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The Biggest Cloud Providers Are Botnets

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the resistance-is-futile dept.

Julie188 writes "Google is made up of 500,000 systems, 1 million CPUs and 1,500 gigabits per second (Gbps) of bandwidth, according to cloud service provider Neustar. Amazon comes in second with 160,000 systems, 320,000 CPUs and 400 Gbps of bandwidth, while Rackspace offers 65,000 systems, 130,000 CPUs and 300 Gbps. But these clouds are dwarfed by the likes of the really big cloud services, otherwise known as botnets. Conficker controls 6.4 million computer systems in 230 countries, with more than 18 million CPUs and 28 terabits per second of bandwidth."

10 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. How long before... by Lord+Lode · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How long before these botnets are so big and complex that they become similar in structure to the human brain and start thinking on their own?

  2. interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So it's actually Windows which is good at distributed computing...

  3. Re:where did they get their numbers from? by ZorbaTHut · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Also, if conficker really managed to 'rent out' the computing power, the botnet would likely quickly decrease in size, as more and more people would take their systems to repairs, because they are so slow all of a sudden...)

    You'd be surprised how true that isn't. Even Windows is reasonably good at idletime priority processes - unless they intentionally used CPU that the user was trying to use, people would probably never notice.

    A bigger problem is that there are very few useful problems that are practical to calculate on a distributed botnet of that fashion. It's been tried and failed before, more than once - most real-world problems involve large databases of confidential data, which is obviously inappropriate for a network like this on multiple levels.

    --
    Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
  4. Curious how these compare to the voluntary botnets by cmiller173 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    How about a comparison to say folding@home or other distributed projects? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_distributed_computing_projects

  5. Re:Something where academia should learn from by WillAdams · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I believe you want access to systems running xGrid:

    http://www.macresearch.org/openmacgrid

    William

    --
    Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
  6. Re:where did they get their numbers from? by bunratty · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A bigger problem is that there are very few useful problems that are practical to calculate on a distributed botnet of that fashion. It's been tried and failed before, more than once - most real-world problems involve large databases of confidential data, which is obviously inappropriate for a network like this on multiple levels.

    Probably a bigger problem is that not many useful problems are "embarrassingly parallel". The nodes performing the computations need fast communication between other nodes in most parallel algorithms. The distributed algorithms that can be farmed out to idle computers need no communication with other nodes -- they perform work on the unit they were given and send the results back when they're done.

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  7. Does this mean Microsoft has the lead? by miffo.swe · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does the fact that 100% of these machines run Windows XP/Vista/7 mean that Microsoft is the biggest supplier of Cloud OS computing software (if you disregard the small patches from the botnet owners)?

    --
    HTTP/1.1 400
  8. Re:Something where academia should learn from by bunratty · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Where can I rent this botnet legally?

    BOINC is an academic platform to do exactly what you describe.

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  9. Re:Something where academia should learn from by theIsovist · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Where can I rent this botnet legally?

    you can't because the botnets are created illegally. There are "botnets" created for scientific use, such as folding@home, but these do not spread on their own and are completely opt in (and, more importantly, opt out). Perhaps someone should create an opt in cloud system where users who provide cpu power are given a cut of the profit from the distributed super computer use. Perhaps someone already has, as I'm not an expert on these things. I would doubt that the income from this would offset the increased electrical bills, though.

  10. Social engineering... The worst culprit... by AgentMagneta · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I might be offending some people. But botnets are not made by users who are technically proficent. Sometimes I find it interesting that you find Linux imperviuos to this threat... You would have to defend Linux like any other system... Just because, well most often than not it exploits the user. Not the os. I am a user like no other. I use Windows 7 and many microsoft os:es. And I can never think of any time in my 25 years of using a computer I really caught a virus... Finally after 10:s of years I got a virus scanner, haha. But to this date I have never had any use for it. But I always recommend a virus scanner to my friends. Virus operators just have to influence you personally to have a virus on your computer. Social engineering works much better than any technical exploit :( All you can do is to inform people of the dangers. And still we have people playing street games... :D