[GRLUG] kill switches

[Tim Schmidt]

On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 11:50 AM, Bruce Smith <blubdog at gmail.com> wrote:
> The difference is you're treating a cellular internet connection
> exactly the same as you would a regular ISP.
>
> The main business of a ISP is to provide you internet.  You can
> connect your own computer or device to the Internet.  If your computer
> starts spewing out spam or viruses, the ISP cuts you off.
>
> The main business of a cellular company is voice.  Internet is a
> secondary addon.  If your cellular device starts spewing out spam or
> viruses to the internet, they don't want to shut off your phone
> completely.  They want to fix the problem without requiring their
> employee labor for each affected device.

I have news for you...  since the 90s, ISPs and phone companies have
been the same businesses, selling the same product.  Namely little
pulses of light traveling over very thin glass fibers.

> And still, trojans and other problems ocassionally happen with open
> source software.  A much bigger deal for a cellular company.

They happen with several orders of magnitude lower frequency than
other similar development methods.  And more importantly, when they
_do_ happen, you are empowered to find and fix the problem.

> How else would a cell provider fix phones with evil apps, without the
> labor of employees manually fixing the problem?  Or the phone support
> time required to talk each customer through the process of fixing it
> themselves (assuming the customers have another phone to call in on:)?

How do ISPs do it?  In other words, the answer is that there are many
varied and appropriate methods available to the phone companies
depending on the details of the particular problem.  From encouraging
use of appropriate software to more extreme methods like refusing
access from a particular phone.

--tim