now the FTC wants to disconnect these users from the net until their computers are cleaned. Here's a quote from the Wired article:
"The FTC said it would ask 3,000 internet providers worldwide to make sure that their customers' computers haven't been hijacked by spammers who want to cover their tracks and pass bandwidth costs on to others."
Can you imagine these poor people who don't even know their infected, suddenly not being able to get online and then calling in to tech support. Then they're told this cryptic story about how they have an infected computer spreading something called "SPAM" and they need to clean their machines before they can get back online.
This is not only stupid, but scary. The government is going to have to "somehow" determine if a user's machine is exhibiting qualities of a hijacked machine and then issue a request to the ISP to disconnect that user. Then the ISP will have to staff tech support to accommodate all the added calls regarding the inability to get online.
This is just a huge mess waiting to happen. Of course it's also adding some kind of power to a government agency that I don't think anyone should have. Let the ISPs decide to do this on their own! I'm so tired of the government wanting to make rules, laws or policies to control everything.