Botnet-hosting subscribers soon to get warnings from Comcast – Ars Technica
Internet users, don't worry—papa Comcast's lookin' out for you. The company announced that it has begun rolling out a service that will warn its broadband customers when they could be infected with malware based on their traffic patterns. The service, dubbed "Constant Guard," is really aimed at reducing botnet traffic on Comcast's network with the spin that the company wants to protect customers, and a trial has already begun in Denver, Colorado.
The warning will come as an in-browser pop-up that will trigger if there's an unusual spike in traffic from a customer's home, or if mass numbers of e-mails suddenly start going out of that user's account. The pop-up will instruct users to go to Comcast's Anti-Virus Center to help diagnosing and fixing the problem (Comcast has partnered with McAfee for virus removal software).
For those concerned that Comcast has begun monitoring all those pornos lolcat pictures you have been downloading, put down your pitchforks. Comcast has posted a draft of its ISP Web Notification System to the Internet Engineering Task Force that details how the monitoring can be done without resorting to Deep-Packet Inspection (DPI). The notification system design is based on the Internet Content Adaptation Protocol and uses Squid Web Proxy, the GreasySpoon ICAP server, and Apache Tomcat.
Comcast is one of the first major ISPs to take a proactive approach to helping customers deal with viruses and malware, and customers have reportedly responded positively—after all, most Internet users need all the help they can get in this area. One thing we were left wondering, however, was what happens if a user chooses to ignore the warning, or if that person gets too many false alarms and wants to turn it off.
Comcast spokesperson Charlie Douglas confirmed that users can simply click to close the warning if they want to ignore it, but the Customer Security Assurance team will send the message again in seven days if they continue to believe the customer's machine has been compromised. As for those who think they're above being infected: "We have found examples of people who are confident that they don’t have a virus or malware, but it actually turns out they had been infected," Douglas told Ars.
