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Security Predictions of 2004
scubacuda writes "Computer World's security predictions for 2004: R.a..n,d,o.,m p,u,,n,c.t,,u_a.t.1..0.n evading spam filters, Internet access filtering, better desktop management, enterprise personal firewall deployment, tools that securely scrub metadata, corporate policies against USB flash drives, Wi-Fi break-ins, Bluetooth abuses, cell phone hacking, centralized control over IM, public utility breakin publicized, government defense against cybercriminals, organized cybercrime, and a shorter time to exploitation."
R.a..n,d,o.,m p,u,,n,c.t,,u_a.t.1..0.n makes it nearly impossible to block spam messages by filtering keywords.
Can't the spam filters just remove it all? They don't really need the punctuation to check for Viagra advertisements anyway.
It doesn't take very much CPU to s/\W//g
Yeah! Block all email containing only graphics!
Base64 isn't hard to decode... or to just bin.
I've never seen an email with an IP address based URI that wasn't spam. Trash em
Not this user, or this user's spam filter. Spams using these techniques get the highest spam scores and when 5 is worthy of trashing, 35 is worthy of laughing at (at least until I get so much spam I'll put it in /dev/null rather then ~/mail/spam)
>Don't put your email address online, period
That's like saying "Don't go out after 9pm or you deserve to get beaten/raped".
Sorry, but my instincts are to fight the spamming bastards rather than give in to them.
Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
That means you (or the admins) have not yet fully understood how they can manage desktop systems.
This is understandable. There is a lot to read.
But in the end it will be possible to protect the systems against the user (somewhat) and still be able to manage them, even defragment.
So keep on studying!
It comes down to a choice:
I don't want to put barriers in people's ways when they wish to contact me (OK, sometimes I do - 'No I will not fix your computer! I don't even know you!' - but generally I don't). Making people use a JavaScript enabled web browser AND answer a question is a barrier, and I don't want it.
From the article:
Second, whenever a new technology comes out, its developers generally do a poor job of designing security into it
That was true 5 years ago, but in general it's crap today. Most security problems are in re-implementations by Microsoft of old technology.
Browse through the RFCs issued in the last 5 years, which is where new Internet technology generally appears, and you'll find a generally excellent level of security design.
I expect the new IM worms to be the next major disaster to these tech companies, just like Slammer was for their unmanaged MS SQL installations.
It surprised me that noone listened to my suggestions on setting up an internal server. OK, not every luser knows IRC, but surely there are many IMs that can be set up to use an internal server and block everything else at the firewall. We tried the Lotus Notes clone of AOLs AIM and it sucked (as everything Notes), apart from using encrypted line data.
I remember trying to get hold of a senior developer I was working with using plain old talk in a terminal and he didn't know it... He got the notification in his shell and called me instead. Sort of explains the renaissance of these dummy IM clients.
What is the sound of one hand clapping?
cat
Short, broken, or oddly punctuated sentences, such as this, may wrongly trip the rule.
There are 1,000,000s of examples, of which this is 1.
Still, it's ugly English, so should perhaps be condemned as such and consigned to the spam-bin anyway.
More serious is how to define a sentence - if it's a phrase terminated with a period, then random punctuation is likely to generate many short sentences, and a sufficiently dedicated spammer ought to be able to bias the 'random' punctuation to defeat a conservatively set rule.
I'm not sure that anything can be done 'quite easily' in Perl...
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
.-.--
What if some tries things like 'fcuk' or the like? Does it work also? Think of that english research done lately where it says it doesn't make much difference in which order the letters are, as long as the beginning and ending letter are correct. More about that here.
-- The Internet is a too slow way of doing things, you'd never do without it.
Three major spammers began their sentences today at the U.S. Federal Penitentiary at Allenwood, Pennsylvania. Their Romania-based operation had created several well-known viruses to assist in sending spam by breaking into the computers of others. Each was initially charged with 12,346,000 violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The leader was also charged with operating an ongoing criminal enterprise. FBI and Homeland Security investigators located the spammers, and the U.S. Department of State arranged for their extradition to the US for trial. All pled guilty to reduced charges after being convinced that they could be put away for life. The leader will serve 25 years, and his assistants will serve 15 years each.
Over the last several years, NSA has quietly been enhancing NSA Secure Linux, and has now released a secure Linux distribution for general use by U.S. Government sites. In this system, information coming in from the Internet is automatically held at a low level of trust, and cannot corrupt other information on the machine. A compatible secure browser, mail server, web server, and DNS server are provided. Free, open source copies of this code are available.
New York State Attorney General Elliot Spitzer announces a $12.6 billion verdict against Microsoft in the "Blaster VIII" case. The court held that Microsoft violated New York's "reckless endangerment" law by distributing web browsers which automatically opened content that might contain viruses, resulting in the distribution of the "Blaster VIII" worm to over 200 million computers worldwide.
Dell today announced the recall of 1.2 million computers for a security flaw. Fear of a liability lawsuit prompted the move.
RTFA. Spammers crack their way through the security measures (filters) designed to prevent their unauthorized access to other people's property. The existing computer security laws need to be enforced against this form of cracking.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Finally! A simple solution.
You should hire yourself out as a "Security Consultant" and get some $$$.