Science: throttling computer viruses

Eric Cordian emc at artifact.psychedelic.net
Thu May 20 11:01:46 PDT 2004


Major Variola writes:

>  Computer viruses and worms are an increasing problem throughout the
> world. By some estimates 2003 was the worst year yet:
>  Viruses halted or hindered operations at numerous businesses and other
> organizations, disrupted cash-dispensing machines,

I have a dual boot system which normally runs Linux.  Since it had been a
couple of months since I last ran XP, I booted it on Tuesday to run
Windows Update, and keep it current with critical patches.  Within
minutes, before I had even downloaded the first update, my box ground to a
nearly screeching halt from Sasser, and some other piece of malware which
was trying to make thousands of connections to random IPs on port 5000.

I've had Linux exposed to the Net for years, and have never had these
kinds of problems.  You really wonder why someone doesn't arrest Bill
Gates for software malpractice.

It's really silly when code can leap into your machine, install itself, 
configure itself to start up again every time the system is booted, and 
then sit there using all your system resources looking for other boxes to 
victimize.  Didn't we learn all we needed to know about provably correct 
secure inpenetrable kernels with MULTICS in the 1960's?  Why has the world 
of computing been subjected to 20 years of Microsoft slowly reinventing 
the wheel starting with DOS, and they still haven't gotten it right.

We recall McDonalds toys with parts kids can bite off and choke on, but we 
let millions of lines of closed source code that does Lord-knows-what on 
various network ports run on nearly every machine in the universe with 
impunity.

-- 
Eric Michael Cordian 0+
O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division
"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"





More information about the cypherpunks-legacy mailing list