How to Attack Zombie Machines?

So I've been asking myself this question for awhile and I don't seem to be getting any good results--why is it that spam bot owners are able to get all of these zombie machine IP addresses, but from a defense perspective, we don't seem to be able to do anything about these botnets? It occured to me that addressing this issue of security in the 21st century will mean that we have to be proactive with detecting these bots and shutting them down.

First things first, a bill should be passed that requires ISP's to do monitoring of every machine that is connected to their network and scan them to see if there are any machines that have been exploited. I mean without knowing all the technical in's and out's, if a botnet operator can detect an exploited machine without having access to the ISP's switches and routes and such, it would make sense that an ISP who does have access to all of this, would be able to do it more efficently. This would do wonders to make US ISP computers one of the most secure in the world. Also ISP's, as part of their subscription services, should REQUIRE that all user's connecting to their network do so from A) behind a hardware firewall, and B) using antivirus software on each machine. This should be a SIMPLE and painless process, i.e from the machine a user goes to this URL, it detects they are coming from the ISP's IP address, and downloads a copy of the software to their machine.

It would seem that unless we take a proactive stance to say all machines that are on a network in the US will be hardened against exploits, then we are going to be putting ourselves in a worse situation as time goes on. Is it hard--YES! But will the end results pay off, absolutely.

When Teachers Matter

It's a sad truth in this wonderful country that we live in, and that is we are one of the most technologically advanced, economic center, politically involved, last super power in the world--and yet we have not figured out that the future that we live in today is hinging by a thin piece of hair because we have not come to realize and mature our education system to keep pace with the world that we live in.

If we look at other nations around the world, we can see nations rising and falling, but the one thing that is constant is that those who make education a priority tend to be those who will in the end prosper greatly. What's interesting about this is that coming into a presidential election year, one would think that this would be just the time to get some ideas on the table and to put into effect a plan that will ensure the long term survivability of our future--our children and generations after.

Just by a review of their individual websites:

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/education/
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/education/
http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/19ce50b5-daa8-4795-b92d-92bd0d985bca.htm

The first thing that stands out is that the Democratic candidates seem to have a clear picture as to compartmentalizing the issue--don't tackle the entire elephant, just go for each leg and eventually the out of control beast will fall down and become manageable. Looking at the Republican side, it's a lot of opinion without much structure and to me leaves me wondering about whether or not the root issues are clear enough for public policy to be made.

Starting with McCain, let's look at his quote he has:

American education must be worthy of the promise we make to our children and ourselves--the freedom and opportunity to chase our dreams.

Now while this is a great sentimental hallmark type of message, what it doesn't say is "what freedoms are we talking about" and "who's opportunity"? If we are talking about those who would be typically McCain's constituents, then sure, these folks do have the freedom and opportunity to chase after their dreams, no matter how out of reach, lofty, ill thought out that they are. But when we look at our country as a whole what was just described is only a small slice of that pie. There are those who come from backgrounds where all they have to look forward to is what's comfortable or straightforward, such as generations of people in family businesses or trades because their parents or parents parents have always done it, and that's what they are good at. Or folks who come from environments that tell them that if they aren't good at something then they are good for nothing, and because they are not good at math and science, but can dribble a ball or throw a touchdown or hit a home run, that those are the only things going for them and they push and push for the sports dream. Or folks who idolize their favorite entertainers and believe in their hearts heart that this is what they are meant to do and sure enough perhaps is the only thing that they can do.

What's sad about this is that the later is the majority of American's and not the former. We need to look at this from the perspective of not chasing our dreams, but making dreams a reality. I've seen what happens when you chase a dream--like the coyote chasing after the roadrunning, no matter how fast, clever or smart he things he is, the roadrunning is always just a tad ahead of him and in the end just ends up getting hurt or burned. How often have we heard this story coming to be? I'd say more often than not. What about this statement here:

John McCain believes our schools can and should compete to be the most innovative, flexible and student-centered - not safe havens for the uninspired and unaccountable. He believes we should let them compete for the most effective, character-building teachers, hire them, and reward them.

Now this goes into the meat and potatoes of this discussion. Now we are focused on the schools and the environment that we expect them to live in for 12+ years. But before we go any further, let's look at what Hillary and Obama have to say on this topic.

Both of them agree that:

Early Years

• Parent education in the early years pays off and that we should do more to help parents learn to become better parents.
  
• Hook em while they are young--early start or head start programs get kids on the right track early enough and takes every opportunity to influence them from day 1.
• Child care is a major issue as with parents having to rely on 2 parent incomes, raising children can no longer be standardized to 1 member works and the other raises the family.
  

K-12

• The no child left behind really isn't working and does not achieve the goals that it was intended to achieve. It either needs to be left to the side or reformed, but either way, in it's current form is probably doing more harm than good.
• Address the drop out rate
• Youth programs that allow them to do other things outside of the classroom that are aimed at keeping kids out of trouble and providing structure during the hours between school and when their parents are out of work.
  
• Outreach and learning opportunity programs
• The need for either specialized teachers (math and science) or recruit administration and teachers and fill the gaps that exist in rural and urban settings.

Higher Education

• Both would agree that reforms need to be made from a funding perspective to make it easier to get scholarships, loans, and coverage of the costs of school

So what's wrong in all of this? Well to start with, let's go back to the beginning, where are the idea's that will ensure that parents are parents who have gone into the idea of raising a child with open eyes and better understanding of things? There should be a nationally funded and potentially required program for people who are interested in having children. This program would provide education in various areas, such as health care (everyone needs to be able to provide basic child care to children, heck we probably know more legal-eeze than we do about addressing medical problems), nutrition and diet, exercise, responsibility, patience, time management, etc. Similar to a bar, while your child is under the age of 18, you would be required to renew this license if you will each year, at which point new information or different information will be available based on the changing needs of your family situation, your individual situation, and your child's situation, such as drug and sex education and awareness and communication in the 21st century with your developing child. What would be the benefits out of this? For those who complete the program successfully, they will be registered in a national database and be allowed access to further government benefits, such as child care reductions/subsidizations, school credits, tax credits, etc. We can use our imagination here, but the idea is to make it very appealing for parents to want to A) go through this, and B) continue learning about this as time goes on and as their child matures.

Moving into K-12 the biggest gap that we have is that we are not doing anything to:

• Restructure the administration of the educational system as a whole
• Address funding issues to give those in less tax affluent area's more ability to conduct themselves at a competitive level
• Provide ONE federal program that is plain and straight forward--IF you signup to go through a undergraduate program in a particular discipline that is predetermined by this program (such as math, science, sociology, psychology, business) and go through a graduate program to learn to become an educator, while meeting these criteria (see below), will be provided with FULL funding for their education (undergraduate and graduate), a monthly allowance that covers BASIC needs based on national averages and area cost of living for strictly food related items, transportation credit or waivers, housing credit or waivers. Obviously you could provide other incentives afterwards such as a home buyer program, relocation packages, continual education credit, etc and make these all based on some new formula for understanding if the educator is actually educating their students and their students are taking that information and being able to apply this on some standardized way (without a standardized test persay). Perhaps a new way to look at standardizing ciriculum, more from a perspective of what needs to be taught and leave it up to the individual districts to measure that or to go out and find out what makes private schools so competitive and adopt some of those standards.
  
• Maintain a drug free (all legal drugs as well, such as smoking, drinking, prescription drugs, designer drugs) record
• No convictions
• GPA of 3 or higher
• Volunteer at least 20 hours each calendar month of attendance (proof is required) in a program that is federally acceptable
• Continual enrollment with no larger than a 2 month break in enrollment.

At any rate, we need to start with not only the teachers, but also the students. And what better way than to make the parents responsible for their children. I know from my own experiences, part of what made school such a drag, specially during K-12 was that there were those in class that you knew just were there because they had to be. If they did something wrong, you couldn't discipline the child like you could in the old days and the parents would most likely try and reason or strong arm their way out of the situation--end game is that the student would get away scott free. So what's the solution, make the parents responsible for their actions, punishable by fines and/or jail time. If a student skips class, automatically that's a $X fine. A student assaults another student, the parents are jailed for assault and battery. I tell you if the parents start taking on the consequences for their children, right quick we'll see a movement where parents are taking the matter into their own hands and doing what is necessary to communicate with their children and not have the expectation that they will take care of the problems of the child and responsibility will begin to foster. This is perhaps the largest gap that we have in today's society that we don't have any way of instilling responsibility into our children in a consistent manner. Each parent will be different and have different ideas of what's right and wrong, but if all of the parents are getting penalized by actions of their children, we should see a more normalized curve emerge whereby parents will have a more consistent way of dealing with these issues and standing behind certain ones.