Curious Yellow, Superworm 167
jpmccord writes "Brandon Wiley's white paper, Curious Yellow, explains how "a superworm -- a worm that coordinates it actions among infected hosts and launches a massive distributed denial of service attack on any hosts it can't infect using those it can" (via disLEXia, a weblog by Maximillian Dornseif). The "doomsday scenario" frightens "even us", says Dornseif. An accompanying discussion rebukes Wiley's article a bit. Aaron Swartz's light-hearted take is rather entertaining: "So go read it now and find out how you can take over the whole Internet. And if you're going to, could you give me 24 hours notice?""
worms to crawl (Score:1, Interesting)
Why let the worms have all the fun?
A spider attack could crawl all the webservers looking for IIS machines, or flaws on other servers. Link by link taking down servers...
Come on... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Come on... (Score:1)
Get a decent editor; somebody that checks this kind of stuff,
Yeah, (Score:2)
Or post to slashdot... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Or post to slashdot... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Or post to slashdot... (Score:1)
DELETE DOUBLE STORIES (Score:1, Insightful)
88 Miles an hour and shit [slashdot.org]
Re:DELETE DOUBLE STORIES (Score:2, Insightful)
Hmmz DDOS my machine (Score:1)
Choices to be made (Score:1)
Well if it comes down to being a victim of a ddos, or helping in it, maybe you should purposely allow it to infect you. There might not be an outage if you're just helping the ddos of someone else. At least your machine may still function, internet-ly speaking.
Of course, I'm not really crazy (or even serious) about this idea, but helping an attacker (in this case, the worm) may keep his gaze from fixing on you. Then wait till others have defeated the worm and implement their solution. Run with whoever is winning the battle. I would paraphrase from the great Dark Helmet: Evil will win, because Good is dumb.
However, there is nobility in fighting the good fight. Stand up to the oppressive worm, even if it defeats you. Others may succeed where you may fail.
I think I just wrote this to use the phrase "internet-ly speaking"
The Curious Yellow Post... (Score:3, Funny)
If anyone attempts to post other news it will immediately be taken off the site and replaced by a link to the "Curious Yellow Post"...
This is a repeat ... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This is a repeat ... (Score:3, Informative)
"An accompanying discussion rebukes Wiley's article a bit. Aaron Swartz's light-hearted take is rather entertaining: "
So go read it now and find out how you can take over the whole Internet.
Let's not be too quick to jump on the "Repeat story!" bandwagon. I mean, it can't take that long to read the four sentence story can it?
Re:This is a repeat ... (Score:4, Interesting)
This is slightly OT, but it seems to happen often enough to warrant a comment on the point.
I don't know what tools the Slashdot editors have available to them already, but it seems that the Slashcode already extracts all the links from previous stories (the Related Links box), so it shouldn't be too difficult to compose a story posting utility which looks for stories posted in the last x days which contain any of the same links as the proposed story, flagging possible duplicates.
Re:This is a repeat ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Surely they can take the time to write a cross-checker to see if any of the links in the submissions have been used in any previous stories, after redirects.
Surely it can't be that hard...
Re:This is a repeat ... (Score:1)
At the same time, maybe this article should have been posted as a comment to the original story, or even tacked on as an update and "reposted" instead of being "repeated". (I was busy this weekend; I didn't see the first story until now. I'll try to pay closer attention next time, but when I miss a story, I don't look back...)
At the same time, maybe the /. editors just really like the whole super-worm discussion and really want us to go nuts with it.
"Cross-checker" ?? (Score:2)
#667 can't possibly be your real uid. You MUST be new here.
Re:This is a repeat ... (Score:1, Insightful)
I briefly browse Slashdot every day; not religiously, but skim through, and even I can spot these dupes just through memory. If someone employed here can't remember that, it's abysmal.
I guess the point is, that's why these guys don't have professional journalism jobs. I'm not sure why they're called "editors" (seeing as they don't correct any spelling errors). Maybe "story selectors" would be more appropriate, and a system where readers moderate-up stories. Of course, this would make the editors' jobs redundant, but they don't do anything of worth at the moment.
In short, I like Slashdot -- the comments and the stories. But they're grossly unprofessional and would have trouble finding work in real writing circles.
Re:This is a repeat ... (Score:2)
Re:This is a repeat ... (Score:1)
I suppose it's too late to append my article as a comment to the original... :-)
Re:This is a repeat ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sad.
S
Well. Okay. (Score:4, Funny)
Still, I know I'll be able to read about the new one on MSNBC.newtld a day or two afterwards
Doomsday scenario? (Score:5, Insightful)
Doomsday? Hey guys, it's the internet! Who's gonna die if the internet shuts down? Come on now, it's not like the next ice age or nuclear war! 99% of worlds population won't give a shit if the internet shuts down for a few days. Who cares if a bunch of nerds freak out 'cause they can't read their emails?
The main question is, are YOU so addicted to the net, that you would use the term "doomsday", if it shuts down?
Re:Doomsday scenario? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes. I depend on the Internet for news, entertainment, maintaining contacts with friends, and income. So what is left if that perishes?
So let me think of way to defend myself against this...write another worm that launches DDoS attacks against the hosts infected by Curious Yellow...worm wars!
Re:Doomsday scenario? (Score:1)
er..food, drink, sex, books, newspapers, television, & radio spring to mind.
Re:Doomsday scenario? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Doomsday scenario? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually in the UK each regional Trust communicates using direct lines between centres. If you send medical details between Trusts, it's still done via paperwork.
They trust the Internet about as much as I do ; )
Re:Doomsday scenario? (Score:2)
Agreed. Many corporations use private networks and lines for mission-critical data. Look at interac or debit. They use telephone lines and a modem chip to dial up and transmit information. This might be a cost issue (using telephone lines would be cheaper than providing a direct ethernet connection to each room that needs debit or credit card information). If the Internet ever "goes down", internal networks still might be safe, as they're distinct entities that only have a bridge to the Internet and don't make up the inet backbone.
Re:Doomsday scenario? (Score:1)
Funny thing about all of this is, Curious $color is probably already on every computer and no one knows about it. My hope is that the US government simply has control of it.
Re:Doomsday scenario? (Score:2, Interesting)
I know it's a horrible thing to think about, but maybe we should, come to think of it... Anyone think we should devise a contigency plan for when/if the Internet does hit a brick wall? Not because I'm paranoid, but because I would rather be overprotected than regretfully and idiotically vulnerable.
Re:Doomsday scenario? (Score:2)
The internet shut down and stopped our business? Reroute around the problem. That's why the internet can survive a nuclear war. Don't be passive and expect it to survive world events on its own. It still takes a brain to drive the thing around someone who left their dead car in the middle of the information superhighway.
If the internet shuts down and you still can't send email, its your own damn fault. In the old days, you had to dial up another connection and complete the route. Now we have more tools cheaply at our disposal: wireless, satellite, laser, and dedicated lines everywhere. To not know how to use them is missing out on great opportunities.
Re:Doomsday scenario? (Score:2)
I remember before we had the internet. If we wanted to communicate, we had to make arrangements to connect our computers together. That's no big deal to me. If the internet had some great big meltdown today, we have far much better tools and equipment to string it back together. Something bad today would make it that much stronger tomorrow.
This is all beginning to sound like the Y2K thing all over again. Let me tell you how afraid people were over controllers of my manufacturing lines that had no concept of what a date was. But they wouldn't listen, because I wasn't a "consultant" they were paying the millions to take care of a fear.
The end of the internet is a joke. There is no way to bring it down. Its like using nuclear bombs to kill cockroaches. Bombing the planet will only allow them to conquer the surface of the planet. I'd prefer not to be afraid of technology and realize its shortcomings. Every problem we have with electronic communications only creates opportunities for its further advancement.
Re:Doomsday scenario? (Score:2)
But there is a certainly quality of freedom and non-hassle that I'm going for in life... And, while effort to improve should never be spared, shrugging off efforts to destroy because it will only be better improved later is, well, counterproductive. We could just address known vulnerabilities before they're discovered by someone malicious.
Re:Doomsday scenario? (Score:2)
No, we should be outlawing people setting up wireless networks. They can be considered as terrorists and have no right to do things the professionals do. Silly kids think they have the right to use electronic equipment anyway they see fit.
Re:Doomsday scenario? (Score:3, Funny)
Tell me about it. I'm gonna throw myself off the roof if Old Man Murray [oldmanmurray.com] doesn't come back online by the end of the week.
I don't know what I'd do if the entire *Internet* shut down...
=)
Re:Doomsday scenario? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's like watching the same pieces fall from some pavlonian machine over and over again. One comment brings forth a slew of responses, all providing an identical response. In Usenet, it's horrible.
Re:Doomsday scenario? (Score:1)
Mindless and numbing repetition.
Conversations fall into useless patterns.
talk in endless loops endless loops endless loops endless loops...
Re:Doomsday scenario? (Score:3, Interesting)
Not quite, but considering the amount of business that is done over the Internet these days, it is going to be pretty rough for many companies. Especially banks would be vulnerable, I guess, subsequently leading to massive drops of stock prices, leading to further bancrupticies. Not nice, not at all.
Of course, it is uncertain if such a worm could really take down the Internet. But if it could, it would really hurt.
Re:Doomsday scenario? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the Jargon File: (Score:1)
[Usenet] Since Usenet first got off the ground in 1980-81, it has grown exponentially, approximately doubling in size every year. On the other hand, most people feel the signal-to-noise ratio of Usenet has dropped steadily. These trends led, as far back as mid-1983, to predictions of the imminent collapse (or death) of the net. Ten years and numerous doublings later, enough of these gloomy prognostications have been confounded that the phrase "Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted!" has become a running joke, hauled out any time someone grumbles about the S/N ratio or the huge and steadily increasing volume, or the possible loss of a key node or link, or the potential for lawsuits when ignoramuses post copyrighted material, etc., etc., etc.
Savant
Re:Doomsday scenario? (Score:1)
What about "First Strike" Senario's being the reason the whole internet was created by the Department of Defense.
But I'm sure they can just trust some guy on the phone if anything needs to be launced. Hey if it sounds like Bush has to be right?
Re:Doomsday scenario? (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you really think that the Pentagon was letting us all play on their wires? This isn't War Games, and the military planners aren't brain-dead.
Bring it on! (Score:1)
SheWhoWalksWithToesLikeCobras
please make it end (Score:2)
Seth
really scary ... (Score:1, Troll)
Note that both Curious Yellow and Palladium are still theoric menaces.
Re:really scary ... (Score:1)
Harking back to the article, Palladium would not start out as Curious Yellow. It could loosely be construed as Curious Blue, due to its attempt to prevent propogation of copyrighted materials and its ability to upgrade itself. It would not take much, however, to bastardize Palladium into Curious Yellow by those who feel "...a computer on every desk..." is a good thing.
Mmkay... Call me stupid, but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you really think about it, the math behind such an event may not work out....My guess is, there simply aren't enough hosts on the net that are simultaneously A) succeptible to infection B) sitting on static IPs, and C) unmonitored by human eyes. All three conditions must exist in order for the worm to propogate -- If any one of those factors is absent, that particular thread of the superworm is halted. It makes the scenario described in this article practically impossible. Sure, a superworm may exist, but it would be so slow-moving and predictable that it would be no more a threat than any other form of DoS attack.
If you really want something abstract to think about, consider this: How is this "superworm" different than, say, a non-existant website mentioned on a nationwide TV broadcast? Instead of malicious code generating the resulting network congestion, its humans -- The net result is the same -- The effect will taper off as T increases. Nothing to really worry about, in other words.
Yeah, I know. I'm sure someones gonna come back and read this 10 years from now and want to slap me silly with a 10 lbs. trout, for my lack of forethought.. But seriously, I think these sort of stories are more along the lines of interesting fiction than they are real-world possibilities.
Cheers,
Re:Mmkay... Call me stupid, but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
IMHO, there are plenty of susceptible computers out there.
Most internet servers, both large and small are on static IPs, and only subject to occasional human monitoring. (That is occasional, relative to this worm's speed of propagation, which is estimated to be under a minute).
I would include my home linux box in the category of susceptible computers. It is permanently connected (ADSL), on static IP, and I only use it every day or so. It it became infected with Curious Yellow, I would be unlikely to notice for 12 hours or so, (unless my ISP phoned me), and if the worm was stealthy enough not to monopolise any resource (CPU, disc, bandwidth etc), I might not notice for weeks until someone contacted me. Considering how infectious this hypothetical worm is, 12 hours would be enough to do huge damage.
Ask yourself if the same would apply to any permanently connected computers in your control?
As for "susceptible to infection". Curious Yellow would be designed to use some sort of zero day exploit, so we have no idea which computers are susceptible, and it would be complacent to assume that only windows boxes are. My system runs Debian Stable, and I regularly apply the security patches, but that does not make it completely invulnerable.
Don't be complacent, Treat the risk seriously.
Re:Mmkay... Call me stupid, but.. (Score:2)
Good avice. I admin a RedHat webserver. I set it up to run up2date followed by autoupdate every 6 hours. I had a breakin maybe 4 years ago due to a patch oversight... maybe 6 hours is a bit too often, but it allows me to be lazy about actually doing anything with the box. If I hear of somethign spreading fast, I'm taking it down pronto, but for the most part it's set-it-and-forget-it.
Re:Mmkay... Call me stupid, but.. (Score:1)
Re:Mmkay... Call me stupid, but.. (Score:2)
The point of keeping everything very current is that maybe a fix will come out against a "day 0" or "day 2" exploit before the worm gets you, and you want to grab that update before the worm hits. Once the worm has an opportunity to modify the program (has root privledges), you're screwed. Unless you're running a Mandatory Acess Control (not THAT Mac) system (Such as SELinux or TrustedBSD), asking what happens after a root exploit is a moot point. The OS has to be written off as a complete loss.
Re:Mmkay... Call me stupid, but.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Right, I agree, we should not be complacent...but by the same token, part of being pro-active on these sorts of things is to have discussions similar to the one we're having right now.
While I agree with your observations, I dont think you quite "got' what I was trying to say. Allow me to clarify a few things:
The threat Curious Yellow poses has to do with its ability to function _in tandem_ with other threads of itself. That means, the superworm can only be as strong as the number of threads that exist at any given point in time. It's not a cumulative effect, since the large majority of machines that will be infected are transient hosts--hosts which will pass in and out of existance fairly frequently, and will not be a functioning part of the worm for the vast majority of the superworm's overall lifespan. Keep in mind, the majority of the hosts on the Internet are not people like you and I. They are home PCs, which spend only a comparably slim amount of time connected to the net, and are therefore a "moving target" for the superworm.
As I mentioned earlier, the three conditions must all be met, simultaneously, by all threads of the superworm. Any lapse of those three conditions can be equated with a corresponding drop in overall potency... In other words, the more it grows, the more weakened it becomes. As time goes on, the major threads of the worm die off as they are discovered, which effectively breaks down the ability of the superworm to function collaboratively with other instances of itself. Such a superworm would decay with time.
The number of hosts which are sitting on the net, vulnerable, and untracked by their owners will be small, but never zero...so of course, the worm will still propogate. No ones arguing that. However, that doesn't change the decay process described above.
In essence, this worm has its own demise built-in. Its growth will spike, and then slowly decay with time, eventually become no more of a threat than any other worm trying to eek out a living.
Re:Mmkay... Call me stupid, but.. (Score:4, Insightful)
There is little point in having the worms detect when to go into turbo mode, since such a command could be quickly relayed trought the network. And ofcourse there is a chance that some of the worms would switch to turbo mode prematurely, leading to early detection.
i find the idea of the worm spidering for new hosts rather interesting; obviously, it's a nearly ideal way to find other webservers. Also, since any host on the web has a reference to a dns server, it's very easy for any worm to find at least one of those. Once a dns server is compromised, the worm has a fairly complete and realtime list of webservers, with very few bad addresses. This way, many hosts may be infected with very little host- and portscanning.
If such a superworm would ever get out in the wild, it may be very hard or nearly impossible to stop it.
Re:Mmkay... Call me stupid, but.. (Score:1)
Re:Mmkay... Call me stupid, but.. (Score:2)
Re:Mmkay... Call me stupid, but.. (Score:2)
Let's look at B and C, firstly. Who says a worm has to have static IPs? Did you read the article when it talked about Altnet? You think all those people running Kazaa are running on static IPs? What is Kazaa, or Gnutella even, but a coordinated worm whose soul method of propogation is that the boxes owners or users elected to install the application? And any dynamic IP address is static long enough to propogate a worm instance.
As for C, we're lucky worm and virii authors are clueless, in addition to harmless. Stealth is the key here. A worm could go completely undetected if it propogated itself by means of, say, hot-installed kernel patches or something and used very few system resources (CPU, disk, network).
tomorrow (Score:5, Funny)
Why Brain? What are we going to do tomorrow evening?
Same as every evening, we try to take over the Internet!
we are just lucky... (Score:5, Interesting)
A very scary worm would simply spread it's self quietly and slowly, wait for a doomsday time to tick and then Boom... simply start a massive delete fest on the computers or to be even more sinister start changing numbers randomly in spreadsheets and documents... like simply adjusting up or down by a random amount.
Once a virus or worm has admin control or system control it can do anything and luckily we still havent had one of these buggers do any destructive things...
I am expecting it though... It's just like guns... most of the planet can safely own and use them and only a few lunatics start blowing people's heads off.
Re:we are just lucky... (Score:1)
Uh, CIH?
You're thinking too shortsightedly... (Score:1)
If you've got something powerful under your control, the last thing you'd want to do is blow it up. Well, if you're crafty, that is.
One argument to this is that many hackers are in it for the 'glory' and bragging rights. That's true enough, but I'm not afraid of those people. I'm afraid of foreign governments.
Heck, I'm afraid of *our* government doing this. How much worse is it if Code Yellow is required by law to be part of your OS? Granted, I'm feeling paranoid today, but it doesn't seem to far to go to 'combat terrorism', or to 'fight child pornography'. Or consider China, who is already doing a great deal of work to control their citizens' internet access.
$.02
-Zipwow
Curious George (Score:1)
The thing I would worry about, is what if that guy with the big yellow hat does something. With that kind of hat you could really do some damage to a network - think Oddjob [imdb.com] on a MUCH larger scale!
Well... as I said - maybe it's just me...
- L to the amer, B to the unny.
poster analogy (Score:2)
It seems to me the claim a bit like this case:
I go to a conference and present a poster paper. On the back of the poster, being the intelligent, trusting fool that I am, I copy all my secret data that I don't want anybody to see. Somebody peeks behind the poster, sees this data, and tells the whole conference and now they all know my secrets.
But I am not at fault here and the wrong doing is all by the guy who originally looked behind my poster?!
Yeah, right!
Applications of this......technology......... (Score:4, Interesting)
-sonic
Get a good lawyer, Brandon... (Score:1)
But if the worms do their job sufficiently well, the police/justice systems will be so adversely affected that your arrest papers won't even see the light of day
Well done, dude! You've covered a lot of angles in your paper. You may have even launched the bootloader for Project Mayhem!
New Slashdot Worm found in wild! (Score:5, Funny)
The site has already been hit twice, with a story appearing on their main 'articles' section. The virus has been spoofing known slashdot editors such as 'Hemos' and 'michael' [slashdot.org]. The site has yet to comment on these attacks, but have warned there is a risk that further variants may attack their 'slashback' section later this week.
So far there is no known cure for this virus.
Say What? Say What? (Score:1)
Nupe It (Score:3, Funny)
Little. Yellow. Different.
Just think of it's potential on a beowolf cluster! (Score:1)
It's happening (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, something funny is definitely going on right now on the net. These statistics are solid and based on 4 years of data going back to 1998: my firewall has detected on average 1 probe every 3 hours.
On 28th September this year I made the mistake of visiting the website of Taiwanese motherboard maker QDI Group website [qdigrp.com] to download a newer BIOS. Literally within seconds my firewall started getting hit by netbios probes. It's been about two probes a minute all day every day from sites all over the world since 28th September. That's a 400-fold increase! It's getting worse. They're from all over the place but always TCP to netbios port 137.
Does anyone else want to try vsiiting www.qdigrp.com?? Has anyone else seen the same pattern? I'll post a few of the IPs here. Maybe someone will recognise them.
Re:It's happening (Score:1)
12.79.164.132 ATT WorldNet Services, Bridgeton MO, USA
61.63.51.132 Koos Broadband Telecom Co Ltd, Taipei, Taiwan
61.66.23.153 Hoshin Gigamedia Center Inc, Taipei, Taiwan
61.84.155.229 Bukkwangju Node, Kwangju, Korea
62.82.150.12 Retenet SA, Barcelona, Spain
63.238.201.181 Qwest Communications, Denver CO, USA
64.128.228.13 Telocity Delaware Inc, Hermosa Beach CA, USA
64.221.167.233 XO Communications, San Jose CA, USA
64.28.67.150 SLASHDOT!! Exodus Comms, Santa Clara CA, USA
66.139.73.8 ServerBeach, San Antonia TX, USA
66.231.36.202 Coldwater Board of Public Utilities, Coldwater MI, USA
66.50.81.233 Coqui.net Corp, San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA
67.119.49.16 HisAndHerHairGoods, San Francisco CA, USA
80.36.162.80 Telefonica de Espana, Madrid, Spain
130.225.41.146 Danish CC for Research & Education, Copenhagen, Denmark
140.186.101.246 Cambridge Entrepreneurial Network, Quincy MA, USA
144.232.4.246 Sprint Comms, Overland Park KA, USA
148.76.64.119 Spacenet, Inc, McLean VA, USA
158.152.204.252 Pilsbury, Demon Internet, London, UK
162.39.227.110 Central Telephone Company, Little Rock AR, USA
193.195.224.1 Demon Internet, London, UK
194.38.141.141 CMCin2, Lisbon, Portugal
196.30.233.120 UUNET Internet Africa, Johannesburg, South Africe
200.161.93.37 Comite Gestor da Internet no Brasil, Sao Paulo, Brazil
200.24.101.125 Unitel SA, Cali, Columbia
200.44.17.59 CANTV Servicios, Caracas, Venezuala
200.67.91.103 Uninet SA, Jardines del Pedregal, Mexico
200.75.195.174 CableOnda CableModem, Panama City, Panama
202.239.162.34 Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo, Japan
203.249.50.165 Wonkwang University, Chonbuk, Korea
203.250.139.23 PaiChai University, Taejon, Korea
207.249.143.232 Instituto Sup.Autonoma de Occ., Flores, Mexico
210.212.250.67 Shrimati Indira Gandhi College, Tiruchirapalli, India
210.214.24.49 Satyam Infoway Pvt.Ltd, Chennai, India
210.255.9.145 Dion (KDDI Corp), Tokyo, Japan
211.142.185.132 China Mobile Comms Corp, Beijing, China
211.158.48.138 Chongqing BoardBand Networks Co, Chongqing, China
211.197.12.211 Nexen Tire Co, Seoul, Korea
217.164.246.17 Emirates Telecomms Group, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
217.216.216.43 Supercable, Seville, Spain
217.58.146.195 Interbusiness, Florence, Italy
218.54.251.250 Cyberia Woosong, Taejon, Korea
Re:It's happening (Score:1)
Re:It's happening (Score:4, Interesting)
I suspect this *may* be due to that wonderful new bug, Opaserv, which Norton seems unable to clean out successfully, even though they know full well about it. Basically, it's a worm that looks for open C: shares, and brute-forces the password, one character at a time (or if there's no password, it infects). You get a couple of files in C:\windows (depending on variant), and some entries into your registry and/or win.ini (again depenting on variant).
I spend a few hours looking into this when one of our work machines refused to clean itself (frightening how many windows machines have accessible shares in my University
This thing started showing up roughly a month ago, and it's the only thing I can connect with these insane netbios probes. It's also consistent with my observation that entire (or most of a) class C's seem to be infected and probing me - that's one of the fun parts of this worm - it basically scans anyone with a similar IP until it's infected everyone it can. Clean it off your system, and don't protect yourself, and within an hour you'll be infected again.
And once again, it all comes down to: don't run your file sharing over tcp/ip and firewall your netbios ports. Microsoft apparently has a patch for the password cracking issue, but so far no one has done much else to combat this thing.
Furious Yellow (Score:3, Funny)
furious yellow.
/.'ed again (Score:1)
Ultimate P2P Windows Worm: The Unpatching Worm (Score:1, Interesting)
This would be subtle and very damaging: systems in the worm network would progressively become unpatched against security vulnerabilities. It would be computer equivalent of an autoimmune deficiency like AIDS. Little harm would be done directly, but it would undermine sysadmin patches and open up the host to infection from all other earlier known forms of attack.
The dynamics of such a P2P worm system as a whole would be to eventually seek the lowest common denominator patch level.
Such a worm would ideally not render Windows systems inoperable/defunct, so maybe only a small subset of system DLL's would be considered and some date limit to the degree of DLL downgrading might need to be incorporated. This is all hypothetical, but such a worm would make maximum benefit of the "DLL hell" weakness of Windows.
Maybe I missed it... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Maybe I missed it... (Score:1)
And after the massive attack... (Score:2)
Worst grammar.. ever! (Score:2)
here's the solution (Score:1, Funny)
The Name (Score:1)
Lena, aged twenty, wants to know all she can about life and reality. She collects information on everyone and everything, storing her findings in an enormous archive. She experiments with relationships, political activism, and meditation. Meanwhile, the actors, director and crew are shown in a humorous parallel plot about the making of the film and their reactions to the story and each other. Nudity, explicit sex, and controversial politics kept this film from being shown in the US while its seizure by Customs was appealed."
Here [geocities.com]'s the script (best read after ingesting copious amounts of mind-altering drugs, otherwise it doesn't make much sense).
This is news? Or even new? (Score:2)
This DDOS attack was carried out in 1988, and it was done by mistake. Our boy Robert Morris wasn't careful about how quickly the worm spread itself, and as a result when it started infecting computers, about one in seven of them would relentlessly pound away at any host it could find. Now, the Internet wasn't nearly as big as it was today, but even so it meant that hundreds or thousands of infected hosts were lining up to rape any given computer.
These days, you have to be CAREFUL when you write your virii or it'll be much much more than just a minor annoyance, it will flood networks out of existence. This white paper doesn't outline an attack strategy, it demonstrates the destructive effect of sloppy virus design.
I Am Curious Yellow (Score:2)
Lena, aged twenty, wants to know all she can about life and reality. She collects information on everyone and everything, storing her findings in an enormous archive. She experiments with relationships, political activism, and meditation. Meanwhile, the actors, director and crew are shown in a humorous parallel plot about the making of the film and their reactions to the story and each other. Nudity, explicit sex, and controversial politics kept this film from being shown in the US while its seizure by Customs was appealed.
So why is this guy naming super-worms after Swedish pr0n?
Re:Anyone else getting... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Anyone else getting... (Score:1, Offtopic)
you are late buddy, pray your friends have moderator points... or be ready for -1 redundant
More news : Due to large number of redundant articles on slashdot... people modded it -1 redundant. now to view slashdot you need glasses with -1 powerRe:Anyone else getting... (Score:1)
Re:Biological counterpart? (Score:4, Insightful)
The people who catch it, however, are turned into attack zombies primed to attack specifically the immune humans.
Many novels based on vampires or zombies have this idea.
I Am Legend [dealtime.com] by Richard Matheson is a personal favourite.
Enjoy
indecision
Re:Biological counterpart? (Score:1)
But yeah, I'm sure there's plenty of talent out there, just none that I could quote.
Re:Biological counterpart? (Score:2)
Re:Biological counterpart? (Score:1)
There are several versions, that do different things.
Their fundamental purpose is to funnel resources to the original distributer, in a manner as efficient as possible.
Distribution methods vary
In all cases, the infected hosts begins to act unpredictably. The normal instruction set is subverted by the remote programming mechanism such that it begins to neglect normal operations in favour of operations (often irrational) assigned by the worm.
This can prevent the host from being a part of a network, so the host often reassigns itself to a different area in order to best serve its originator.
This virus acts among humans, its called Religion.
lol... (Score:1)
reposting a post [slashdot.org] thats been modded +5 Insightful...
It's good but not that good
Re:lol... (Score:1)
What an original idea! (Score:2, Redundant)
That's illegal!
Re:What an original idea! (Score:1)
After all it's all just IP...
Re:What an original idea! (Score:2)
Probably.
However, I don't see too many people uploading the latest Creed single and claiming they wrote it.
Re:I've Been Thinking... (Score:1)
I think I'll just replace my
;
Re:I've Been Thinking... (Score:1)
I figured that since the article was a repeat I would save everyone some trouble.
It's funny that one time I even reposted a comment from the subject to the sig and got + mods for it.
This place is wacky.
So... how much do I owe you in royalties for using your IP?
Re:I've Been Thinking... (Score:1)
p2p
Cheers,
Florian