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Microsofts "Honeymonkey" Project
g0bshiTe writes "Ever hear the saying, 'given enough time a room full of monkeys could type out Shakespeare'? Well Microsoft seems to be taking this saying to heart, and taking a cue from the Honeynet project, they have created what they have dubbed 'honeymonkeys.' Security Focus has an article which describes this honeymonkey network, which is little more than a network of virtual Windows XP boxes in various patch states. These boxes are setup to crawl the seedier side of the web in search of vulnerabilities not bieng reported, and are being actively exploited in an attempt to further secure their product. Sounds like a decent idea from the Redmond crew to me."
they call these guys "customers" over in redmond ...
IAAL
I'm sure "honeymonkey" is a euphemism for something. I'm just not sure what. You dirty honeymonkey.
I can't believe this... praise for Redmond in slashdot. Did the sun rise from the West?
*GENERIC JOKE ABOUT MONKEYS BEING IN CHARGE OF MS WINDOWS SECURITY*
Just thought I'd head everyone off here...
(lameness filter padding lameness filter padding lameness filter padding)
Does that mean no more monkey business from Redmond either?!!
I always assumed Skynet was based off of Windows XP.
In addition to getting info on new vulnerabilities, they'll probably also get loads of malware to add to the anti-spyware tool. This is a good thing.
Sounds delicious.
But the real reason they named the project this is because they intend to sting you like a bee and then throw fecal matter at you.
This is a pretty good idea. If anything, it will help curb the script kiddies indesciminantly flinging exploits around. Unless you want that overflow you found to get patched, pick and choose your targets carefully.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
It looks like the monkeys aren't only working on Shakespeare...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is actually a pretty good concept. I have my doubts that there are many exploits that are being actively exploited that aren't known about at all, though, which seems to be what they're banking on.
Isn't honeymonkey a dish in Africa?
Queue the typical Slashdot groupthink about how Microsoft is somehow evil/stupid for doing this.
Actually attempting to use their product as if they were an end user in the wild of the internet. Seems to me this shows that Microsoft is definately moving towards a more security conscious mindset.
I like to call it, "break time"
"Oh, you hate your job? There's a support group for that, it's called everyone, they meet at the bar."
The Onion has a similar story regarding monkey delicacies.
I
so it seems like we have to stop attacking their network, so they can;t find our 0.day exploits :-D
Why are they in various patch states? If you are looking for unknown exploits, the latest patchlevel will be just as useful, and you won't spend your time with millions of false alarms when known exploits get a hold of them.
I think you're after "spanking the monkey" - meaning self gratification.
See my art -> http://herbevore.deviantart.com
This group has done several impressive projects. Among them is the "Strider Ghostbuster" Rootkit Detector.
This is part of the general Strider Project in Microsoft Research. They do very good work.
Test your net with Netalyzr
A thousand monkeys stealing millions of ideas are bound to find a good one.
Put these honemonkeys on a network with a bunch of other computers running Firefox/greasemonkey, and let them fight it out.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
So. WTFIT? Is it some reverse psychology to cause us to ban anonomous remailer and other useful tools? The only "crapflood" i've seen today was from Anonymous Coward. That guy must not sleep, he posts more shit here than anyone else. :)
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
A roomful of monkeys wrote Windows XP? OK, I'll buy that.
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
Hmm. I've eaten honey. I've spanked the monkey. I've never contemplated doing both at once.
** aycee eyes the honey bear **
Virtual boxen will catch a wide array of exploits, but may miss some. For example, it sounds like they look for attempts to create executables on disk, so a RAM resident nasty might escape notice. Also, some exploits many only work on "real" machines such as those proposed for exploiting hyperthreading.
The point is that to the extent that the virtual XP box fails to emulate ALL the features of real hardware, there will be some room for doubt. Despite this misgiving, I commend Microsoft for tackling this problem.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I never thought I'd see the day Microsoft actually did something smart... but the cynic in me can't help but think they'll use this as a way to find all the warez'd Windows Serial Numbers to set up a blacklist at Windows Update.
Now it would be possible for the worm writers to just target Microsoft honeymonkey crawler to fire up the internet.
I bet its an automated program rather then someone with too much spare time on their hands.
I thought AOL patented this years ago.
It would seem like a futile thing to try to study older versions of your product - why aren't they just focusing on the most up-to-date patched versions of their various products? Anyone running an unpatched windows box is insane...
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Pre-Monkey Era:
-- someone exploits a vulnerability
-- 2 weeks later someone discovers it
-- half a year later M$ patches it
-- three years later new version of Windows is released and finally the last 80% of users have patched systems.
it took 3 years, 6 months and 2 weeks to patch most computers.
Post-Monkey Era:
-- someone exploits a vulnerability
-- 2 days later monkeys report it
-- half a year later M$ patches it
-- three years later new version of Windows is released and finally the last 80% of users have patched systems.
it took 3 years 6 months and 2 days to patch most computers.
nice PR move though.
If it works the way they intend, this should VASTLY improve security/spywarehandling in the OS. golf clap? golf clap.
Statesmen serve to better the country and help the people.
Politicians serve to better themselves and help friends.
Considering MS's stance on things like Linux, etc, I wouldn't jump to conclusions. They may consider "seedy" to be competitors, the DOJ, etc.
:)
I'm sorry to break it to you, but your porn habit may still not be helping you in your job-hunting
This the kind of BS that they will use to claim "PronHorn is more secure!!!" The reality of this would go something like:
1. Set up weak boxes
2. Send them to questionable sites.
3. Watch them get infected.
4. Figure out how they got infected.
5. Report how they got infected.
Then
A. Do nothing, there's "no budget" to fix the problems. (very likely)
B. Modify the code -just- enough to get rid of the worst offenders. (least likely)
C. Charge the end-user a subscription to "protect" them from threats found in their research with another enterprise software package. (my choice as most likely)
In the end Microsoft says, "We've committed billions to increased security in pronhorn. It's more usable and real secure and "just works." Apply more anti-competitive practices liberally and maintain monopoly.
What bugs me the most is it will sound like it's true and kill Linux adoption. But the security patches will just keep coming.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Two simple questions:
1. Are these machines using non-Microsoft IP addresses for their 'net access?
2. If not, how long until the worm authors take that into account?
Hasn't M$ been telling us that security vulnerabilities only happen because of "irresponsible disclosure" and because they release patches that get reverse engineered... Looks like they don't believe that bullshit any more than I do
I wonder if the ??AA is involved in all of this... Who is responsible for all of the illegal data that will inevitably end up on these computers...
Can you imagine one/several of these computers gets compromised and ends up an xdcc server on one of the "seedier" irc channels?
Help a poor college student. Send a couple cents via paypal to chucks86@gmail.com
HONEYMONEY $$$$$
HoneyMoney $*$*$
HoNeYmOnEy @$@$@
HaCKivisTuX ©
Help Wanted:
Do you have an urge to click anywhere, anytime?
Are you easily persuaded to perform some "maintenance task" to your computer just by some email you received?
We want you!
I wonder how Microsoft defines the "seedier" side of the web, and how the sites the various computers visit are regulated.
/ActiveX|Microsoft\sVM/) {
It would be interesting to run the same test, but equipping half of the machines with an alternative browser.
"if ($body_maintext[$n] =~
$seedy_side_of_web=1;
}
"
Seriously. How many 'great' ideas come out of some over paid monkey's ass each day. It's nice to know about new ideas but what's really nice is to hear about the ones that last a few months and aren't just a marketing ploy.
-Tim Louden
as i recall, werent honeypots dubbed illegal, because they were a wiretap of sorts? i know its a good thing m$ is doing for once, but if its illegal how will m$ get out of the lawsuits from the 'hackers', and virus creaters. 2 wrongs do not make a right, and the courts usually uphold that.
Here's the first crash
I think they were computing pi.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
Seems like the simple counter measure is a "blacklist" of the honeymonkey servers. Granted the IP addresses of these PCs should be secure but A LOT of info leaks / is stolen / is hacked / is accidentally exposed.
Geez...What is next? Honeybees?
I thought this article was going to say "So they've hired an entire team of moneys to get them to write the next Windows". Infact it's just a load of machines doing nothing. I prefered my idea, much more chance of shit-fights between the moneys.
Pay commensurate with experience?
I'll be RICH!
Seriously, this is a great idea. I bash MS as much as anyone, but I have to give them credit for this idea. Especially if they run Windows Media Player in some of those seedy locations. Errr.. a friend from work said that is a real vulnerability.
Quick!!!
Before than flying Microfost arrives against you!!!
Honeymonkey why you lookin' at me?
Honeymonkey why don't you climb that tree?
Hairy people love the Honeymonkey dance
Hairy people love the Honeymonkey dance dance
No! More!
Honeymonkey's havin' fun
No! More!
Honeymonkey's on the run
Bananas don't grow in the Louisiana swamps
So the Honeymonkey's comin' to the monkey baby funk
Honeymonkey's bangin' at my door
Honeymonkey's got me on the floor
Honeymonkey's tryin' havin' fun
Honeymonkey's still the only one
But spelling "being" wrong twice in a paragraph is a little much.
Suppose Microsoft wanted to come up with a way to get the bad guys to avoid attacking Microsoft. Maybe they could spread the word that a significant range of IP space is honeypots and honeymonkeys and lions and tigers and bears, so then all the kiddies go off and attack someone else.
You could find an exploit that was fixed by a patch you already issued that wasn't applied ...
and then you could issue a new patch to fix that exploit.
I'm sure people who didn't apply the first patch would be happy to apply the second patch. Really. I'm sure they'd be happy to.
Do you have what it takes to hit the (honey)monkey?
the layman's guide to computer science
Somebody at MS got caught surfing porn/warez and cooked up this 'honeymonkey' nonsense to cover his dirty buttocks.
=Loading=
If you're uber-elite, would you target just any machine with your non-publicly-released exploitation?
If it was me, I'd save the big guns for specific sites.
I'd use the common ones to crack the random boxes and use those boxes to map/probe my specific targets.
Once you start hitting everybody, someone will notice and start digging. Then you'll lose your secret toy.
These guys are already doing it!
... But just a bunch of guy surfing porn sites on company time.
From the blurb: Sounds like a decent idea from the Redmond crew to me.
Sir, you should be taken to the public square and put in the stocks where you will be beaten by peasants for 32 days! How dare you compliment Microsoft on Slashdot? Do you not know that it's considered heresy?
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Ever hear the saying, "given enough time a room full of monkeys could type out Shakespeare"?
Never in my life have I heard that saying. Not once, in all of my years on the Net, have I come across any reference to typing monkeys. What a concept!
Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
...crawl the seedier side of the web.
...all over my fat honeymonkey.
Or as I like to call it, the side of the web I use to spill my seed
Then, the honeymoon project should not have started after the rootkit detector, right?
I wonder if those xpboxes will start up after a day of surfing. I wonder if they'll even make it through the day.
I think i know whose crawling the net on those boxes. *cough*billgates*cough*
If I were Microsoft, I'd test Mac OS, Free BSD, and L*nux the same way, in order to best server the public, and to show that Microsoft products (we would hope!) are no more fundamentally flawed than other modern networked operating systems.
Best Buy can have you arrested
Just look at Linux and you'll see the result of thousands of monkeys working together.
BA DA PA PA pA! I'M LOVIN' IT!
Porn? C'mon. Everybody knows that there is no better way to get infected than to google for "Office Serialz" - just try it with a box lacking 3 month of updates ^^
I don't read replies by ACs.
Imagine if MS's honeypot became owned by a bot that brough down another company. Imagine the look in their lawyers' eyes...
Let me get this straight. Someone thinks it's a good idea for Microsoft to exploit their own security vulnerabilities in order to poke around on other people's computers looking for someone else exploiting Microsoft security vulnerabilities???
THey need to have people doing the crawling .. not some bot. Hire what .. 10 or 20 college kids of diverse interest and pay them to visit the "seedier side" .. this doesnt just mean surf pr0n.
.. doubt they read slashdot. Net should be free of policing. Period.
Of course I am fundamentally against the idea of M$FT becoming a police force. No harm done
This is an interesting idea, but it only improves *patching*. It does nothing to increase the quality of software when it's shipped.
When is Microsoft going to understand, they have to write software that's secure in the first place. Strip out features, turn things off by default, hire competent programmers.. whatever it takes.
It is completely inexcusable that software has to be constantly patched just to fix the same types of bugs that we saw twenty years ago (buffer overflows, unchecked inputs, etc).
I need someone to show us how to remote install debian on these machines.
That'll show the microsofties.
"Piter, too, is dead."
I'm giving a talk on a similar concept at the upcoming RECON. I call this concept 'honeyclients'. As part of the talk, a BSD-licensed honeyclient prototype will be released. Another person who is doing work in this area is Thorsten Holz, of the German Honeynet Project. His whitepaper is here.
I guess Ballmer should now be singing:
Monkey, monkey, monkey, monkey
Virus! Virus!
Monkey, monkey, monkey, monkey
Argh! It's a spam!
Rediculous is ridiculous!
Sounds like an elaborate scheme by Microsoft engineers to surf the 'seedier side of the web' and get paid for doing it ;)
It takes a Terminator to defeat Skynet. It takes a script kiddie and a buffer overflow to defeat Windows.
FTA: "Just by visiting a Web site, (if) suddenly an executable is created on your machine outside the Internet Explorer folder, it is an exploit with no false positive -- it's that simple," Yi-Ming Wang, senior researcher with Microsoft Research, said during a presentation at the IEEE Security and Privacy conference in Oakland last week.
With all the hoopla a couple years ago about how Microsoft is serious about security, I had ASSUMED they were doing this! The Honeynet project is coming up on 6 years, so it's not as if Redmond didn't see others doing this.
Really, for a multi-billion dollar company, it's inexcusable that they have not been running a honeynet with their product. Oh well, better late than never.
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With all that honey soaked into the monkey's fur, there's bound to be a few "accidents"...
...And it'll probably take microsoft 6 months before they start to clean it all up. :p
...earl-eye in the mornin'? ...put him in bed with the OS from Redmond ...she's so ugly she looks like a honeymonkey...
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
By having tens of thousands of automatically web roaming MSIE boxes, Windows and IE usage figures on the web stay high... these boxes will be able to 'surf' faster than the average human, and will be visiting the kind of sites that have tracker scripts installed...
[1] whatever number of machines microsoft uses to "crawl" the "seedier side of the web" , they will NEVER be able to crawl all of it, all the time.
thus: THERE WILL ALWAYS BE A WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY BETWEEN SCANS FOR A NEW, PUBLIC EXPLOIT TO WREAK HAVOC - BEFORE MS EVEN SEES IT
[2] more often than not, the non-reported vulnerabilities ("0day") are NOT used to mass-attack random IP's. they are used in targeted attacks against specific machines.
thus: THIS WILL NOT HELP MS DETECT UNREPORTED VULNS
[3] running VM's does not emulate all hardware of a machine, and therefore cannot accurately represent an end-user's scenario.
thus: THIS IS NOT AN ACCURATE MEASURE OF HOW SECURE A WINDOWS BOX IS ON THE INTERNET
the very idea of microsoft going out looking to get hit, instead of just securing their fucking OS to begin with, is plain stupid. this is like leaving your car unlocked with the windows rolled down in the ghetto and then watching from your apartment to see who jacks it.
smattawichu
Is that what Laura calls him?
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
But since the OP mentioned Shakespeare and monkeys, don't forget to visit the
:)
Monkey Shakespeare Simulator!
Obviously not in a numerical sense, but it seems like an apt enough analogy.
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GET FUCKED HARD BY THESE MACHINES NOW!
www.fuckingmachines.com
Are yuo a lonely parent of twelve, young, hot teenagers?
Holy shit, somebody buy me and CowBoyNeal those fucking machines NOW!
cmdrtaco.net
Hmm, must be a distributed automated program. I count 12,834 IP addresses.
... "Today microsoft removed the honeymonkey program as a redundent system. Spokesman for the company had this to say, "We figure with can save our systems admins millions of hours reconfiguring compromised windows systems here at redmond by just turning on crash collection data in the field as our calcuations put the exploited rate of windows boxes in the field at about 99.999999%." "
rofl. In all actuality though, it's a good plan. Maybe ms will someday not be a scriptkiddie's wetdream.
Shadus
"given enough time a room full of monkeys could type out Shakespeare"
I believe the quote is "If you placed an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters, one of them would eventually produce the collected works of Shakespeare." rather than the grammatical nightmare stated above.
The Infinite Monkey Theorem
Queue the typical Slashdot anti-{anti-MS groupthink} groupthink. Fucker.
:O
I freakin' hate Microsoft. But I really like this idea.
I think I just ate your lunch.
Just so you know, while many ignorant folk are indeed on the I-HATE-MS bandwagon just because it's cool, it doesn't mean that the bandwagon itself isn't solid, or that some of the musicians on it aren't serious rockers who know their shit. It means that in addition to being smart, it's cool. At least... it was before they hopped on.
Still, you're welcome. I'll turn off my anti-anti kneejerk and take back the "fucker" I flung at you earlier. Hop on.
So let me sum in case you're stupid:
I-HATE-MS: well-founded
I-HATE-MS-kneejerkers: exist, I'm sorry -- doesn't invalidate I-HATE-MS
I-HATE-I-HATE-MS-kneejerkers-kneejerkers: that's you
Please, next time pack a more nutritious lunch.
Is working with his own kind.... Microsoft is stupid for doing this; if they find one messup I will end my life now!
Spell check, aisle 1!
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Looks from the article that MS will commit a dozen or so boxes to this project, so if someone knew the boxes were running under different patch levels, it would be possible to exploit the boxes to prevent it from crawling further.
If you can stop all 12 boxes from crawling, then this little project is a complete waste.
You could even write exploit boxes to just stop this honey-monkey thing.
If security equates to 12 boxes at MS, that's pretty sad.
"It was the best of times, it was the ... blurst ... of times! You stupid monkey!"
Or wait, here's an idea: how about I fix the f**king leaks.
There's nothing wrong with a honeypot, but you really don't learn much from exposing systems already known to be utterly insecure.
Lame anti-Microsoft jokes and Linux praise.
,Windows has it's uses and strengths just as Linux does, and Mac, and everything else out there running a computer somewhere. It's a toolbox, and you pick the right tool for the job. Do you go around making fun of the screwdriver all day because it's not effective at hammering in nails? No, you grab a hammer.
Really people, get over it. Hey
Given enough time, even monkeys might possibly be almost sort of able to get windows (mostly) right. All in theory of course.
I am Spartacus
Maybe what Microsoft truly needs to do is hire a bunch of hackers, crackers, phreakers, h4x0rz, skript k1dd13z, and whatever other scum they can find, and pay them minimum wage to sit there and hack/crack Windows, finding vulnerabilities. "What?" you say, "only minimum wage?!" Well, that's not the whole story. Each time someone finds a way to screw up Windows, they will get paid $50. Therefore, most novice skript k1dd13z in junior high should be able to earn a $250,000 salary a year when working 10 hours a week from home.
"this is how"
I couldn't tell which method "this" was referring to.
However, Sam Walton was a genius, and his kids are not. They're ruining the company, and it would already be dead if he hadn't built it so well.
Sounds to me like they copied this guy's idea:
http://www.malwareblog.com
He's been doing this exact same thing for almost the past year. The site just went up a couple months ago, but he's been sending his findings to AV companies and some mailing lists for much longer. There's a lot of undiscovered stuff floating around out there.
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I wonder how much more time it would take for microsoft to pour over all those millions of lines of code looking for buffer overflows, which seem to make up the majority of the vulnerabilities we see. I'm guessing that's not very cost effective:)
Besides that, what responsibility does Microsoft have to the community of internet users that could be "attacked" by this honeynet. What kind of analysis they are going to use to find these vulnerabilities quickly and what kind of mitigation do they plan once compromised?
--"It's Bradford Company, slash your last name, dot your first name"
Great idea, Microsoft. This one won't blow up in your face... Not!
Dedicate a few thousand machine to getting infected, and give them access to the net...
I wonder how long until people start noticing that the zombies trying to compromise their systems are located in Microsoft's network.
Microsoft just made the net even more unsafe.
Let the lawsuits commence.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
You can't download it yet, but...
Sysinternals has a similar rootkit detector, instead of scanning the registry from safe media, it does it at a very low level as well as high level, thus it is possibly foolable but still pretty good.
You can get a Knoppix CD and do it for Linux: From within the possibly rootkitted system, MD5sum everything on the disk, reset and boot into Knoppix, repeat the MD5 sum process and look for any differences.
Test your net with Netalyzr
looks like there is a bug in your spell check program, its BEING not bieng.
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. - HHGTTG
The honeyd project is all about spoofing to see what results.
So uSoft is doing the same thing and putting out press as if this is their idea?
Do they have no shame?
They created their full 0f holes Operating System and they are ultimately culpable in their negligence for the billions in loss that their POS OS (piece of sh** operating system) causes.
Why is it that I have that Ren & Stimpy song playing it my head?
I don't have to squint too hard before this honeymonkey project, "...which is little more than a network of virtual Windows XP boxes in various patch states", starts looking like the network I work on every day. Remove the word "virtual", call it the usermonkey project, and you're most of the way there.
if i know what bieng was.. ?
"not bieng reported, and are bieng actively exploited"
And yet every +4 post here, with the exception of 1, is a rip on M$.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a M$ lover, but look, their idea is decent, you have to admit. And yet where is the intelligent discussion of the matter? None.
M$ finally does something good and everyone rips on them. What a bunch of dorks.
There's a reason your jobs are getting shipped to India!
I would like to take a moment to thank you for taking the time and effort to make things better around here. I don't know what we'd do without you.
"not bieng reported, and are bieng actively"
Sorry to nit-pick but...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
sounds like a good idea, i wounder who they stole it from?
...they don't do something like this already? How does their security team do research, anyway?
"Anyone that has ever gotten an idea based on any of my work and done something better with it-good for you."--J.Carmack
Those big dick niggers would be so proud of you. -Slash-Girl
A Modest Proposal, or not
The upshot is that (1) the rootkits will close the holes they use, (2) the vulnerable machines will be tucked behind firewalls, infected via the web and e-mail, and (3) the bad guys can send bad e-mail to victims, but the honeymonkeys can't.
I'm toast, moving on.
Karma: Bad
Given enough time the monkeys in said room would exhibit two things. First, the Near Misses, i.e. not quite Shakespeare renditions (think "To be or not to be- Hey! Thats my banana!") and the direct hits. And what of the later? Well gven enough time, when you finally open the door on those monkeys, they will be us. And we have already written Shakespeare...
Will the day come sometime in the future, when MS will be a security company ? Maybe. The strange thing is, they are looking for ways (like the av and antispy sw acquisitions) to defend a basically unsecure os, and not for ways to make the os itself more secure. My foremost problem with this is, that I don't feel optimistic enough to trust in security questions a company with almost none security-related success stories in their past. But, no doubt, there are many of such optimistic people out there. In the meantime, all their honeys can crawl my home debian for free, given they most certainly will not be able to crawl my work windows boxes.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Great benefits -- unlimited tissues!
and arn't black hats the ones we are worried about most anyway?
the dedicated windows monkey team are still having difficultyrandomly producing the perfect operating system. the monkeys have been working at the typewriters for nearly 30 years now with little more than windows xp to show for it. microsofts head bill gates said he has not lost faith, the project will continue.
"if i'd known it was harmless, i'd have killed it myself"
So that means that when you have had enough of MS security, you simply slap the monkey?
I did this same thing over 3 years ago for another company i.e. it has prior art. If MS persues a patent on it, and my old company did not, I will be hitting them with the PA.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Just look at Usenet, Slashdot and IRC.
:-) = I am happy
:^) = I am happy with my big nose
C:\> = I am happy with my OS
Wait a minute... is this still Slashdot?
-David
Non-simians need not apply.
...since it'd mean that Bill was finally sharing his cash reserves.
"If we ever identify a fully patched machine that got exploited, we got a big problem. We would involve the IE team and show them the threat." Ofcourse..it's always IE... A Mozilla system and all they have is their hands and the internet....
This was a standard technique for AV companies in the 1980s
It's all very nice an dandy that they want to collect exploits, but what will they do with it? It is not that MS is known for it's swift reaction to published exploits. Maybe they wish to start working bofore (if ever) the exploit is published?
Besides they are overlooking the biggest security flaw of every computer: the user. Somebody that has been promised pr0n for instance wil not hesitate to click yes when 'unpacking' his load of porn he just downloaded from bittorrent.
The trick might work when the next version of windos comes with a dedicated monkey built in. The monkey is subjected to every piece of software to install on the real system first. when the monkey dies or some tests detect malware the software is not installed, and the monkey resurrected to a previous state. (Or maybe it attempt to remove the malware first)
Hey, why am I dreaming up things for windows? I should be designning that for a Linux distro.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Do you have what it takes to spank the (honey)monkey?
So these new guys are our co-workers in the fight aganst viruses and such, they better be good, because if I hear that this works, im gonna go buy a mac and leave the shithole that is windows behind (this will soon be a linux box)
Your skill in reading has increased by one point!
Honestly? No. Looked like a piece of tripe. Liked the first two though.
It would probably be a good idea if they tried to get IP addresses for the machines that don't come from their standard Redmond block. Hook them up to a consumer grade broadband cable connection and they'll probably be under attack with not much waiting.
Mmmm...
PORNBOT!
[...] "If we ever identify a fully patched machine that got exploited, we got a big problem. We would involve the IE team and show them the threat."
There you have it, folks. A tacit admission from Microsoft that Internet Explorer is the most likely vector for a security breach.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
One if by land, two if by sea (or was that net?) The HoneyMonkeyBoys from Redmond are coming! The HoneyMonkeyBoys from Redmond are coming!!!
Honeymonkey, eh? Now I know what to call our network of self-administrating faculty and staff.
2 Words: Job security.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
It's "Honeymonkey".
-gjr
Only if your last stage was "Newbie with an inferiority complex and an attitude" and your next stage is "Rampaging a**hole who still doesn't understand computers but insists he's a hacker because he can double click on a Perl script"
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
So this leaves to Bill as Hanuman and his army of monkies.
Well, you have a choice to make.
You can go down the path of the Script Kiddie, Fandom, Techno-Fandom, Programmer, Uber-User or Hacker.
Script Kiddie pretty much excludes being any good at the other paths, but the other paths do not necessarily exclude each other.
Script Kiddie: A worthless waste of skin who considers themselves to be "better" in one way or another because they can download and run the utilities the found listed in their copy of "Hacking Exposed" and type in an obscure dialect of L33t 5p33k.
Fandom: A Sci-Fi or fantasy fan. A Geek path that does not require computer skills, but doesn't preclude them either. Star * Geeks, Buffy fans and even some furries fall into this category, but don't let the unsavory stereotype associated with the above groups turn you off. The vast majority of Sci-Fi fans are perfectly normal people.
Techno-Fandom: The Sci-Fi fans who run the Sci-Fi conventions. There's a LOT of overlap with the theater industry in this group. It also has a lot of people who dislike Sci-Fi but participate to hang out with their friends and meet hot chicks at the Dresden Dolls concerts.
Programmer: Linus Torvalds,Woz, Bill Gates in the early years, Mad Dog and the like are among the icons in this category.
Hacker: Black Hat, White Hat or Grey Hat, this is the group Script Kiddies are pretending to be part of. Cult of the Dead Cow is good example. Most of this group's literature is read by the Script Kiddies, who then pretend to understand it, sometimes even fooling themselves.
Uber-User: Many Techs fall into this category. They know far more about computers than a Script Kiddie ever will, can administer most servers and environments reliably and tend to be on the ball. In their knowledge, they're beyond the "Just Enough to be Dangerous" level, but not quite Programmers or Hackers. They're a separate category because many people send their lives here, never quite becoming Programmers. The difference is often Grey and fuzzy, with people changing their classification easily if you shift platforms on them. For example, many Windows Hackers are reduced to Uber-Users when switching to *nix and vise versa.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
TrunkMonkeys to Microsoft to make some sense of all this.
is anyone else at least a little suprised that they are just starting something like this? i mean jeezus with all the $$ and IQ they have no one has ever thought of this before? weak...
WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAT?
Instead of seeking out more bugs to fix, why don't they ____FIX THE CURRENTLY EXISTING ONES!____
I will admit, Microsoft Spyware Detector Beta is a step in the right direction.
But come now.
You clean off your plate before you re-cover it in spinach.