On September 4, 2004 1:41 pm, Judy Seigel wrote:
>
> Nick, would you please explain why the "damage to a dial up account" is so
> much lower? Are viruses necessarily large files?
A broadband account can upload much quicker and bigger files. Let me put it
this way. A broadband account is like a fire hose. A dialup account is a
garden hose. Both will get you wet but the firehose can do it a lot quicker.
In the time a dialup account has spread a virus to one person the broadband
account will have hit many more people. A lot of broadband machines are also
on 24/7.
If you wanted to shut down an ISP you might write a virus that sent a bunch
of emails to the ISPs users. The inbound traffic in the extreme would
overload the inbound mailserver and stop it from getting to legitmate email.
It would then cause a similar problem with the users trying to download all
the stuff. If a bunch of it bounced then you'd then have to deal with all
that. A dialup account is sort of self policing. If a virus takes over your
machine and starts sending a bunch of emails you'll notice it slowing down.
If the virus takes over a broadband account it might not get noticed.
Nick
Received on Sun Sep 5 08:45:48 2004
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