Full Disclosure mailing list archives
Re: DCOM/RPC story (Analogy)
From: Jarmo Joensuu <j_joensuu () yahoo com>
Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2003 13:05:30 -0700 (PDT)
we are into analogies now... here's another one: A scientist working for al-Qaida invents a new way of making a relatively powerful explosive from supplies that can be purchased from a grocery store in Afghanistan. He wants to make it available for his buddies currently working as software programmers at Micr...whatever...in the United States, so that they can blow up that annoying needle that always looks 5 times taller than what it actually is in all those postcards. Anyway, the scientist had a problem: how was he going to get the bomb to the 'States? After all, it was not practical to send it by postal mail, and with the new scrutiny at the U.S. airports, he did not feel comfortable to send it with a courier either. He also wasn't sure whether his buddies can actually obtain the right ingredients from a grocery store in the 'States. So he decided that he was going to send them a pack of the right groceries and a recipe. All his buddies had to do was to copy what he had done. Albeit not with a hex editor, though. I guess that would amount to 'unethical use of kitchen equipment'. And if the dudes actually succeeded in bombing Seattle, there would probably be those who would say that "hey...maybe they were not all that bad...maybe just wanted to show us the importance of fixing the holes in our national security..." duh, JJ --- Kristian Hermansen <khermansen () ht-technology com> wrote:
I also agree with you. The kid is guilty of nothing more than "Unethical use of a hex editor". And here's my MAIN FUCKING POINT SO LISTEN UP ALL OF YOU: THE 7000 COMPUTERS THAT HE SUPPOSEDLY INFECTED WOULD HAVE BEEN INFECTED BY THE "ORIGINAL" WORM HAD THEY NOT BEEN COMPROMISED BY HIS VARIANT FIRST. SO WHAT'S THE FUCKING CRIME? READ BELOW... The analogy is this: A scientist drops a monkey infected with the Ebola virus into a large tank containing 20,000 other monkeys. Some monkeys have been given a shot to protect them from infection, so as the virus spreads they do not become a carrier. The outbreak starts at the far west end of the container and is working its way to the east side, infecting every monkey exponentially as they all pass it on to their neighbors. One of the smarter monkeys gets infected and realizes what is happening. For some strange reason this monkey knows that drinking a certain liquid (on the floor of the container) will slightly alter the properties of the virus he has become infected with immediately. He stirs up the other end of the container by hurling a pile of his own feces. Now, the outbreak has not reached that end of the tank yet (but most definitely will in time) and the outbreak is now spreading from the west and east ends toward the center. After the outbreak has reached its infection maximum and looking at all of the dead monkeys on the tank floor, the uninfected monkeys start asking questions as to what the hell happened to their brothers and sisters. Weeks go by and no one has an answer. Finally, one monkey overhears a conversation about how one guy threw his shit all the way across the tank. That's the guy we need to punish they concluded. They apprehend the monkey on his death bed for throwing his own shit and causing the outbreak at the east end of the tank, which supposedly killed 7000 monkeys. They continued looking for the original infectioner, but the scientist was never discovered. Some of the monkeys started to blame God for allowing this infection to be possible. "Why the hell does God want to torture us? We are but mere mortals!", exclaimed one monkey. "God works in funny ways...", sighed another monkey. Kris Hermansen ceo () ht-technology com On Sat, Aug 30, 2003 at 10:39:53AM -1000, Jason Coombs wrote:if he made the modifications and gave the modifiedworm to other people butdidn't cause it to infect anyone else's computers,then what crime is heguilty of exactly? criminal misuse of a hexeditor? it could certainly be argued that the "damage" caused by this copy of the program is no greater than it would have been if his home computer had simply been infected and passed it on in the usual way. in fact, maybe he is even the pioneer of a new art form where people, out of respect for the rights of the autonmous agent, refuse to remove these programs from their computers and use hex editors to tattoo their message onto the worms' backs. i can see web sites with worm poetry -- the random juxtaposition of sentences that trace a particular worm geneaology as it passes across the mesh, perhaps even paper-bound volumes. other than neglecting to install a program with a genocidal attitude towards certain processes, what exactly did this guy do wrong?
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Current thread:
- DCOM/RPC story (Analogy) Kristian Hermansen (Aug 31)
- RE: DCOM/RPC story (Analogy) Steven Fruchter (Aug 31)
- RE: DCOM/RPC story (Analogy) madsaxon (Aug 31)
- Re: DCOM/RPC story (Analogy) Ralf (Aug 31)
- Re: DCOM/RPC story (Analogy) Kristian Hermansen (Aug 31)
- RE: DCOM/RPC story (Analogy) madsaxon (Aug 31)
- Re: DCOM/RPC story (Analogy) Jarmo Joensuu (Aug 31)
- RE: DCOM/RPC story (Analogy) Steven Fruchter (Aug 31)