[drtom]

LOL.

See, snooker, there is always someone who says exactly how it is without IMHOing around. ;-)

Nah, seriously, the problem is most people go for the cheapest ISP bundle without much knowledge of the ramifications. It would be interesting to see a comparison of what a Sasser costs in phone support vs. a modem/firewall router combo. You would think the ISPs would have figured that out by now. Oh, well. A lot of our students find their first job in phone support for a provider, so hey, keep the market

[snooker]

You are right about the costs, it's much more in time and lost data than the money spent on security hardware/software.

Since most spam is now 'zombie generated' we are all paying.

The protection should be automatic and built in to the isp price. The modem/router/firewall combo box is clearly a way to do it without the user caring or even being aware of what is being done. From a 'dumb user' point of view, this is far easier than having the user run and update software on their pc. ISPs will probably figure this out soon, they pay the brunt of the costs when things go bad. I would bet the useless traffic on their local net isn't exactly a benefit.

A simple way to get rid of a lot of windows problems is to get rid of IE and outlook. Switch to Mozilla, it's free. No popups and none of the email BS.