Slashdot Mirror
25 Percent of All Computers in a Botnet?
Beckham's_Ponytail writes to mention an Ars Technica article, with some disturbing news out of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Vint Cerf, one of the 'fathers of the internet', has stated that the number of botnets online is larger than believed. So large, in fact, that he estimates that at this point one in four computers is infected with botnet software. We've discussed the rise of botnets numerous times here on Slashot, but the image of 150 million infected computers is more than a little bit sobering. With the extremely lucrative activities that can be done with botnets (such as password ripping, spamming, DDoSing), as well as reports of organized crime adopting 'cyber-terrorism' as a new line of income, is it likely that law enforcement will ever be able to curb this particular bane?
Just wait until they merge and become Skynet. Then we'll really be in trouble.
'Loose' is when your pants are three sizes too big. 'Lose' is when you misuse 'loose'.
Does anyone know a utility/website for detecting and cleaning bots?
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
Isn't there a way to develop a virus that can spread through these compromised computers, but instead of doing the damage, it fixes the leaks? These compromised computers have some sort of back-door left open right?
95% of all statistics are made up on the spot. Luckily, this statistic is one of the few 9% of statistics which aren't made up so quickly.
Skynet, the end of the world, and the world being overrun with AH-nold robots.
.....Let's hope they run Windows ME, so we have a chance of survival.
In Soviet Russia, dots slash you!
I guess annoying users by imposing a $1000,- tax per month on owning a computer is more effective. Then maybe the refridgerator will finally stay off of the net.
Until they want to play the latest and greatest games. Then what? And don't give me the emulator lines, I'm talking out of box ready to play. You will not get rid of Windows, face that fact. The trick is to educate people on how to better protect their Windows machines against such things.
Anonymous Coward: "This is slashdot. Accuracy is second class citizen here, unlike King Bias."
Why not start with the ISPs? Have them start policing their own customers and shut off their connections when a compromised system is discovered, then help that poor, unconnected shmuck clean their PC so they can rejoin the world wide pr0n.
I spent two frickin' hours cleaning and protecting my sister's and niece's XP laptops over xmas. Pain in the ass, but at least they're running clean and happy now. This is after I said I'd never help them because they made the mistake of buying XP laptops instead of a Macs. What can you do? Gotta clean it, even if it's partially the cause of the problem and the people using them are not of the highest technical ilk.
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
That would mean that 75% of computers would not be infected, ergo that 75% of users finally got the clue of protecting their system against virusses and malicious websites. Is 75% running Linux without notifying the nerds? Hey, we nerds run the minority system here! I am switching to MS Windows right now.
(Another statistics victim)
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
maybe this might be possible.
More likely is a statistic that said more than 25 percent of all IP addresses have at least one CPU behind them which is part of a botnet.
That might be true.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I would be much more inclined to believe that 1 in 4 PC's are infected with one or more of the following:
- Virus
- Trojan
- Worm
- Spyware
- Adware
A few of the above are used almost interchangeable (by some people) and have the capability of effectively making the machine into some form of a bot or zombie (remotely controlled or not). Now, to say that 1 in 4 machines are bots I would have to whole heartedly disagree with. This just isn't very likely. Especially since the lifetime of a specific botnet has gradually been decreasing. Faster AV responses, increased patching, and more bot competition will inherently decrease these odds. Sorry but the daddy of the internet or not.. I think he's off the mark.
Presumedly every OS can be bot-free. I mean it's not like they come pre-installed.
If you mean permanently bot-free, then it's going to be an empty internet because every OS has security issues.
Or take privilege separation to its extreme and shield programs from each other. So you compromised the mail program? Great, you can't save an executable and your worm will be erased when the program is closed.
(Murphy's law says programs will have bugs. So assume they will.)
"Made bot-free"? Reinstalling Windows makes it bot-free.
No, there has to be a NIST standard test for determining how many bots infect an operating system in 2 hours of "typical" surfing. (Determining what "typical" is, and preventing MSFT from corrupting the test are the hard parts.)
Then, pass a law saying that network-providers can not let those OSs connect to their networks.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
25% does seem a little high, but then again it's not hard to imagine that people who this affects don't talk with too many people online who they haven't met in person. Just today I was playing Counter-Strike (1.6 of course) and a fellow player revealed the reason for them not moving or shooting; a pop-up. This is hardly a rare occurrence. I can't empathise in any way with those who are perfectly content to accept their computer is infected with some sort of adware and believe there is nothing they can do to prevent the infection of such malware.
However, it is much harder to do it effectively. If it is 10 times harder to take over a *nix box than a MS box, then you have decimated the bot threat in a simple way.
My job has me traveling the country to troubleshoot and train on our company software. Considering almost 50% have both Google AND Yahoo toolbars installed... somehow I'm not surprised. Most don't even know how to use the toolbars at all.
* Making waffles just so I have something to Twitter *
With 99.9% of South Koreans "shackled" to Windows and "sitting behind fat pipes", why are we surprised?
.kr. It wouldn't surprise me at all if 99.5% of them were infected over there.
I keep banning new IP ranges originating from
Accountability !!! ..... right ??!?!
If I leave my car unattended with all doors opened, engine running in front of a bank. If this bank gets robbed, and my car is used by the robber as a getaway car, I'm accountable in front of a judge
Why not the same with computers left unprotected and unattended ?
I wonder how up-to-date Law Enforcement is on Cybercrime, i.e. crimes that are perpetrated in Cyberspace. There's just so many things that place them at a disadvantage. First, there's often the argument that no crime has even been committed. The 'net is a wild and crazy place, and if you're on it, there's personal responsibility for protecting yourself against the constant background of malware. Most people haven't been educated in this respect.
Second, IP forensics is a rather arcane art. Few are schooled, even fewer are of the calibre that Law Enforcement would need on their side. I'd guess that it's still more lucrative to be on the wrong side of the law, and given the nebulous nature of many of these crimes, there's just not much attraction to being a computer cop. There is a process, if you're interested, to become an expert witness in this field. That's a step in the right direction, but it's only part of the overall legal process. We still need Law Enforcement officials who are willing to press charges and a judge who's willing to sign required warrants.
Finally, there's the anonymity factor. Even IP forensics won't get your man. It'll get you their IP address, but it's a long way from the IP address to the culprit. There's dozens of arguments which could explain why your Internet connection has been implicated in a Cybercrime, most of them raising reasonable doubt.
It's possible, however. "Where there's a will, there's a way." We have to take these crimes out of Cyberspace, and start correlating information between network and reality. After all, there's generally financial transactions associated with large spam deliveries and 10k+ botnet DDoSing. It's a lot harder to claim that you're a victim of circumstance when not only was your IP spotted crawling through an ISPs subnet in suspicious ways, but you also received a few grand just before a mysterious DDoS that brought down a major website.
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
On linux, you only need a script that does the equivalent of this: Or, if you have netcat available to you and prefer to use that tool: Or just include all the tcpip stuff in the trojan the idiot linux luser runs. It's easy enough to add it to their
These things aren't after your own files and such They are after your network resources, and these are trivial to get, even on *nix, my friend. When linux is popular amongst the idiots who run everything that they are sent or directed to download, they will certainly run it on that platform. And doing this stuff on linux is far more trivial than doing it on windoze thanks to the standard 'dev' tools and shells that are pretty much guaranteed to be available to the attacker.
I've got 4 computers in my house... now I've got to figure out which one of them in part of a botnet!
There could definitely be a class action lawsuit at some point facing Microsoft. That one company has a mass deployment of an operating system that is obviously dreadfully vulnerable to infection. Some might reasonably argue that Microsoft has an implied duty to provide a reliable operating system, as the backbone infrastructure of the modern computing world.
Among the victims of the easily infectable Windows platform are:
1) Large internet service providers, who suffer tremendous bandwidth costs due to DDoS attacks and spam
2) Sites that have been forced offline or had skyrocketing costs due to DDoS attacks
3) Businesses which suffer downtime due to networks congested with worm activity
I think it is time for an ambitious group of lawyers to start barking up this tree. It wouldn't be so big a concern if it wasn't for the fact that Microsoft has made a specific effort to rollout their operating system as a foundation of the world's business computing. They are providing faulty infrastructure.
She won't get infected with anything if:
1. She is behind a router, like a cheapo Linksys or something, so her ip is not routable over the wan.
2. She doesn't use IE.
3. She has auto-updates turned on.
I've had my similarly illiterate mom on such a setup for several years now, and she's never been infected.
I was going to post something about imagining a Beowulf cluster of these or of welcoming our new botnet overlords, but the bot on my computer started threateNO CARRIER
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
Like the ramen worm that effected most Redhat systems and then disabled the exploits it used? http://news.com.com/2009-1001-251311.html
This space is not for rent.
I've seen this reported several times in the past few days. But nowhere have I seen any kind of explanation as to how he arrived at this number. Frankly, I find it unswallowable without some fairly convincing evidence. Maybe he has such evidence (I sure hope so), but if so, where is it?
Congratulations! You just outlawed anything capable of running a CGI script.
I don't know... if you can correctly identify persons about to become rapists in a park, would it be unethical to kill them (erase their brain, castrate them, whatever to make it not happen?).
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
And how is that going to affect computers in other countries? Do you really expect every, single nation in the world to pass a law like that?
Good, inexpensive web hosting
You want to cure it? Have ICAAN come up with a set of standard, simple guidelines. Not censorship, just simple things like "No sending out spam emails", "No Zombie Bot". Then have ICAAN rule that failure to pass laws enforcing these guidelines (individual countries get to decide what the actual law would be) or failure to cooperate to enforce them results in disconnect for that country from the rest of the internet. That would be ICAAN's sole enforement power
Give people a 3 month warning, then start disconnecting the countries that are the worst violators, giving the secondary violators another warning. In one month, if they pass new laws or fund new enforcements, they get a trial hook up again.
I predict one year of nastyness, during which all countries scramble to create and enforce real laws.
The worst of the worst of the offending countries, might split off and form a secondary, 'dangerous' internet. But who would care.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
s/IE/IE or Outlook/ and I would mostly agree with you, but not completely. Plenty of other software people install themselves from the Web either includes spyware or is spyware itself. Remember Bonzi Buddy? What illiterate mom/little sister/etc. could resist the cute purple monkey?
More recently, there have been programs claiming to spyware removers that are spyware themselves!
My blog
The real rub is that if your PC is infected with a halfway decent bot you'll never know it unless you monitor the outbound traffic.
A good bot will install a root kit that will disable and/or lie to anti-virus software.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Trashing botted PCs?
Ethical - yes.
Legal - no.
Fun - oh hell yeah.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
it says 1 in 4 are infected. But lets drill down. First take out all the mac and linux and Unix computers since the botnet rate, while not zero, is probably not signiciant. We can also exlcude most but not all embedded system. Since mac and linux and Unix , and embedded systems acocunt for more than a quarter of the market this means that most Windows computers are infected at a rate closer to 1 in 3.
Next remove all the server clusters and the majority of computers in highly active IT bussiness envirmonments. We can probably exclude most military computers. That takes out another quarter of the machines.
So basically your personal computer at home or poorly maintained bussiness machines are carrying the bulk of the infection and it's not entirely way off to say the botnet rate is 1 in 2 for windows.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Bad analogy. He is not proposing to do anyone bodily harm.
Better, though, would be to disable the bot and notify both the owner of the computer and the ISP.
Another possibility: a worm that just detects bots and notifies a server. This would give you a list of IPs that you could do all sorts of interesting things with.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I don't know... if you can correctly identify persons that are rapists in a park, would it be unethical to kill them (erase their brain, castrate them, whatever to make it not happen?).
There, fixed that for you. This isn't about computers that might become zombies in a botnet, it's about those that already are. I'm still unsure of the ethics, but let's compare apples to apples rather than getting all hysterical, bringing emotionally charged situations into the conversation and making false anlogies.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
You're right. The only way to be sure is to nuke it from orbit.
I blame the ISPs for allowing traffic to leave their networks with spoofed IP addresses. That is - passing IP packets that are sourced within thier network with IP addresses that are not within their network.
Botnets spoof IP addresses to make if harder to track down the bots. But the IPS know where the bots are and could kill them, or filter them, if they had the testicles to do it. By pass the spoofed IP addressed traffic they make it harder for the rest of the world to filter the bots.
Botnets would be a heck of a lot easier to filter, and choke, if valid IP addresses were forced on all traffic.
Insurance rates on teenage drivers are higher. We don't say all cars must be accident free but we recognize group risks are higher for some identifiable groups. insurance rates are higher if you own a race car.
ISP connection fees should be regulated so that if you own a windows computer you are treated as astonomically more likely to poison the internet than if you don't.
Note I'm not saying that because that windows machines pay more because there are more windows botnets. That would not be fair since there are more windows machines out there so naturally they have more instances of botnets. The second thing is that windows Bot's hurt other windows users more than they hurt the rest of us. So they cant be penalized for that either.
What I am saying is that
1) per captita windows machines have more bots than other systems
2) that bots don't just hurt windows user but do affect others.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I wonder how they got that 150M number--if it's the number of Bots out there or the number of infected PCs? If it's the former, and I suspect it is, you can't equate that to the number of PCs. One PC can be a member of several botnets. From what I've seen (and most of you have probably too), a PC either seems to be clean or has 14 bots and 95 pieces of spyware on it depending on the user's habits and training.
Real programmers use "copy con program.exe"
After getting feedback that the majority of their users have Spyware installed on their systems, Microsoft decided to incorporate spyware directly into the OS (embrace and extend). With the release of Microsoft Vista, your computer will come with software that runs silently in the background, regularly checks in with their network, and can be completely disabled remotely, similar to botnet software produced by others.
While this system is not pre-configured to send spam or generate DDOS attacks like many other botnets, it does have the ability to download new functionality in the background through Windows Update, so this capability could be added at a later date if enough customers continue to install third party botnets. This means that while your Vista computer is already part of a botnet out of the box, it's fairly dormant. As an indication of the omnionous potential of this enhanced system, Microsoft is calling it 'Windows Activation'.
XeoMage
Actually, you have not taken this analysis far enough. Next you must remove all computers owned by cats, as cats are fastidious animals, and as natural hunters quite concerned with security. My research says 10% of all windows computers are owned by cats.
Next, you can't count windows computers that have been smashed with sledgehammers. If you can't figure out why, I pity you. My research says that 17.54979% of all windows computers have been smashed with sledgehammers.
Also, it would be ridiculous to count computers that have been taken over by Skynet. Technically, they ARE part of a botnet, but this is really a seperate, and very real, very important issue. Here, my research indicates over 1/4 of all windows computers are now part of skynet, so we have to count those out.
As everyone knows, there are a significant number of aliens present on the planet, and a significant number of them are silicon based life forms posing as high end windows computers while they persue research for their doctoral dissertations on the common homo-sapien couch potato. This amounts to about 22% of windows computers.
We can therefore conclude that, if I've done my math right, 2 out of every 1 windows computer is part of a botnet!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
good night and good luck.
un burrito me trampeó.
Reinstalling Windows makes it bot-free.
I have XP installation CDs. Not SP2, XP barebone. I had to reinstall. I made it once. I got Blaster in less than 5 minutes. Then I installed it again, this time with the network unplugged. I don't know how I could have downloaded the service pack without a knoppix CD at hand...
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Let's say I sit down at a computer and I want to find out if it is being used as a botnet.
What is the best way to go about? monitor ports? is there a piece of software that can detect it for me? Perfeable something I can run anytime, but not have it loaded when I am not running it. I.E. not like antivirus software.
Ideally something whose utput isn't intemidating to a user that may need to read the resule back to me. I'm thinking family computers here.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Judging by some blogs I've seen, I suspect you're right.
The nice thing about the internet is no one knows you're a dog.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I'd say it's 100% of all computers because bots make themselves hard to find, therefore if you don't find one, there must be one there.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Yeah, that's what I thought. Hell, half of my co-workers are linux fanboys who run mail servers on their broadband connections, say things like "I don't trust anyone to route my mail for me, not even my ISP" while complaining about spam and botnets.
Thank god I only have 3 computers then.
My computer is currently running really well and although I don't have any problems when I hear stats like 1/4 computers is part of a Bot Net it makes me wonder. Is there anyway to find out if my computer is part of a botnet?
Decimation.
After all, I am strangely colored.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
A phenomenon enabled by and contained within the MS ghetto. So why doesn't the summary mention it in big flashing letters? This is part of the Windows experience!
you had me at #!
Big organizations always seem to have a "wait and see & let someone else fix it attitude", after all, the VPs are always traveling around incessently attending conferences, mostly on the other side of the country or on an island outside the U.S.
Big $s means there will be a lot of "retirement" suggestions being quietly made over coffee prior to the ICANN meetings designed to keep the status quo.
If I have a swimming pool in my back yard, and I leave the gate open, and a neighborhood kid comes in uninvited for a swim, and drowns, I am liable. It's called an "attractive nuisance". IANAL, and I don't know if I am criminally liable (that is, whether I can go to prison for it). But the kid's family can definitely sue me, big time.
On the other hand, if I leave the gate closed and locked, and he climbs the fence, then I'm not in trouble, even if he drowns, because I took reasonable steps to protect it, and he bypassed them.
So: If I put a PC on the net, and it gets 0wn3d, should whether I am liable or not depend on whether I had it patched, firewalled, and armed with virus protection?
Dude.
1: Learn how to use the <A> tag.
2: That's a two-year old article, predating either Vista or XP SP 2. I wager that, even if you did that now with the same OSes, you'd have far less likely results.
3: That's "fresh install of windows with absolutely no security at all plugged into broadband." Sheesh. Install something as trivially easy as ZoneAlarm, and well, it just doesn't happen.
...millions of Windows systems suffer from Virus Infections, Spyware, Trojans and Adware.
If you're counting all computers (including servers), 25 does seem a tad high. If you're counting only Windows desktops, that seems rather low. I'd be surprised if it's below 35%.
I, for one, welcome our new botnet overlords!
My spirit takes a journey through my mind...
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I blame the ISPs for allowing traffic to leave their networks with spoofed IP addresses.
All ISPs should be diligent in applying reverse-path filtering (anti-spoofing) at their edges, no argument. Actually, most of them--especially the ones who matter--already are.
Botnets spoof IP addresses to make if harder to track down the bots.
Botnets have little motive to spoof IPs anymore, for several reasons. First, most ISPs *do* take anti-spoofing measures these days. Combine that with the sheer number of bot-infected hosts--as referenced in TFA--and there's really no benefit to botnet operators to spoof addresses anymore. So, in fact, they don't.
But the IPS know where the bots are and could kill them, or filter them, if they had the testicles to do it. By pass the spoofed IP addressed traffic they make it harder for the rest of the world to filter the bots.
Again, spoofing is not the problem you think it is, and likely only a very small factor in the overall botnet problem.
Making the decision to monitor, do deep inspection and block a customer's traffic is not as simple as, "Do we have the cojones?" Do you really think it's your ISP's place to decide what traffic you want or not? What if they decide your favorite P2P traffic is bot traffic and block it?
Botnets would be a heck of a lot easier to filter, and choke, if valid IP addresses were forced on all traffic.
The real question is why do you want to blame the network (provider) for a host security problem? Should hosts not be hardened against bot infections? Shifting the blame to the network also shifts the cost of the solution, and that's hardly right either.
A lot of people I know who are the type that might be bright enough to use a restore disk that came with their Dell but not quite bright enough to install something like ZoneAlarm have computers with restore discs that predate SP2. So, even if a completely up to date computer is restored it may suddenly be at SP1 or even RTM XP again. And therein lies where the 10 minute problem lies - it'd take a heck of a broadband connection to even get SP2 downloaded in 10 minutes, much less installed and rebooted. Heck, it might even take 10+ minutes to install ZoneAlarm even if they were bright enough to do so.
;)
It would be interesting for people in that situation to call Dell/whomever and try to get an updated restore disc. Since I'm the build-yer-own sort I've never owned a name-brand computer; for all I know they may well offer that. I just couldn't imagine your average joe figuring out how to make and burn their own slipstreamed SP2 install disc, and it'd be a noticeable burden on computer makers to have everyone who'd ever bought a computer from them wanting new restore discs every time a SP comes out.
On another note, I currently have my computer, my fiancee's computer, and both our laptops in this room. If 25% of computers are on a botnet, I wonder which one it is
What the GP poster said is in fact a valid way to avoid becoming part of the problem. The time to worry about being too sanctimonious or too much of an asshole is when the stakes are low, as in minor annoyances. In this case, you are talking about botnets which are a major source of all spam, plenty of identity theft, DDoS attacks that cost real money, and a source of income for organized crime. Your petty concern about not "offending" someone is quite silly in light of these facts. Put another way, fucking get over yourself and quit comforting people who can't prevent their own incompetence from adversely affecting others.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
You can make yourself Slipstreamed XP Install disks with SP2 so you don't get infected. See2 _slipstream.asp or http://www.theeldergeek.com/slipstreamed_xpsp2_cd. htm. It is well worth the time. Make a disk for next time.
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Actually, all ISPs need to do is get the cajones to actually enforce their terms of service and acceptable use policies, and kick zombies off their networks and not let 'em back online until they're cleaned, especially if the rightful owners won't do what's necessary to keep their own computer theirs. A simple analysis of traffic patterns and logs of routing attempts on commonly exploited ports reveals who's likely zombied, and a simple phone call clears up whether it's legitimate use or botted use.
ISPs also need to make themselves accessable to other ISPs so that evidence of botnet and spam zombie behavior can be shared and acted upon. Unfortunately, the only ISPs who do this well are the little mom-and-pop shops who seriously don't take kindly to hosting zombied computers.
It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
Well, this friday i've desinfected two of our (linux)servers which have been infiltrated by abusing vulnurable CRM Software (customers installations). It doesn't matter if you jail this software and put it behind firewalls; these days it also doesn't matter what kind of architecture your server hardware is. It's way enough having a simple webserver with scripting capabilities and one single hole in the web software. The toolbox of todays crackers (or should i name them botnet consultants?) is huge enough to have success with simple trial and error. If the machines refuses to run x86 binaries, there are plenty of perl and/or php scripts doing the same stuff. Today was really frustrating since i found 3 Megs of well-designed tools and good code on a formerly known secure machine. The quality of the tools leads me to the thought that a) crackers are well organized and b) paid for their work. Another frustrating part is the communication with different abuse helpdesks to track down this crap. Not to mention that all ended up in romania... Sorry for sarcasm, but do you have *ANY* laws?
... i ask myself, why always me??
Oh... this is not my day, even slashdot's captcha offers me "punisher"
Frankly, this is a lot of crap. Although a lot of botnets are propagated by lusers running attachments, many more are spread through the instrinsic stupidity in Windows! I have copies of hacker manuals that describe taking over Windows 2k servers using the tftp that is setup and running in a default install of Windows. Early copies of IE 6 were easily infected with crafted ads on web pages; the owners/creators of websites were not even involved, they purchased the crafted ads from others. Outlook suffered from vulnerabilities that didn't even require reading mail, just viewing the email message in a list. SQL Server had vulnerabilities that were taken advantage of on machines that their owners didn't even know were running it beacuse Microsoft installed and enabled it by default.
And, you know what, there are still a lot of those machines out there. The whole world isn't running XP (or a fully patched version) yet and many users of Microsoft software don't know enough about hardening their machines.
The biggest advantage to *nix systems is not so much intrinsic security as it is knowledge and acknowledgment of the hacker mentality out there through a long history of fending off such attacks; a history that started long before Windows was a gleam in Bill Gates' eyes. But you know the old adage "Those who ignore the past..."
When I recently brought up a personal FreeBSD server, the default install had nothing, repeat, NOTHING enabled by default. Every service I wanted had to be installed and setup properly before it was facing the Web. Even then, the setup almost always involved setting up user names and passwords, something Microsoft has only worried about recently.
Imagine if someone hi-jacked that 25% and installed Folding@Home on them...
Good. Cheap. Fast. Pick Two.
What about passing a law to make it illegal for a "father of internet" to make one of these extravagant, unverifiable, dire exaggerations, declaring the "end of the internet"?
Gee, I know he's just trying to get people's attention, but after a while it's like the little boy who cried "vuk".
You are welcome on my lawn.
Think very, very early Internet. IRC access to all of Finland was cut off due to abuse.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
I am not a professional sys-admin, but I run anti-spyware and anti-adware programs regularly (weekly) and have anti-virus sofware (AVG) running on my computers . I got firewalls (hardware and software) and keep my machines patched. I use firefox rather then explorer and use web-based gmail instead of outlook.
Am I still in obvious danger of being infected by bots? How would I find out if any of my machines is infected? All the precautions I take seemed reasonable enough a few years back. How do I continue safe internetting?
Any practical advise would be welcome.
Yeah, as much as I like living pain (not worry) -free with OS X so far, it's only a matter of time until the cost/benefit of launching a reasonably successful large-scale attack against the OS arrives.
In the meantime, I'll keep Clam AV going, backup regularly, and keep my admin account separate from the others.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
This is actually a kinda serious question. Zombification can occur through social engineering attacks on even the most secure system (it's that damn biological IO unit that's the weak point.)
Can anyone cite successful attacks on Macs turning them into Bots? (I'd feel much more comfortable defending my own machines if I knew of what has happened to others...)
dave
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
I have four computer, but non of them shows bot-net activity!
- to disconnect any equipment that interferes with the PSTN.
- to have your dog killed if it is rabid.
- to clean up a toxic chemical spill on your property.
- to take the medication that keeps you from spreading tuberculosis.
- to either fix any interference caused by your ham radio, or stop using the thing.
So, just how complicated is the solution to botnets and similar public network security issues?Caller: "YOU SHUT OFF MY CONNECTION! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU FUCKERS DOING?"
Rep: "Sir, your system is compromised; you need to follow the instructions on the site that your browser is automaticly connected to at launch..."
customer "All I do is check the stocks and my kid plays (insert MMORPG-of-the-minute here)...we don't do that illegal stuff, we CANT BE infected...Norton said so!"
Lets assume for the same of making things a bit more interesting, that the caller is right, they are not infected...what else could cause this?
Thats right, OPEN WI-FI!!!!
lets say that the dipshit college kid downstairs is connecting to your wifi, but you are no expert, you dont know a mac address from a zip code...and WPA...forget about it! The cable co in this case would have assumed the responsibility of ensuring a safe WI-FI setup was put in place...and I promise that the people with the skill and patience to walk someone with NO CLUE through a router config isnt going to do it on a CSR or even a L1-2 tech salary
The "cut them off" idea sounds great until you study the logistical aspects of it.
Stop prostitution by jailing clients
Stop drugs by jailing users
Stop botnets by jailing bot owners
If the stigma associated with having a botfly crawl out of ones skull would attach to botnet infected computers, the problem would go away in a matter of hours.
Do not look into LASER with remaining eye!
This is a Microsoft problem. O'l Billy Bob has to fix the fscking mess he made.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I work for a company that relies on these 25% of retarded computer users for revenue. So long as their computers continue to recruit more retards, I could care less. If anyone grows a brain and causes me pain then I will be forced to find them and unplug their computers. Does anyone buy this "father" of the Internet story anyway?
To draw the conclusion that Windows is bot friendly and Linux is bot-hostile is bad stats because there are other factors that come into the equation.
To set up and run Linux requires a degree of net-savvyness beyond wahat default WIndows requires. Thus installations running Linux are likely to be run by better informed people who are bot-aware and take precautions. I run Linux at home and am pretty sure I don't have any bots. I also power down everything when not in use too. However, at work we run Windows hosts. The IT guys have very tight security and I would expect that they have zero bots either.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
This in no way applies to any Mac, Linux, Unix, or other machines. Botnets are, at this point, unique to windows! Make sure everyone knows it!
Reality has a liberal bias
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
> Wouldn't it make more sense to fine companies that sell inherently insecure OS's?
Couldn't agree more. I'm a reluctant Windows user (Locked in to their servers, dev tools, and other technology long, long ago. It's too late for me... Save yourself.) and the latest M$ scheme really leaves me speechless. Now with "OneCare" they are selling you security-related services for their OSes! Shhhheeeee-it. P.T. Barnum must be rolling in his grave, wishing he'd thought this up. That's like selling me a car, then telling me it's defective and for another $1,000 you'll fix a problem that may cause it to explode while driving.
Ask me about my sig!
Ya really easy I'm sure, unless you use CHMOD to make those files read only for the user. Then the malware would have to guess the root/admin password.
Or just read the file in, delete it and write it out again. Delete permission on files is governed by the directory they're in; as long as you have write and execute on the containing directory, you can delete the file and recreate it. No need to guess anyone's password.
Try it for yourself - open a read-only file in your home directory with vi, modify it, and try to save it. Vi will tell you that it's read-only, and to use "w!" to override. If you do, vi simply deletes the file and writes out the modified version.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
"I can't empathise in any way with those who are perfectly content to accept their computer is infected with some sort of adware and believe there is nothing they can do to prevent the infection of such malware."
I can empathize. I think most of those who are "content" aren't actually content. They're lost! They don't know how the problem started and certainly don't know how to fix it. Personally, I hate operating from a position of ignorance. I'm sure at least some, if not most of these folks do to. The problem is their operating system and apps have enough holes that they have no clue as to the precautions they should take. Also, they see "free" games and screensavers...oooh, cool! Do you really blame them for that? I just googled "securing windows" and got 6,920,000 results. Does the average user even know enough to do that? If they do, do they know enough to be able to separate the chaff or will they follow directions from some half-assed know it all who misses obvious or not so obvious weak points? Yes, everyone should put some effort into securing their systems but how can you not empathize with those who don't even know where to start? It's not as easy as knowing which end of a hammer to strike with and to most people a computer is just another tool.
I can see the solutions are out there. Alternative, more secure OS options and apps are available. The bigger problem is educating the every day, tool using, user that the options they are using ARE the problem.
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
The sooner the better. All the Joe Users out there who take no time to make sure their computers are safe will need to held accountable. A lot of people are losing a LOT of money because of this. Eventually the big money people are going to successfully lobby to make it so.
When Gates/Ballmer find their customers getting fined or worse (better) then we'll start to see results.
If he's talking about home-computers then I'd say he's probably not far off based on my experience with users of varying age ranges (from early 20s to 50s) spread between several European countries. Larger businesses shouldn't be so bad off (since the firewalls should protect the users from casual intrusions) but unless the IT department is up to speed, their users are still going to find it alarmingly easy to install malware. Networks are going to have to locked down pretty tight to stop those office PCs from becoming bots.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
You know, it's really too bad this forum can't be used for constructive ideas. MS owns your living room and home office, get used to it. The government will never tell the general public "you need to get more intelligent and install a better OS". Let's leave MS to the idiots and concentrate on making GNU the de facto standard for business.
I guess annoying users by imposing a $1000,- tax per month on owning a computer is more effective. Then maybe the refridgerator will finally stay off of the net.
As well as kids, students and most home users. Problem solved. But then again, why not just disable internet access for home users?
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
With all of the windoz machine and Aohell it got to be higher
-- I am the NRA, enough said...
> Start by convincing your friend to buy MS free computers
This can be quite difficult and can limit your friend's choice. Unfortunately in the majority of cases you will have to install the Linux OS for them or better still get them to do the install with you advising them and jotting down notes for them, When you are finished the basic install you should get them to do it again which is great for a simple disaster recovery exercise and gives your friend a good deal of confidence. It is even more fun if you can get a group of friends to do this.
In principle putting Linux on a PC is an excellent way of reducing malware on the Internet however it must be remembered that the people who get problems are normally computer illiterate and treat a computer like a commodity item that to them is an interactive TV. You don't have to be a Unix/Linux guru to install and maintain Linux software but you do have to be prepared to learn and one of the major learning areas is security and basic system administration. Unix/Linux does force you to do some learning and this is its major strength and its weakness. It is possible to get worms and other malware on *nix machines but being aware of this and how to combat them reduces the risk. Again a little knowledge and a willingness to learn goes a long way. I have personally found that most people can easily learn to work under Linux however you do need to be able to motivate them.
To gently force people to learn how to work under Linux, you need to only install Linux on the PC and this means no dual booting because I can guarantee that the user of the machine will backslide to a Microsoft OS. What about "games" I hear you say well there is Wine and other emulation software as well as consoles (sorry could not resist) that can help but the reality is you won't be able to run the latest Microsoft OS compatible games. Of course if Game Manufactures (they go were the money is and at the moment it is Microsoft) become aware of more and more Linux users then you will see games that will run natively under Linux. It is happening but slowly.
Microsoft may have popularised the Internet but they glossed over the fact that you as the user need to do some learning and this is the major reason why we have malware on the Internet.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
Windows Firewall
How to Enable Internet Connection Firewall in Windows XP
How long till someone uses this troubling activity for good? How long till we see a SETI.bot or FOLDING.bot virus out there that invades your computer, and works in your free time to search for aliens or cure disease.
Distributed_Computing.bot AKA "Distributed Computing for Dummies (the REALLY easy install)"
Party at O'zorgnax's Pub! Buy me a Slurmtini aye?
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
"That hardly constitutes cutting off all Internet access."
No! Really?
If the botnet phenomena had happened during that era, I have no doubts Russia would've been cut off the net quite fast. Obviously these days it would be impossible to pull it off, even if people in the position to do it thought it would be a good idea.
Just think about it...the botnets are a tool used overwhelmingly to attack the Internet infrastructure itself directly threatening the very same "ecosystem" they live in. Most of the operators are localized in one geographical location...a large one, for sure, but one location nevertheless. It would be entirely logical to cut that location off.
If I was the Dictator of Internet, that's exactly what I would do until the Russian law enforcement community started thinking it'd be a swell idea to cut down on the abuse from their mobsters.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Everyone connects to an ISP somewhere. I'd suggest legislating the ISPs to disconnect home users if their account/connection port makes X attempts at SMTP traffic per minute. That could be completely automated. You could go deeper and read the SMTP envelope for spoofed headers. When the [-L]user call for tech support... tell them to clean up their machine.
Most of the stuff on
I use ALTIMIT OS. Yeah, I know the market share is small, but we'll never get pwn3d. Windows is so full of holes they ought to outlaw it.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Or at least require ISPs to provide minimal security training to their broadband customers. As has been said: Most infection is self inflicted through ignorance. Some people might welcome the chance to learn. I know I did not want to scuba dive without some training. A lot of parents would be motivated to learn about filtering software etc. A license should be grandfathered in of course. This problem will worsen in direct proportion to bandwidth. And certainly there should be citizens' band speeds. (TBD)
People might grumble, but if it is sold as a community responsibility a license track might fly. Most (well, many) people are motivated by a sense of community responsibility. I had a young friend whose computer was a viral soup. Infected beyond redemption. Ruined. I reinstalled Windows for her, which cleaned up the mess, but she was resistant to the idea of anti-virus software because she claimed she did not do anything serious with the computer and did not want to hassle. Her current mess had taken years to build. And, she asked, couldn't she just redo the box again when it tanked? But I pointed out to her that it wasn't just her that suffered, it was the whole community that suffered when she left her computer vulnerable. (I explained a little about bots) The idea that she could be hurting others through inaction really upset her (she had never thought it through) and so we were downloading Zonealarm, AVG and AdAware in no time. In the end she bought a subscription to a suite. McAfee I think.
Before anyone starts screaming about rights and freedoms being taken away, please think about this: A license is a way that a civil society makes its members accountable, from food vendors to electricians. I am less free because of all the bots out there. If people can't get on the highway without demonstrating some knowledge, Why should they get on the information highway in a state of ignorance, especially now that we are banking and shopping there?
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
On the flip-side, I've also known clueless "tool" users that, quite frankly, don't give a rats arse that their PC is riddled with malware of varying descriptions unless it adversely affects their own use of the machine.
I've told blissfully ignorant people that their machine is infected and their response is along the lines of;"oh? Really? How? What does that mean? Oh well, it still works ok so I won't worry about it"
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
How about the gov't requires microsoft to allow service pack installation on any windows box, whether it was pirated or not? This would clean up a lot of machines that otherwise would be eternal bots.
:%s:work:/.:g
I agree! Not only that, joe sixpack buys his PC at the department store pre-laden with free trials and nag screens for firewalls, virus scanners, extended warrantees, computer courses, ect, until the thing boot's up at the same speed as the space shuttle. When it does finally boot-up, shit pops up all over the place asking the to sign forms, ect. If they RTFM (and are lucky enough to have picked the correct one from the 10 available), it looks nothing like it. Yet these same people buy self-assembled furniture, pre-fab garden sheds, plug-n-play home theaters, and other such "puzzles" from the same store and have no on going problems.
I can't count the number of people I have helped just sign up for the "pre-installed" ISP and get them on the net in the first place. They aren't "content", they complain to the store, then to the ISP, then just leave it in a corner until someone like me "fixes it" and shows them around the net. Sometimes they live with adware because they don't know how to clean it off but this doesn't mean they are not fucked off that they can't trust the thing to do their banking (as adevertised).
Blaming average users because someone is screwing them over is arrogance of the highest order, it's amounts to condeming the victims - a very ugly attitude in my books.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I'm sure you probably conviced some people that "lamers" are in grave danger on Linux, but I suspect that the majority install stuff through repos anyway. Those that dabble around and even know how to run a script in Linux probably have a little more brains than you give them credit for.
I don't know why Microsoft, or another third party group, doesn't create a repository like download center.. where you know that what your getting has been tested and shown not to have crap in it. Sounds like a better system to me.
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
Not to mention that all ended up in romania... Sorry for sarcasm, but do you have *ANY* laws?
yes
Stop Computers/Cars Analogies on S
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Microsoft seems to have lost a lot of market share in the computers to Linux and Mac, only 25% of computers running Windows anymore?
I know this will get modded flame by some fanboy, but it's funny, laugh.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
google "securing linux" 88,000 results Guess linux isn't as secure as we think. "securing os x" 189 results Guess I should get a mac, but wait, isn't it based on bsd? "securing bsd" 311 results This is so meaningless.
Until they want to play the latest and greatest games. Then what? And don't give me the emulator lines, I'm talking out of box ready to play. You will not get rid of Windows, face that fact. The trick is to educate people on how to better protect their Windows machines against such things.
Your argument's a little off because games aren't a big issue for everybody.
But wait, let me finish. I'm not going where you think I am with this.
I'm a big Linux guy myself, and I've gotta say that, for the non-gaming everyday-user set, the *real* issue remains peripherals. Yes, it's *much* better than it used to be. Stuff that's compatible actually tends to more or less "just work" with the more enduser-centric distros out there, and the number of compatible devices is increasing at a good clip. But I converted a couple of neighbors to Linux desktops in my last apartment building, where we had a common WLAN for serving media to each other. And now that I've moved out of state, I have to keep up with various advances geared towards the stuff they do everyday, because the sooner one thing gets easier, the less I can expect getting a confused and frustrated phone call. In addition, though, when somebody decides they want a new scanner or printer or digital camera, I have to help them research what works, be aware of any tricks (substituting CUPS drivers from one printer for another model from the same manufacturer that it just happens to work with, for instance), and then help them find who's got said compatible item in stock for cheap.
Pain in the ass? Yeah, maybe a bit...though it's not as bad as, "Okay, there's an exploit for the spyware remover you used before and it doesn't work right, so install another one...but only trust what I tell you to trust, because the internet's a wild and scary place, okay?", and it *sure* is better than advising that they go sink their cash on overblown application software to use one or two features. These are the kinds of people who generally *don't* want to install a whole bunch of extra stuff in the first place, just have what they need for the four-five hours a week they need the machine and that's it, so there's hardly ever anything genuinely worth worrying about, and as the knowledgeable friend, they'd probably seek out my advice on anything computing related. Each time things get better, there's less I've got to worry about for them. If the day ever comes where Linux desktops are ubiquitous enough for it to be worthwhile for somebody writing malware to target them (or whatever other *ahem* previously "alternative" platform takes the lead), enough time will have elapsed where the boxes these people have now will have died from hardware failure and they'll either have buckled down and learned enough to be smart about things, or not learned anything and be right back to where they were when they were struggling with Windows boxes of increased mysterious slowness. It's either a gain or no harm done.
PLEASE..easy to install?? .. lol what a joke.. it is easy IF you have hardware that is supported... try getting a HSF modem driver for the aopen or US robotics 56k modem..or a decent vid driver for an 8X agp vid card.. never mind onboard sound chips or even simple printers.
Untill xnix developers can keep up with the developements in hardware it will never be EASY to install.. and that goes for whatever flavor Xnix you care to mention .. i know I tried many and run into the same issues every time.
always more than one way to skin a cat
You should install a bot on one of your machines, to protect the other three...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Data point: I have an old P-II 450 that one of my wife's cow-orkers wanted to borrow while his machine was in the shop. I had been running NetBSD on it, so I wiped the disk and laid down a fresh install of XP. As soon as I had it installed, I hooked the box up to the router so I could hit Windows Update. I (thought I) started the download and left while it installed. One thing led to another, and I didn't get back to the box until the next day. Then I found that a dialog box had popped up just before the install. So I had an unpatched base XP machine connected to the internet via a DSL line for over 24 hours, and I got no viruses, trojans or other nastyness. At least, none that AVG could detect (I installed that immediately after the SP2 upgrade finished installing). And the only thing I had for defense was my old WRT54G.
I'm tempted to stick it into the DMZ and time how long it takes to get compromised, but that's been done before...
Just junk food for thought...
it's only a matter of time until the cost/benefit of launching a reasonably successful large-scale attack against the OS arrives.
It's only a matter of time before some descendent of pigs evolve wings too.
You have to make decisions based on what you see and know, not speculation. Right now, and for the forseeable future, your best protection from trojans, worms and spyware is to install or purchase any OS besides Windoze.
It's not just a solution, it's the solution. A diverse population of computers will make botnets both expensive and small.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Like the ramen worm that effected most Redhat systems and then disabled the exploits it used?
Thanks for the link, it's a great example of how free software rocks. Six years ago, Ramen ate through a few poorly maintained Red Hat 6.0 and 7.0 servers running WUFTP. It did not eat through Debian, Mandrake and other distributions because there are lots of ftp servers to chose from. It has not been heard from since. A diversity of software limits the damage any one flaw can cause. Automated update tools insure the problems are fixed quickly. If something goes wrong, the user can download and burn a CD with all new software and then install it without loss of user data.
The Windoze user, on the other hand, is left with their ageing "original" CD to put all the flawed software back with tremendous hassle and loss. That's the problem with non free software - you depend on a single "owner" that can't possibly keep up for everything.
The only short term solution for the user is to leave Windoze. The only long term solution for the internet as a whole is to diversify. The two things are the same.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If you can tell me what the "safe" 75% do that the broken 25% did not do, I'll believe only 25% are owned. It's not the users, it's not the Windoze version, it's not the network, it's not the anti-virus software, it's more like random chance. Dismissed as "harmless" at the time, worms have made it all the way into automated teller machines that never see the internet. Vista is already busted and the anti-virus industry has obviously failed. If the botnet population is only 25% today, it will quickly become 100% because there is no way to hide from one in every four computers.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I deal with such scripts running on my Linux machines occasionally. Why? Because I'm a web hosting provider. Customers install popular CMS systems and web applications that eventually become vulnerable and exploited. Usually when this happens, it isn't to deface a website like it was years ago... today's attackers are after network resources.
They get in, do some tricks, and either send spam or create an IRC bot (which sometimes is then used as part of a 'botnet' to issue spam or launch attacks and scans against other machines)
I see it all the time. We do have tricks to dampen such attacks, but its more difficult when you want to be a more liberal host (such as mine), where you don't want to limit your paying users much, but you want to prevent abuse. Its a balancing act.
It's like fining companies whose (physical) windows break after somebody throws a rock through it instead of going after the guilty party.
It's not a crime to have your window broken, at least not in the part of the world I reside in. If I, a random person, told you to throw a rock at someone, and you did that, who would be responsible for the damage? You would not do this of course, but a child might do it. And then whose responsibillity would it be then? The parents, I assume. They might not be guilty, just responsible.
So everyone having his computer turned into a bot should have restricted access to the public space of the Web. 'Yes but no but..' that's not important, experience cannot be bought or earned, it's something that grows with practice, and starts with zero.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
I just googled "securing windows" and got 6,920,000 results.
I'd expect you don't have to dig too far through that list before you get to software that claims to make your computer more secure but actually installs malware. The first ten results seem to be OK though.
455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
I wonder how many of those bots are Microsoft Operating Systems...
I'm just asking...
you know a bot that kills bots
What about "Windows malicious software removal"?
Surely these botnets should be dying in their millions every Patch Tuesday....
What happened to that?
No sig today...
I thought Microsoft was dumping Windows Malicious software removal into every PC connected to the 'net.
Why isn't this wiping out the botnets by the million?
No sig today...
I have copies of hacker manuals that describe taking over Windows 2k servers using the tftp that is setup and running in a default install of Windows.
Better toss those hacker manuals out then; they are full of misinformation. There's no tftp client or server installed in any version of W2000 by default. SQL Slammer was a pain in the neck, true - but the patch for that vulnerability had been issued months before Slammer hit. Everything else you mention would not be an issue if users didn't run with Admin privs - and don't tell us it's not possible; I've been doing it since NT4.
Microsoft's security mistake was in the W2000 installer which created accounts with local Admin privs, and failed to tell the user about it. That snowballed as developers and testers began depending on Admin privs they may not have even known they had. It was a Microsoft mistake of colossal proportions; but as I just noted, you can fix it easily enough by simply running nonadmin, staying patched, and enabling the Windows Firewall.
Microsoft could be wiping out these botnets via Windows update, but it doesn't seem to be doing so.
Why not?
No sig today...
Davos is not exactly a forum where I would expect to here of such things. How do we know that the actual purpose of this claim is other than to stir up fear to justify massive governmental crackdowns on the Internet? Certainly the referenced article gives not one shred of supporting evidence. If kiddie porn and spam doesn't do it then let's find some other excuse by all means. Why should any of us take this figure seriously without considerable evidence? Some of us who are well aware that it isn't that easy to coordinate even a small network out in the open. To network many millions of computers in secret successfully implies all the really good hackers wear black hats. I don't buy it. Look for the effects. As who or what may benefit.
Do they really want front page CNN news, "Botnet on AOl computers caused nuclear meltdown and 20000 people dead?"
Those managers should be fired, the CEO should be smart, not a meetings attender to decide more profit ideas like a cocaine drug lord.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
But not in anyway an answer to what was asked. In fact, it's not even a guarantee of avoiding the problem either. It's about as useful as turning up at a car accident with a lecture on proper lane etiquette. It's just your opinion, possibly of no relevance to the circumstances, of zero help at the time, and will not stop car accidents happening.
Your petty concern about not "offending" someone is quite silly in light of these facts.
When did we start "quoting" people with things they didn't say? Wouldn't be building yourself a strawman there, would you?
And real men use UNIX.
IP is unreliable and insecure by design. If people want security and quality-of-service guarantees, they should use another network technology. What else is new?
Is it likely that other OS's, as they gain marketshare, will be higher-profile (though more difficult) targets? Maybe. Is it a possibility? ... running my user accounts as non-admin, backing up and running Clam A/V are all pretty painless on OS X, and easily worth the effort to set up.
What you know makes your possible scenerio rather unlikely. Free software runs most of the world's web servers, where the best bandwith is, so it's already a big but hard target.
Taking further steps for yourself is still prudent. You want to make backups to ward off hardware failure and your own mistakes, even if your computer never touched an internet connected network. Running anti-virus software is mostly a waste of cycles that negates one of the primary benefits of using a free platform. It might be a nice thing to run on a mail server but non M$ desktops don't need it now. Free software distributions already force a non root user and other reasonable steps will continue to be taken. You can take it for granted that a distribution like Debian uses reasonable defaults and their administration guide is full of good advice.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
And Blaster didn't infect all the machines that were patched a month before it was released. Your point is valid but hardly some sort of mystical advantage for Linux.
You are right, there's nothing mystical about it.
Thanks for reminding me of the famous Blaster worm, which clearly demonstrates the fragility of non free software and it's adverse effects on the internet and commerce in general. While a patch may have been available, it was not widely deployed because it broke other non free services and programs. Blaster infected computers on Microsoft's own campus and variants remain a menace to this day because people continue to run software from their "original" CD when Windoze goes tits up and must be reinstalled. Businesses that use Windoze were particularly harmed, often having to do without their networks for a week. The infrastructure of the internet itself was overwhelmed by the traffic it generated, so everyone suffered.
Blaster was just one of many demonstrations. The same flaws are what the botnet operators use to build their networks today. The continued existence of those flaws is why one in four internet connected computers is now part of a botnet. The binary Microsoft monoculture simply sucks.
The Ramen story, is the antithesis of all of the above. Despite the high prominence of the hosts, on a small percentage was ever compromised and today the problem has vanished. Virtually no one would be running free software from 2003 unpatched, let alone free software from 2000 or before.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If improper lane etiquette (such as changing lanes without bothering to check for the presence of another vehicle already in the lane) is what caused the accident, then it would not be an unreasonable assumption that the driver at-fault does not understand this subject. Lane etiqutte would fall under driver training, and increased driver training can indeed prevent accidents (they call them defensive-driver classes, and many insurance companies will give discounts for drivers who have completed these courses).
And offending was put into quotes because I am in the USA, and as such I have seen that word repeatedly used to describe silliness that any adult should be able to handle without crying about it. I put the word into quotes because I strongly disagree that anything someone says can ever hurt you unless you choose to give them that power, but the way the word is typically used suggests a victim mentality that your emotions are at the mercy of what other people think. It is precisely that view that I was arguing against, and as such I placed the words in quotes because that is its common usage, even if I consider that usage to be invalid. The parent post was readily available for all to see, so if I were attempting to intend that to be a direct quote, this would obviously fail. Methinks you just didn't like what I said and are clutching at straws yourself to try and portray it in a negative fashion (this is made more obvious by your failure to address my main point about not allowing the incompetence of users to harm others; instead you you want to nit-pick semantics). But considering that the previous poster was complaining about being a sanctimonious asshole, which is something that could not directly harm anything but could hurt someone's feelings if they choose to give random strangers the power to do that, then yes "offensive" was correctly used.
Any other useless concerns? Did I also fail to use a punctuation mark, or did I use a relative pronoun in the subjective case when it should have been the objective case? Or are you ready to quit worrying about stupid shit and just admit that you are unable to disagree with what someone said without automatically assuming that they must be dishonest in some way?
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Good luck getting an updated install disk from the brand makers.
These morons are using "restore partitions" now (useless when your partition table takes a hit as well.)
Anybody who buys Dell, HP, Gateway or any of that crap is just setting themselves up to have problems in the future.
PCs are a commodity. Buy them that way. Go to a local storefront with some Chinese guys behind the counter and buy a white box with a full OEM installation CD included, and no crap on the desktop. And all your hard disk space is available to you.
The manufacturers need to stop selling PCs with Windows preinstalled on one big partition. They need to pre-partition the drives for an OS partition and a data partition. They need to automatically move "My Documents" to the data partition as well as any preinstalled apps need to have their default save locations directed to that partition. The software manufacturers need to follow suit - all applications should avoid the C: drive like the plague. And they need to stop inserting their stupid buggy keys into that goddamned Registry and become "clean, green" installs that use INI files that are NEVER updated programmatically - like Linux.
People need to learn to separate the OS and their applications and their data, so that when the OS gets hosed and needs to be reinstalled, they don't have to reload all their data (barring a bug or accident during OS restore - this doesn't eliminate backups.)
In other words,
By the way, the Linux installers need to do this automatically as well. Putting
I read one clown recently who said NTFS works best with one large partition, and he said keeping the data on the main partition was best because with a modern OS, it is "never" necessary to reformat a partition to reinstall. Tell that to me when I reinstalled Windows 2000 on a client's box last week. In a hurry, I left the previous NTFS file system intact. The install worked - Windows 2000 subsequently didn't; printer problems inherited from the previous install. I formatted the partition, reinstalled 2000 - no problem.
Windows was NEVER a multiuser system and the layout of the system proves it.
Most people don't even use My Documents - they put everything on the fraggin' DESKTOP! They forget that the point of a desktop is NOT to cover it up with documents, but to be able to SEE it and work with what's on it a little bit at a time. This applies to physical as well as computer desktops.
Security in ALL OS's is a joke - but in Windows it is a very unfunny joke.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I am rather pleased and a little surprised that this idea received a little positive feedback.
My thought was more that a person, not a computer, would get the license. Once the person demonstrated that he or she had the knowledge to operate the box responsibly then they could connect at high speed and run whatever hardware or software configuration they wanted. And since *nix systems don't currently need a lot of security cruft then running them would be fine. The licensing body is simply trying to get at least one security-aware person per broadband connection. As with an auto license you could drive whatever car you want. Not everyone using the machine(s) would have to get the license. The assumption would be that the licensed maintainer would work with the other users to keep from getting pwned. Perhaps there might be consequences for the licensee if he let the side down and became a zombie happy meal.
This is distinct from an annual auto inspection, which is more what Cisco Kid seemed to be talking about. (Also an approach to this problem) But I would not like anyone looking at my config and telling me I need to upgrade my AV package. Or run one when I don't need one. I don't much like car inspections either. But the idea I had concerning a broadband license would be hardware neutral. And as I said, dial up and, say, ISDN might be license free.
Department of Broadband Internet, indeed.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
Sorry about the ultra-late response...agreed, I forgot Outlook. I set her up with a Yahoo email account, because they have good virus scanning (so does Gmail, but she didn't like the interface). And her illiteracy actually helps protect her, as she doesn't know how to install software. So that pretty much shuts down all the attack vectors.
The manufacturers need to stop selling PCs with Windows preinstalled on one big partition. They need to pre-partition the drives for an OS partition and a data partition. ... The software manufacturers need to follow suit - ...
Part of the problem is that none of the manufacturers (or vendors) need any of this. It's the customers that need such things. Manufacturers and vendors only need to make money by selling at a good enough markup to make a profit. Things like security are the customers' problems.
Until we find a way to fix this, sales of shoddy, insecure systems will continue because they're more profitable that better-designed systems.
Windows was NEVER a multiuser system and the layout of the system proves it.
Funny thing: I've been making a similar argument in some other fora since I got a Mac Powerbook a few years ago. Actually, my wife and I both use it. And we keep stumbling across all sorts of things where a "preferences" change or an install of a new tool done by one of us affects the other. All sorts of things that other unix-based systems install in $HOME are stored in global places by Mac software. Very often, we can't even find where things are stored, and when we do, it's often in an undocumented binary file. But it's fairly obvious that the Mac developers have rarely tested on multi-user machines. So it's not just a Microsoft problem. Having unix as the OS doesn't make a system multi-user unless the developers are careful to practice proper separation of privileges and such. And it's always easier to hard-code a pathname than it is to extract HOME from the environment and prepend it to the file name.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Interesting parallels with biological parasites. Early computer virus/worms did damage, intentionally or unintentionally, which drew attention to themselves, causing them to be removed. In microbiology this is the bad parasite, that kills the host or provokes an immune response. Botnets have moved up to the commensal parasite level, living as undetectably as possible, leaving their hosts unharmed for the most part, even patching and preventing other botnet infections. One wonders if the world PC population will adapt as have humans to live with and benefit from parasites (probably not!)
Oh dear. I don't care whether you wanted to imply by quoting something that wasn't there, or were just jumping to the conclusion that offence was the poster's motivation without any evidence. Either way, you're continuing in a irrelevant rant about something that was never previously mentioned in order to pick up an argument.
I am heartily pleased for you and your impervious cloak that repeals all offence. Perhaps we should all have one, but it's such a pity that's not what was being discussed. So put it away.
I've been wondering about how secure the repos are.
I mean, everyone seems to trust them 100%, they're not commercially/government supported, and once you get date-activated sploits in, you wouldn't be able to detect them until the activation time.
Is there an established method for making the repos more accountable? Maybe we need to buy insurance for our distros.
Cheers
Ben