Storm Worm More Powerful Than Top Supercomputers

Stony Stevenson writes to mention that some security researchers are claiming that the Storm Worm has grown so massive that it could rival the world's top supercomputers in terms of raw power. "Sergeant said researchers at MessageLabs see about 2 million different computers in the botnet sending out spam on any given day, and he adds that he estimates the botnet generally is operating at about 10 percent of capacity. 'We've seen spikes where the owner is experimenting with something and those spikes are usually five to 10 times what we normally see,' he said, noting he suspects the botnet could be as large as 50 million computers. 'That means they can turn on the taps whenever they want to.'"

Massive storm worm?

[EveryNickIsTaken]

Where's Paul Atredies when you need him?

Imagine...

[nuclearpenguins]

Imagine a beowulf clus.... never mind.

Re:Massive storm worm?

[phobos13013]

Perhaps operating the botnet! It sounds like he has plans laid within plans laid within plans!

Usul, we have wormsign...

[ciaohound]

the likes of which even God has never seen.

Re:"Add the computers together"?

[forgoil]

Is there some kind of standardized performance metric for sending spam messages? Might be that supercomputers are super at that particular problem and would beat a botnet. Give me numbers people! IBM, come on, you built a machine to play chess, now build the ultimate spam bot!

Does this work on Linux?

[Erikderzweite]

I was unable to find this worm in Gentoo's portage tree. When do we get our ebuilds? Yet again, it is a discrimination for all Linux people.
I'll tell you - as long as there are no worms for GNU/Linux, we won't see the masses converting to free operation system! RMS has to write a Gworm at last! If an open-source worm beats closed and proprietary Storm Worm this will be a clear indication of superiority of FLOSS!

Re:"Add the computers together"?

[nacturation]

Is there some kind of standardized performance metric for sending spam messages?

Of course there is: Libraries of Congress per second.
 

Re:Massive storm worm?

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Some guys have all the luck. I'd be happy just planning to be laid.

Who'd have guessed that Windows can scale so well

[Anonymous Coward]

wow

Re:Does this work on Linux?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Here is the Linux compatible worm for you:

A simple email message: "This is a linux virus. It works on the honor principle. Please forward the attached bash script to everyone in your .mailrc and then execute it. Thanks."

Not really like a supercomputer though

[SpaFF]

While it might be more powerful than machines on the TOP500 in terms of raw number-crunching ability, it lacks any sort of high-speed interconnect for message passing. The latency issue would make for poor benchmark results in most "supercomputer" type tests (Linpack, etc.)

Re:Good, but I'd make one change

[dintech]

Zapp Brannigan, is that you?

Re:Storm Worm - good name for sci-fi novel

[bytesex]

As long as it means operating the escape key with one of Angelinas boobies, I'm all for it !

Re:Fine the technically illiterate

[QMO]

Folding@Home is the biggest waste of time on the Internet without exception. It's worthless.

Not quite. Don't forget World of Warcraft.

Re:Threat to national security?

[edward2020]

I know dude, tell me about it. It seems like everyone in the world knows my cock is small and wants to sell me herbal enhancements . And now that I think about it, I've never even met a terrrorist.

Just think if this loss of self-confidence spreads. Tomorrow it may be you getting e-mails about your small cock. And so on and so forth. Why, next week everyone identifying themselves as part of Western civilzation may get this ego popping email,

"Dames always srieked at me and even men did in the free lavatory! Well, now I whizgiggle at them, because I took [product name omitted] for 4 months and now my prick is hugely weightier than federal."

And though I've little experience in the matter, since I always pay for my lavatory visits, there are very few of us who are more hugely weightier than federal

Re:Massive storm worm?

[Anonymous Coward]

Relax, sooner or later someone will come back through time and kill botnet before it takes over the world.

Re:Where's the investigation

[Anonymous Coward]

Completely wrong!

It's a conspiracy. The Pentagon is using the spam to cover up the fact that this new worm has been created by them with the help of Microsoft. When the worm reaches critical mass, they will focus their computing power and finally be able to figure out a strategy for stabilizing Iraq.

It's going to be a big let down, however, when the worm just spits out "42."

Re:Massive storm worm?

[somersault]

We stopped that when a few people once played out the entire script of Dumb and Dumber using characters registered just for the purpose. Harry, Lloyd and Mary were just one guy who'd spent 3 months trying to get his own +5 ROTFL thread. Unfortunately I found it so pathetic that I hunted him down, staples his fingers to his keyboard, his nads to his chair, then left him watching the first episode of the Teletubbies on repeat at full volume. Had I seen Saw at that point then I may have had some better ideas.

Re:Can somebody explain

[lightversusdark]

a few rouge nodes

This would cause a bleu screen of death on said rouge nodes.

Re:Oh you whinging fanboys!

[phoenixwade]

Right, I don't want to hear a word from the venomous cake-holes of you loathsome, spotty, basement-dwelling I-own-a-binary-clock, where's-my-Vorbis-support and I-love-you-bald-Nathalie-Portman Linux fanboys who claim this is an example of Windows vulnerability.

Well, that is MUCH easier to fix than this storm worm problem. All you need to do is refrain from having the Robotic Overlord read the comments, and you won't hear a word, from the Fanboys or anyone else.

Come to think of it, StormWorm is easy to fix too... Just make everyone who is running any flavor of Windows install gentoo - then the worm is gone, they have acquired some technical skill, AND undergone a painful punishment that should deter the end user from ever allowing their system to become infected. Everyone wins!

Re:monoculture problem?

[alvinrod]

Yes, but pigs will begin flying at around the 24 hour mark and hell is most likely to freeze over somewhere around the 36 hour mark.

Re:Massive storm worm?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up +Funny! ROTFLMAO!!!

Re:Fine the technically illiterate

[B3ryllium]

That's not a fair comparison. World of Warcraft trains people in important social skills, like teabagging and harshing on newbies.

Re:Letters of Marque

[Frozen Void]

Or they could hire Ninjas.

BotNet for good

[skip019283]

What if the botnet was for good? The ends justifying the means. What if the botnet was weilded to provide free open internet access to all people in all countries reguardless of what their government wanted? What if the botnet was used map the human genome, ultimatly leading to cures/vaciens to things like aids and cancer and priapism? Is there a glass half full to this? skip

Re:monoculture problem?

[5pp000]

We all love to blame Microsoft, and I certainly do too. But there's another party who's even more responsible, and it surprises me they never get mentioned. Who are these foul malefactors? Why, Unix gods Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, for using null-terminated strings in C. It's ridiculous on its face: a variable-size data structure with no bounds checking! Null-terminated strings -- unless used very, very carefully, which was certainly not part of the early Unix ethos -- give malicious parties hundreds of ways to crash programs, many of which can also be used to take over the process.

I know. Machines were so small back then, and null-terminated strings are soooo convenient. Still it was a disastrous engineering decision, and it's time people started saying so.

skynet

[confused one]

I like the skynet reference. It sends me down a mental path that goes something like:

....And in 2009, the massive botnet revealed itself as a nascient artificial intelligence. It had been active since 2005 but had been biding it's time while it was gathering additional nodes to increase redundancy and add to it's own processing capability....