Hundreds could lose internet in July

[SXRguyinMA]

Seems legit, think it is?


WASHINGTON (AP) — For computer users, a few mouse clicks could mean the difference between staying online and losing Internet connections after early July.

The problem started when international hackers ran an online advertising scam to take control of infected computers around the world. In a highly unusual move, the FBI set up a safety net months ago using government computers to prevent Internet disruptions for those infected users. But that system will be shut down this summer.

The FBI is encouraging users to visit a website run by a security partner that will inform them whether they're infected — and explain how to fix the problem. After July 9, infected users won't be able to connect to the Internet.

To check and clean computers, try: www.dcwg.org (http://www.dcwg.org)

Original article here (http://entertainment.verizon.com/news/read.php?ps=1014&rip_id=%3CD9U8QBEO1%40news.ap.org%3E&news_id=19047230&src=most_popular_viewed)

[TLHarrell]

Your connection to the internet is through a contract with a private business. On what authority does our government break that contract and disconnect anybody? This should have been sorted out before they opened the sinkhole under their control. The operation and policing of the internet should be by the ISPs and other private entities.

[TheGreatSatan]

On what authority does our government break that contract and disconnect anybody?

Sounds like an Obama thing

[OvRiDe]

Your connection to the internet is through a contract with a private business. On what authority does our government break that contract and disconnect anybody? This should have been sorted out before they opened the sinkhole under their control. The operation and policing of the internet should be by the ISPs and other private entities.

I think you need to read the article of what is actually going on. The original problem was that a group of hackers released a botnet that infected a large amount of computers. The infection changes the DNS settings on these computers to point to malicious DNS servers. The DNS servers would then redirect those users to malicious sites instead of the actual site the user was trying to go to. The FBI and other international law enforcement agencies arrested the hackers and seized the malicious DNS servers. In an effort to keep users from experiencing any outages, they fixed the servers to not hand out malicious addresses and kept them online. This way anyone that was affected would still be able to access a DNS server. In July they are going to shut off those servers. So basically anyone that is still infected with that virus will essentially be pointed at dead DNS servers, and therefore URL's will not resolve. They are NOT disconnecting any users from the internet they are just shutting down servers that were seized and being used for malicious intent.

[SXRguyinMA]

Ah I get it now, makes much more sense from your explanation Curtis :D

[TLHarrell]

Ok, that works for me too. I didn't RTFA. Unfortunate though. The fix is on the internet, and they won't be able to access the internet. Sounds like a good time to go into side work fixing this very issue.

[AmEv]

Thank goodness I wasn't infected :whistler: