As a rare native to the Old West, the idea of shooting it out in the street at high noon appeals to me on many levels. Timothy Mullen, chief information officer of AnchorIS Inc.,arguedat Defcon that vigilante responses to hacking should be considered as a viable option to thwarting security concerns on the ‘net and his sentiment is gaining in popularity. He’s not advocating the total destruction of whatever moron accidentally opens an unidentified executable in his email, thereby spamming the entire contents of his contacts list. Instead, he’s suggesting more proactive measures such as a system by which uninfected computers that receive worms and the like can trace the code back to the last source and prevent it from spreading further.
The idea of other computers seeking out my own and executing code on my machine is a bit unnerving but I’m also far less likely to actually execute the worm in the first place. Legally neutralizing all those that don’t realize their negligent behavior is perpetuating these attacks would certainly be an effective way to prevent much of the damage some of these programs cause. It would also give my poor firewall a much needed reprieve.
