Earlier this year I did a binge on machines in NZ that were infected by worms that spread via open shares. Since many of these are on dial up addresses it is impossible to tell if particular machines have been fixed [....]
A while back I used to test each IP which sent email to our email servers to see if it was an "open relay" (try and connect to email server and send test message and see if come back). It found A LOT of them (and auto blacklisted them) but it was too much of a nightmare due to the backlash from the people who didn't like me doing it.
I guess me ":testing" was stealing thir bandwidth and they didn't like it. . Also a lot of the machines had uncomtactable "owners" or people who never replied (or even spoke english). The Hit Ratio of getting them fixed was very low.
Thanks Craig
We test for open relays on all DSL customers with a static IP *at least* monthly, often more. Only one complaint has ever been made relating to the testing although we get the odd query as to what Xtra is up to and following explanation, customers seem happy with our actions. It's not failsafe as we only do basic tests but we are lucky if 3 or 4 are discovered per month and they are normally new connections. Testing for open proxies is on the drawing board, as is extending the range of customers tested, although resources may be an issue. OP's definitely seem to be the spammers choice at the moment. Don't know whether they are more exciting to use or just that there's more of them. Cheers, Des