As it is not directly linked by the story, in http://62.131.86.111/analysis.htm there is an analysis of the exploit that looks very helpful to understand why and how it works.
As always, are from the start design problems the ones exploited here, artificial solutions like separating internet in "zones" (local, trusted, etc) are just patches that don't resolve the core problem so it still have more holes that a swiss cheese.
That single click could be avoided thru javascript or some other active content? i.e. can't one be vulnerable for only loading a page?
And worse, that happens in every IE descendant? There are a lot of "alternative" browsers that are uses IE engine to render html, sites, help files, whatever to show their content, including specially outlook (and that probably will mean a new mail worm in the next few days).
What is more unfortunately is that some business requires the use of Internet Explorer to be able to get some information from their, and worse, that could happen with gubernamental sites or in any case sites with information you can't simply ignore. If one of those sites have some way to put random content there, a lot of visitors (specially the ones forced to use internet explorer) will be very angry.
For the organizations that requires the use of internet explorer/outlook, this kind of attacks could be a serious headaches, one can send to most email addresses in there a tricky mail and in matter of hours half of their desktops could be gone, unless they use some kind of active protection (i.e. Anomy Sanitizer that not only can check/clean virus, but also disable the "active" content in html mails)
... under current patent laws: lobotomy. Maybe is what did actual patent authorities to approve such things.
When you protect ownership over a phisical object, things are clear, no two people can have it at the same time, or at least it can't be in two places at the same time. But when you patent an idea (and even worse, a simple one) if you think on something related (random thinking, trying to solve a maybe unrelated problem or a need), you are probably breaking the patent.
So, if a law makes everyone a criminal, maybe that law is very wrong.
If its a test area, is needed to store it? Wikis could just have it live for the current session or testing of the user, and when the user logs out or finish editing, simply delete/restore it to a default introductory text. Don't need to be some kind of collaborative blackboard or graffiti wall, or at least, if it must be, that be the webmaster choice to be that way (at least TikiWiki let me disable the sandbox if i want).
But if the problem is to have in websites areas where visitors (even unregistered ones) can post random text and links, even slashdot is potentially target of the same (maybe should be a "Spam" mod score?) or by the way, any site where unregistered visitors can store content in a way or another, be wiki or not.
come to Slashdot and read the most simplistic rebuttal that you'll likely read anywhere
"anywhere" includes slashdot, so i wrote it because noone wrote that already:)
And yes, is simplistic, but so still is condemning technologies because it could have a (ok, in this case very) bad uses, and closing the door on any kind of good uses, including avoiding or mitigating disasters even bigger than the worst that they could possibly make. If we go to the worst case scenario, when all the bad things will happen, then don't cheat and suppose that some bad things are "impossible" and some will happen for sure to support a point.
Even with my previous post about micro black holes (that look a bit more dangerous and global as technology than genetic engineering and nanotechnology, ok, too much Asimov and Simmons:) still didn't find a generic reason to ban knowledge and foment oscurantism that could end very wrong in a point or another.
Genetic engineering is not the first self-replicating "technology" we used. Vaccines are (or were) somewhat atenuated diseases to activate our own body defense system. We put certain animals, insects, etc in some environment to make changes i.e. pest control (with very bad results sometimes). And we breed cattle, pets, etc to enhance certain characteristics from a long time ago.
But I could fear more random mutation/genetic changes than engineered ones. In 1918 spanish flu killed 20 millon (probably more than any previous disease in history) and was a "natural" mutation. And without genetic engineering we could be left without an important tool to combat that kind of "shit happens" threats.
That genetic engineering could be abused? That that could put in risk even the entire human race? ok. But it also could avoid things that could put in risk our existence, and in a no so dramatic scenario, it could make our lives better (yes, like knifes in my example).
There are technologies that were developed with military applications in mind, but a derived work could be used in a future for good (well, even internet is based in a militar technology, or worldwide communications, or things that in the end, could make a difference for our survival).
And of course, there are technologies that could look too scary to even think on them... What about developing our own mini black hole? But, who knows, certain dangerous technologies have heavy enough requirements and strong enough benefits to make it worth trying it under controlled enough conditions.
The invention of knife was very dangerous too, a lot of people are killed by knifes and similar weapons. And a lot are saved by them too (scalpels and al). And for sure our life will be entirely different if we must eat without cutting accesories. You can't condemn entire tools or technologies because it could have some bad uses.
There are worms that don't have their own smtp engine. Ok, big mail servers are whitelisted, but what about small/medium mail servers? blocking entire mail servers because a single user of it is infected?
Modems/Dynamic IPs: an infected user uses an IP, gets blocked, and disconnects/gets another IP. The probably clean user that gets now the old IP gets also blocked. With enough ip rotation and certain percent of infected users you could end blocking entire ISPs (ok, the banning is only for 24 hours, but my ip rotation is every 12 hours, so i will surely hate if i can't do something if some clueless idiot got infected and blocked)
IP grouping: At least here internet cafes normally have one public IP for all computers, and that happens too even with companies with their entire traffic masqueraded thru one IP. If one gets infected (and eventually cleaned) the entire place is blocked
What would be else the Iraq top level domain? Why make trouble because it have some er... "nice" sound?
Anyway, it will depend a bit on how it will be used. I.e. here in Uruguay (.uy) you can't normally have yourdomain.uy, but yourdomain.com.uy, or.net.uy, or.edu.uy,.org.uy and.gub.uy. If in Iraq they have a similar policy the risk of being abused dillutes a lot.
And there are far lower "uses" for an.iq domain than for other existing countries domains (i.e. Austria (.at), American Samoa (.as), Belgium (.be), India (.in), and a lot more.
Just hope that this discussion will not end in the Bahamas domain (.bs)
... of losing time, imho. After all, to be able to even try to get that is to read the spam, something that with 500 spam/wk (im getting a similar number, maybe higher) looks like a good way of losing time (specially when the ratio between something that that could be worth reading and the usual junk should be very low)
If you want to dedicate some time with spam, try to use some time evaluating what is the best spam detection software for you particular situation, popfile, spambayes, spamassasin, dspam, etc... there are a lot to try and check how different could be your life with really low levels of spam to worry about.
I see blogs as something that happens thru time. i.e. today happened this, tomorrow or the next hour other things, and so on. The "default" order is always related to time, latest things on top, and earlier things, maybe more important or relevant, go to the storic archives. Slashdot, newspapers, personal blogs, etc are good examples.
In the other hand, wiki more about "static" knowledge, like a conclusion you reach after discussing something, and the order is more like a tree of knowledge. Think in wikipedia. Is an encyclopedia, the "natural" order are the words/events/people/etc you are defining (and yes, defining is a good term for that), not the time you posted it.
Both are examples of collaborative work, of course, but of different kind.
There are another kind of collaborative work, that is the process of discussing something. Is not announcing, nor defining, but a lot of people talking around something interchanging points of view, giving new data, etc. Usenet, forums, comments attached to wiki pages or blog entries, even this very discussion, are examples of this third kind of online collaboration. In the discussion you maybe not reach a "conclusion", is not part of the forum itself (but someone could extract what he interprets as a conclusion on some topic and post it in i.e. a wiki page), is the discussion what is the final objective.
You can see slashdot (well, and probably most of the linked sites on this article) in two ways, if you see the front page is a collaborative weblog, but looking to single article is more like a collaborative forum.
When was that legislator when the first mail server was done? the first webmail? Hotmail? or when Microsoft buyed Hotmail? Or when was discovered that the OS that most PCs in California, America or the entire world was sending information to Microsoft servers?
If all this legislation is done to avoid the improbable event that Google could misuse information that a few could store in their servers, what about the sure event that Microsoft will misuse the information stored in most PCs everywhere?
I hope that the easier explanation according to Occam (i.e. that legislator is getting an extra payment this month from some private company) is not the right one.
Ok... this could be a flamebait, but is a match fire against the volcano fired by that legislator
The plot was so enjoyable that I lost most of the special effect described in the article.
Ok, there are a level were animation could be so worse that you note the bad animation instead of the movie itself, and a level when is so good that you lose track of the movie and watch the animation (i.e. when Donkey now as a horse moves its head and you notice the hair animation).
But the middle point, where what you are actually watching the movie and don't letting the animation distract you because is too bad or too good, should be the best approach (er, unless is desired to go at least once more to see the movie to watch the animation or certain effects more in detail, of course)
There are more kind of things one could want to publish, even from the personal point of view, that don't fit very well in the blog approach. You have wiki pages, discussion forums, tabular information, file or image galleries, and a lot more ways to store and manage "content" in very different ways.
Maybe is not yet perfect, but i like TikiWiki because it have all in one single package (enabling some sort of integration between features, unified security, etc).
The nice thing is not needed it, but having that alternative available. In a future something could make you need to run a windows program (for whatever, from firmware configuration to certain places idiot policy on required browsers/software/etc) and you'll prefer to have some way to run the desired software under linux that boot windows.
When i had OS/2, i enjoyed the low hpfs fragmentation. When you copy a file it gives to it the next free block that fit in that size, as long you have a big enough free chunk of the disk, the file were not fragmentated. But also it unfragmented when more operations where done with the directory or the file system. I remember that a basic "unfragment" script was to go thru all directories and just copy or even rename the files to unfragment them.
But not sure how this are managed in linux filesystems, not just ext2/3 and reiserfs, but also in xfs and jfs.
The Lycos offer is for paying customers. So Google still tops at free email storage space (well, spymac have it too, but if can't stand a slashdotting is not for everyone like gmail should be).
And if we put in the equation paying customers, then Yahoo could give more storage, their announce was for 100Mb free, and virtually unlimited for paying users
Ok, not was the best possible examples, but in that moment don't thinked right keywords to search in google for this kind of things, but that examples was based on things that actually happened, you could find more information in a more boring format here and here. In the other hand, those Simpsons episodies showed very graphically how something as innocent looking like few animals in a new territory could harm a lot, no new reading required.
At least i don't tried to use Holliwood examples, like in Jurassik Park, Mimic or Godzilla, those examples would have been definatelly less serious than using Simpsons episodes.
And about controls, yep, the released rats could be sterilized, have some way of controlling/contain them, but, you know, shit happens and murphy rulez.
Maybe someone could cry if them don't blow up. Introducing new species in some environments could be harmful, and if they escape you could have a new plage on hand. There are already some examples of that happening, but as most should have seen the Simpsons examples of frogs in australia or lizards in springfield i think by now is evident why is bad.
Slashdot Mirror
As always, are from the start design problems the ones exploited here, artificial solutions like separating internet in "zones" (local, trusted, etc) are just patches that don't resolve the core problem so it still have more holes that a swiss cheese.
And worse, that happens in every IE descendant? There are a lot of "alternative" browsers that are uses IE engine to render html, sites, help files, whatever to show their content, including specially outlook (and that probably will mean a new mail worm in the next few days).
For the organizations that requires the use of internet explorer/outlook, this kind of attacks could be a serious headaches, one can send to most email addresses in there a tricky mail and in matter of hours half of their desktops could be gone, unless they use some kind of active protection (i.e. Anomy Sanitizer that not only can check/clean virus, but also disable the "active" content in html mails)
When you protect ownership over a phisical object, things are clear, no two people can have it at the same time, or at least it can't be in two places at the same time. But when you patent an idea (and even worse, a simple one) if you think on something related (random thinking, trying to solve a maybe unrelated problem or a need), you are probably breaking the patent.
So, if a law makes everyone a criminal, maybe that law is very wrong.
But if the problem is to have in websites areas where visitors (even unregistered ones) can post random text and links, even slashdot is potentially target of the same (maybe should be a "Spam" mod score?) or by the way, any site where unregistered visitors can store content in a way or another, be wiki or not.
"anywhere" includes slashdot, so i wrote it because noone wrote that already :)
And yes, is simplistic, but so still is condemning technologies because it could have a (ok, in this case very) bad uses, and closing the door on any kind of good uses, including avoiding or mitigating disasters even bigger than the worst that they could possibly make. If we go to the worst case scenario, when all the bad things will happen, then don't cheat and suppose that some bad things are "impossible" and some will happen for sure to support a point.
Even with my previous post about micro black holes (that look a bit more dangerous and global as technology than genetic engineering and nanotechnology, ok, too much Asimov and Simmons :) still didn't find a generic reason to ban knowledge and foment oscurantism that could end very wrong in a point or another.
But I could fear more random mutation/genetic changes than engineered ones. In 1918 spanish flu killed 20 millon (probably more than any previous disease in history) and was a "natural" mutation. And without genetic engineering we could be left without an important tool to combat that kind of "shit happens" threats.
That genetic engineering could be abused? That that could put in risk even the entire human race? ok. But it also could avoid things that could put in risk our existence, and in a no so dramatic scenario, it could make our lives better (yes, like knifes in my example).
There are technologies that were developed with military applications in mind, but a derived work could be used in a future for good (well, even internet is based in a militar technology, or worldwide communications, or things that in the end, could make a difference for our survival).
And of course, there are technologies that could look too scary to even think on them... What about developing our own mini black hole? But, who knows, certain dangerous technologies have heavy enough requirements and strong enough benefits to make it worth trying it under controlled enough conditions.
The invention of knife was very dangerous too, a lot of people are killed by knifes and similar weapons. And a lot are saved by them too (scalpels and al). And for sure our life will be entirely different if we must eat without cutting accesories. You can't condemn entire tools or technologies because it could have some bad uses.
Anyway, it will depend a bit on how it will be used. I.e. here in Uruguay (.uy) you can't normally have yourdomain.uy, but yourdomain.com.uy, or .net.uy, or .edu.uy, .org.uy and .gub.uy. If in Iraq they have a similar policy the risk of being abused dillutes a lot.
And there are far lower "uses" for an .iq domain than for other existing countries domains (i.e. Austria (.at), American Samoa (.as), Belgium (.be), India (.in), and a lot more.
Just hope that this discussion will not end in the Bahamas domain (.bs)
Terrorism charges were brought against all professors that used surprise exams against students.
If you want to dedicate some time with spam, try to use some time evaluating what is the best spam detection software for you particular situation, popfile, spambayes, spamassasin, dspam, etc... there are a lot to try and check how different could be your life with really low levels of spam to worry about.
In the other hand, wiki more about "static" knowledge, like a conclusion you reach after discussing something, and the order is more like a tree of knowledge. Think in wikipedia. Is an encyclopedia, the "natural" order are the words/events/people/etc you are defining (and yes, defining is a good term for that), not the time you posted it.
Both are examples of collaborative work, of course, but of different kind.
There are another kind of collaborative work, that is the process of discussing something. Is not announcing, nor defining, but a lot of people talking around something interchanging points of view, giving new data, etc. Usenet, forums, comments attached to wiki pages or blog entries, even this very discussion, are examples of this third kind of online collaboration. In the discussion you maybe not reach a "conclusion", is not part of the forum itself (but someone could extract what he interprets as a conclusion on some topic and post it in i.e. a wiki page), is the discussion what is the final objective.
You can see slashdot (well, and probably most of the linked sites on this article) in two ways, if you see the front page is a collaborative weblog, but looking to single article is more like a collaborative forum.
to try the newest gentoo/64 package
If all this legislation is done to avoid the improbable event that Google could misuse information that a few could store in their servers, what about the sure event that Microsoft will misuse the information stored in most PCs everywhere?
I hope that the easier explanation according to Occam (i.e. that legislator is getting an extra payment this month from some private company) is not the right one.
Ok... this could be a flamebait, but is a match fire against the volcano fired by that legislator
Maybe his Membership category is off the chart, and is called God, Cthulu, Q, etc.
future ms sql internet worms will travel encrypted?
Ok, there are a level were animation could be so worse that you note the bad animation instead of the movie itself, and a level when is so good that you lose track of the movie and watch the animation (i.e. when Donkey now as a horse moves its head and you notice the hair animation).
But the middle point, where what you are actually watching the movie and don't letting the animation distract you because is too bad or too good, should be the best approach (er, unless is desired to go at least once more to see the movie to watch the animation or certain effects more in detail, of course)
Maybe is not yet perfect, but i like TikiWiki because it have all in one single package (enabling some sort of integration between features, unified security, etc).
The nice thing is not needed it, but having that alternative available. In a future something could make you need to run a windows program (for whatever, from firmware configuration to certain places idiot policy on required browsers/software/etc) and you'll prefer to have some way to run the desired software under linux that boot windows.
... that count as terrorism?
But not sure how this are managed in linux filesystems, not just ext2/3 and reiserfs, but also in xfs and jfs.
And if we put in the equation paying customers, then Yahoo could give more storage, their announce was for 100Mb free, and virtually unlimited for paying users
At least i don't tried to use Holliwood examples, like in Jurassik Park, Mimic or Godzilla, those examples would have been definatelly less serious than using Simpsons episodes.
And about controls, yep, the released rats could be sterilized, have some way of controlling/contain them, but, you know, shit happens and murphy rulez.
Maybe someone could cry if them don't blow up. Introducing new species in some environments could be harmful, and if they escape you could have a new plage on hand. There are already some examples of that happening, but as most should have seen the Simpsons examples of frogs in australia or lizards in springfield i think by now is evident why is bad.