• Economist, Friday, June 22, 2007 11:45 AM

The FBI hopes to deter bot-herders by warning consumers whose computers had been hijacked. After the recent indictment of three bot-herders revealed the IP addresses of more than 1 million users, the FBI decided to use the door-to-door approach to spur a public awareness movement, warning "botnets" pose a threat to national security.

Witness the crippling denial of service attacks in Estonia. Still, regular users either don't know or don't care that their computer is under the control of some cyber-geek who wishes to exact revenge on a company. Moreover, the FBI's approach to solving the problem--asking users to contact their ISP to see if their computer is infected--is a time-consuming, flawed approach.

Consider: one Internet security firm estimates that ISPs only make a few dollars per customer, but having a human being answer a customer call costs an average $25, which is why most ISPs prefer automated advice. The larger problem is that its unclear who should pay for cyber-hygiene.

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