One of our readers, Roy, came across this article from Yahoo! this morning reporting that Comcast is planning to enlist it's customers help in the fight against botnets by using pop-up alerts. Comcast's general idea is that, if Comcast notes traffic associated with known botnet activity, a pop-up will appear on the user's computer. The article gives the full details as reported by the Assosciated Press.

The last paragraph, from an overall security perspective, is the most concerning to me, and that is the use of hoax popups and sites. I quote "Phil Lin, marketing director at network security firm FireEye Inc., said hackers could mimic Comcast's pop-up banner or the confirmation ads. And unsuspecting customers wouldn't know they should expect to see a confirmation from Comcast in the first place."  We know it is only a matter of time, and my guess is it will be a very short time, before the botnet farmers start making use of hoax notification pop-ups and sites. 

The bottom line: Good security practices up front, solid software and applications, and user awareness would almost eliminate the need for any effort of this type.