Cisco Working to Block Viruses at the Router

macmouse writes "The San Francisco Chronicle has an article about Cisco and Anti-Virus companies working together to block viruses at the ISP (Router) level. It sounds like they will be using traffic shaping to block malicious traffic. Looking at it in an negative light however, it might mean that your required to have anti-virus software installed in order to use the internet. This can be a *big* problem for *nix/mac users which normally don't need or use AV software. Not to mention, being forced to purchase software from 'company x,y or z' in order to get online, regardless of platform. Hopefully, this is not going to happen."

Re:The reason...

[jaavaaguru]

Maybe they should require an "execute bit" to be set on a file before it can be executed, then there will be nobody accidentally running an attached file that came with their e-mail.

Evil Bit

[jeffy210]

Nah, they're going to solve the packet shaping
issue by appending the "Evil bit" to the
virus packets :)

Re:LAN Systems

[SMOC]

or heck, even a promiscuous traffic logger

What's that, a street hooker with a notepad?

Oh, you meant ethereal. My bad.

The worst virus is the antivirus software itself

[truth_revealed]

Antivirus software slows down your machine to a third of its original speed. Disable it and see for yourself. You'll never use that junk again.

I have a much more comprehensive scheme for identifying viruses anyway. I have modified my OS to pop a dialog for each incoming letter and verify if I want to accept it or not:

You have received the letter "G" from IP address 192.132.54.99 on port 492.
Some viruses are known to have the letter "G".
Would you like to accept it?
Yes No

You have received the letter "r" from IP address 192.132.54.99 on port 492.
Some viruses are known to have the letter "r".
Would you like to accept it?
Yes No

You have received the letter "e" from IP address 192.132.54.99 on port 492.
Some viruses are known to have the letter "e".
Would you like to accept it?
Yes No

Re:impossible to stop viruses on windows for idiot

[Natzschen]

We run some propetary hardware where I work that only currently has driver support for Windows NT. Thus, we have one box that runs NT. When we did a re-install on it, we installed NT, then immediately patched up everything. Before the patches had even finished installing, it had already caught blaster and a variety of other things. It was like leaving a gaping wound open in a cespool. I agree, virus software can only really work well as a reactive measure. In order to protect your machine, your OS needs a strict set of acces and execution permissions so, say, your mp3 player or web browser can't format your hard drive or add bizzare crap to your configuration files. That being said, there are plenty of viruses that infect you without having you run an unknown executable at all. They're called buffer overrun exploits, and if you think Windows 98 is free of them, then you're pretty deluded.