Full Disclosure mailing list archives
Re: (no subject)
From: Maarten <fulldisc () ultratux org>
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 15:47:41 +0200
On Tuesday 10 August 2004 07:19, Nick FitzGerald wrote:
The appropriately-named Frank Knobbe wrote:Isn't the complete lack of naming standardization in the AV industry simply amazing? ...
However, if all AV vendors (and it would have to be all vendors or market forces would prevent it happening, so guess what is one of the largest things blocking better naming coordination?) were to agree a name perfectly before _any_ of them shipped updated detection for new viruses, it is a better than than fair bet that those same outsiders would the be ones complaining longest and loudest about how tardy AV vendors were at shipping "emergency" updates.
There is nothing stopping AV vendors from naming freshly discovered virii with an internal naming scheme (VENDOR-YYYYMMDDHHxy) pending a central database / organisation to name the virus. Then all vendors can rename the new strain from their generic temporary name to the definitive name. This is trivial, they update virus definitions all the time, why not also update the name. This could even be good for competition; the central authority could give credit to the first discoverer by naming the virus after the vendor who first found it (but I digress here). In the real world, things are very often named after their discoverers or inventors. Star systems, diseases, laws, etcetera. Of course, the first thing is to form that central authority, but then again lots of industries have a central authority -whether decreed by law or not- so it's not something deemed impossible. At least there are no technical barriers to stop that, only political ones. Despite the high rate of development as you outline below. Using a temporary name is quite simple to do, simple to update and overall better for everyone. Maarten
... Imagine that were the case in science, particular medicine...Or perhaps it would be better to imagine that you made a more meaningful analogy, such as asking how well you think medicine would do in maintaining naming consistency if entirely new strains and variants of viruses and pathological bacteria appeared world-wide at the rate computer malware proliferates. A little exercise of the grey cells will likely suggest that they are unlikely to do better in the short term (i.e. during the outbreak phase), but would probably do much better longer-term as the dieseases, outbreaks and treatments of "biological malware" tend to last _MUCH_ longer than their "computer cousins". If there was much oingoing need to coordinate names I think the AV industry would do better than it does now, but with the rate at which new variants appear being what it is, medium-term renaming and name coordination are both problematic and (generally) seen as having very little, if any, market value, so few people expend much effort on such renaming.
-- Yes of course I'm sure it's the red cable. I guarante[^%!/+)F#0c|'NO CARRIER _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html
Current thread:
- (no subject) Dufresne (Aug 09)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- (no subject) Dufresne (Aug 09)
- RE: (no subject) Jonathan Grotegut (Aug 09)
- RE: (no subject) Jonathan Grotegut (Aug 09)
- Re: (no subject) Bernardo Quintero (Aug 09)
- Re: (no subject) Frank Knobbe (Aug 09)
- Re: (no subject) Nick FitzGerald (Aug 09)
- Re: (no subject) Maarten (Aug 12)
- Re: (no subject) Nick FitzGerald (Aug 12)
- Re: (no subject) Todd Burroughs (Aug 13)
- Re: (no subject) Harlan Carvey (Aug 13)
- Re: (no subject) Barry Fitzgerald (Aug 13)
- Re: (no subject) Harlan Carvey (Aug 13)
- Re: (no subject) Barry Fitzgerald (Aug 13)
- Re: (no subject) Frank Knobbe (Aug 13)
- Re: (no subject) (try using a friggin subject line...) KF_lists (Aug 13)
- Re: (no subject) Bernardo Quintero (Aug 09)
- Re: (no subject) Nick FitzGerald (Aug 13)
- Re: (no subject) Maarten (Aug 13)