Reflections on Brilliant Digital: Single Points of 0wnership

nweaver writes "Some reflection on Brilliant Digital's plans shows that they have inadvertently created a Single Point of 0wnership: a single machine or small group of machines which, if succesfully attacked, can be used to gain effective control of the Internet. The implications are rather scary: Even if you never touched KaZaA, your systems may be affected if someone manages to attack Brilliant Digital's update service. Who needs a Warhol Worm?".Updated by HeUnique: use these instructions to remove the Brilliant part.

Comments

what nonsense

[Artifex]

Even if you never touched KaZaA, your systems may be affected if someone manages to attack Brilliant Digital's update service.

How? If I never touch Kazaa (that means, never install it), this article doesn't tell me how it can affect me. In fact, the article doesn't seem to say anything we haven't already heard in Slashdot before, about attacks through the use of DNS redirects or man-in-the-middle, etc. But how does it affect me, when I haven't installed the program?

they have inadvertently created a Single Point of 0wnership: a single machine or small group of machines which, if succesfully attacked, can be used to gain effective control of the Internet.

Okay, now this is total FUD. You're telling me that if they get hacked, the entire Internet is at the mercy of the hackers. Why is that?

Alarmist: Servers down != Internet Down

[redelm]

OK. So KaZaa is a Trojan that could be hijacked by Black[er]Hats. So they can do DDoS against some sites. Why should I get my shorts in a knot?

Some domains will get banned, and some sites will go down. The Internet carries on. Packets still get through.

Yes, Trojans are bad. Hijackable Trojans are worse. Enough good reason to avoid them without hysteria.