The Next 50 Years of Computer Security

wbglinks writes "An informative interview with Linux guru Alan Cox, with an emphasis on Linux and security. Alan will be the keynote speaker at EuroOSCON this October." From the article: "It is beginning to improve, but at the moment computer security is rather basic and mostly reactive. Systems fail absolutely rather than degrade. We are still in a world where an attack like the slammer worm combined with a PC BIOS eraser or disk locking tool could wipe out half the PCs exposed to the internet in a few hours. In a sense we are fortunate that most attackers want to control and use systems they attack rather than destroy them."

Comments

The good ol' days...

[traveyes]

...when a virus just wiped your harddrive....

.

Obligatory Simpsons Quote...

[bigtallmofo]

Professor Frink: Well, sure, the Frinkiac-7 looks impressive, don't touch it, but I predict that within 100 years, computers will be twice as powerful, 10,000 times larger, and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will own them.

Re:The next step in security: benevolent parasites

[Clovert Agent]

"Yes, Mr Sarbanes Oxley Auditor, I exposed my entire desktop computing infrastructure to a group of self-proclaimed hackers so they could uninstall spyware for me. Great idea, huh? Huh? Hey! Come back! I haven't told you about the foxes guarding the corporate henhouse yet."

I have a better idea. Swap some other commodity (like, say, money) for the same service, and call it an MSSP.

benevolent worm

[someone1234]

A worm which would spread fast like slammer and destroy infected machines after a short time is actually benevolent. It will destroy only machines that would otherwise be used as spam zombies. The day after the outbreak the internet would be clean again!