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Slashback: Feathers, Worms, Happy Returns
Like the end credits on a short, short film. gi_wrighty pointed out that "the winners from the 5K web page contest (announced a while back ) have now been announced." Here are the welterweight web winners.
A different kind of Apache Con From Slashdot's own jimjag: "Are you interested in the details concerning how www.apache.org was defaced, as reported right here? Here's how it was done from the definitive source. It just goes to remind all of us that sometimes the obvious things are the ones we don't see, and the ones that come back and bite us in the arse. I can imagine quite a few SysAdmins making some changes over the last 36 hours."
... because the old ones were invidious. Remember the flap over GPL code in non-GPL drivers released by NVidia? Well, happily, the company kept its promises. Kheldar_522 writes "LinuxGames.com is reporting that the new NVIDIA XFree86 4.0 drivers released tonight have had all the GPL code removed."
May the circle be unbroken. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, instead of subtracting code, Samsung is hoping to make sure some gets added. iKev contributed the news that "Last Sunday, Gmate, the creators of the [Linux-based PDA]Yopy, released a very preliminary SDK for the Yopy. You can check it out here (click on the Developer image). I haven't had a chance to try it (it's only for x86 linux)." iKev wondered whether the terms of the download violate the GPL, which is used for some parts of the SDK. Any takers?
You are near area 51. Leave. BenTheDewpendent wrote: "I was at gpspilot.com and found instructions on how to connect almost any GPS to a Pilot [including the construction of a null-modem cable if you need one - t] and I thought it could be handy for things like a nav system in a car or bike ... especially now that Clinton has ordered down selective avalability." Coupled with some decent mapping software, this might even help me get less lost, more often. Be warned, though -- this is not the only purveyor of Palm maps, and they do want to sell you some.
We han Cardly wait! For those who read paper books, this should be good news, contributed by Anonymous Coward after reading about the new Ender's Game sequel: "In a recent interview on otherview.com, OSC mentioned that he is also working on two more sequels to Ender's Game. Shadow of Death, the "final volume about Bean," and an unnamed Petra-and-Peter book. He mentions this on the third page of this article. Also interesting, OSC apparently is all in favor of e-books, though his publisher won't let him do it."
"Biting into some software and finding half a worm!" It's been a quiet couple of days for the administrators of Windows networks -- unless they have MS Outlook e-mail, in which case they don't feel Loved and it isn't Very Funny. Østergaard writes with "this piece, mainly as a reflection on the current worm mania filling the news (and mail-servers ;) around the world. I'd like to see what you people think." It's good reading, and very sobering if you're running the user agents at fault, or ones that could be, next time 'round.
Ehh I don't know that you could make it *that* much worse than what we've seen so far. These email worms aren't quite as effective as spreading, I guess, since there are enough non-idiots to stop it eventually. Something like the Morrison worm (except actually carrying a decent payload) would be ideal. So there are two problems to worry about: the payload, and the method of propagation.
.doc file (or maybe even a .vbs? hee hee). The trojaned .doc would then drop a virus which would play mind games with you (as mentioned earlier), as well as add itself to your autoexec.bat (or something) so that it can e-mail some of your friends at a later date. The key (ho ho) is to be pretty low key. Symantec and McAfee and what not might pick up on it after a while, but it takes some *serious* damage in order for it to make the news. Once someone commits suicide because of the mind-games the virus/worm is playing, then it might make it on CNN or maybe even 20/20 or something.
As for the payload, there's not a lot you can do (that's interesting) without *a lot* of patience. I suppose you could make a worm which reformats the hard drive, etc., which would force everyone to reinstall and dig out the back-ups. Not really all that more exciting than the ILOVEYOU worm. In order to do some *real* data damage, one would have to destroy back-ups, but those are usually stored off-site (e.g. not even in the same room as a computer), so that would make it pretty difficult. Plus, it wouldn't really be all *that* interesting.
What would be interesting is to get it to spawn a virus which would "play tricks" on you. You send an e-mail to your boss, and the virus randomly and subtly changes your message into something damaging. Or it could discreetly yet "sloppily" download child pr0n in order to get you arrested. It could discreetly send "realistic" emails to your friends and family, etc. in order to ruin your live. Combine that with the power of a good worm (so that it propagates on its own) and you would have some very interesting results. Trying to get any of these to work *well* though (so that your tampered e-mails to your boss are actually believable) would take an incredible amount of work and patience.
As for the method of propagation, it seems like it's getting harder and harder to get a good worm going. The Morrison worm was a wake-up call of sorts, and now almost all Unices have switched to (more or less) secure daemons. Plus the Unix market is so fragmented that a worm wouldn't get very far (e.g. you might be able to make a worm that gets through old Solaris boxes all right, but not on BSD boxes). Except through poorly configured web servers (and things like Back Orifice, which would be pretty difficult to put into a worm), it's hard to run arbitrary code remotely on a Windows box. DOSes are pretty common, but that doesn't do much good for a worm. Basically what you're left with on the Windows/MacOS/... side of things are these "worms" that require intervention by stupid computer users. Melissa and ILOVEYOU have shown us that there is quite a considerable number of idiots out there, but not quite enough I don't think.
If the worm were subtle, though, it might work a little bit better. Instead of sending out 50 e-mails immediately, trashing your hard drive, etc., let it stay dormant for a while. At random intervals (every week or so), let it change one of your emails so that it attaches "oh yes and here's document X which I think you should look at" along with a trojaned
Anyway it's not entirely clear as to whether this approach would to more damage than the "explosion" kind of damage that Melissa, ILOVEYOU and the Morisson worm did. Basically all they did is waste some man-hours and cause some headaches for sysadmins, but nothing really interesting/evil.
The scripts seem like proof of concepts for dummies; "can I really do like this?" Their goal is not to bring the world to its knees. That could be done the same way, but nobody's that interested. There's another "mothers day" version that actually wipes out system files, but it's still just a half-hearted attempt.
What I'd like to see on news, but haven't seen, is that these are based on the lack of security on Windows, and stupidity of users. If we don't get that point out, people will think computers in general are insecure (like they are, but not
Sorry for sounding cruel but IMHO that is true.
I think, therefore thoughts exist. Ego is just an impression.
www.apache.org compromised; a windows virus spreads over the globe like a chain reaction on H2O (if such were possible). What's in common?
;)
Users are not careful. Systems must be secure by default. For all intents and purposes, system administrators are the users of the software their systems consist of (again, see apache.org incident).
Here's listening to OpenBSD. For all their arrogance they have that one right.
This is something every distribution should be based on. Every OS and software distribution. Do not open possibilities of exploit. Is it that hard to think about?
We'll live in a pretty ugly world pretty soon unless this simple principle gets generally accepted.
There is nothing stopping someone using Windows automation exploits, DDoS and such for possibly worse purposes than random harrassment. For what? Play more Illuminati
I think, therefore thoughts exist. Ego is just an impression.
Although, PLEASE, lets not give it its own awful colour scheme!
/. not become a total entity of the web - namely, no memory. Taco asked on GIS when /. started to suck: I say it started to pull itself back together when it started following up on stories.
Its important that
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
In order to do some *real* data damage, one would have to destroy back-ups, ...
And while it is dormant on your hard drive, it trashes your backups as they're being made. Then after a couple of months it trashes your hard drive.
Have you checked your backups lately?
Steve M
Okay, here's a stupid question about the worm thing:
When I'm explaining the potential issues surrounding these worms to less technically inclined people, they always seem rather complacent. They aren't concerned because no worm, thus far, has done serious damage. At least nothing catastrophic.
I try to explain that the worms could be programmed to do things that are so much worse. The inevitable question I get is "Then why haven't they done it?". How do you respond to that? I don't KNOW why we've gotten so lucky so far. As they've said in the article, there are a number of things that could be done to make life more difficult, such as deleting things of importance (how about .doc, .xls, .dll, and .exe files), and changing the subject line at random.
Here's the stupid question: Why? Why haven't we seen a truly malicious version of one of these yet? Any ideas?
-Jer
So would that be: http:///..org/\
Well, first of all while a 'fuck with you' type virus would be much more interesting then a hard drive reformater, I think hard drive reformatting would still be interesting enough to a brainless script kiddy.
:P Of course, I doubt that there are any more then a hand full of people in the would who would be capable of coding something like that, if any. But, in theory it could be possible. You wouldn't want to use an email clicker as a transport, though but system level exploits. If a bug crops up in NT attack before it gets patched (or even better, search for bugs in all the major OS's yourself, and then don't make them public. Or hack into Microsoft and insert a hole in the next service pack :)
:P
What I always thought would be cool would be a system where the viruses keep in contact with there 'children' through the network. Some of the viruses would be removed, but the code would try to stay unnoticed. The viruses would 'grow up' on the systems to test the amount of size they can take up without being noticed. Eventually, the larger nodes would contain resource files for the greater whole, IE implementations for other platforms, etc. The theory was, eventually, you'd have a huge computer system at your disposal, if people didn't find out about it. More powerful even then distributed.net. Not that I'd have any idea what to do with it.
But, combine that Idea with yours, about the viruses inserting themselves into the actual lives of the people who use the computers by messing with email etc, and you get some interesting results. If your great AI network could parse through email, etc, and actually figure out what was going on in the world (and send you summaries), you could give it commands as to what you wanted it to do and it would alter the key information to make it happen. If the thing was smart enough, it wouldn't really need to change much.
After a while, you'd be one of the most powerful people on the planet. You could hardly say that that isn't interesting
Oh well, this is the stuff of Sci-Fi stories, for now anyway
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Or can I just galavant around selling GPL'd material, make a profit, then stop with but a wrist slapping or less when caught? I don't want to see someone who is even slightly linux friendly get sued over this boner, but they need to face up to the fact that they broke the law!
Restitutions are in order!!!
"A witty saying proves nothing." -Voltaire
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
How about MS Worms: Armageddon?
I can picture it now... you could play as one of three different teams, Microsoft the Allmighty (whose special weapon would be the BSOD), The DOJ (with their anti-trust laws... be warned, though, they only affect the MS team!), and the (always the underdog) Linux team V2.4.6.2.23.4.234.1912.31!
Hm, I'd kinda like to see Mr. Torvalds pointing a bazooka at Bill Gates...
-- Dr. Eldarion --
It's not what it is, it's something else.
If users are asked ``are you sure you want to run this?'' they click yes, never realizing what is about to hit them. If they know that they must save the file, start up another user agent, then run the file thru that agent, they are going to (magically) think twice about what they are doing.
Sure, they may think twice, but really the only type of people to fall for something like this are the people who have absolutely no clue what they're doing anyways.
So, say they got an e-mail with an attatchment saying that if they open it in the other program, they can play the newest version of Elf Bowling! Naturally, they get very excited (and not worried in the least, of course), and go into the other program... and voila... the problem is still there.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
It's not what it is, it's something else.