Full Disclosure mailing list archives
Re: Why is IRC still around?
From: Nick FitzGerald <nick () virus-l demon co uk>
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 09:02:07 +1300
Danny wrote:
Well, it sure does help the anti-virus (anti-malware) and security consulting business, but besides that... is it not safe to say that: 1) A hell of a lot of viruses/worms/trojans use IRC to wreck further havoc? 2) A considerable amount of "script kiddies" originate and grow through IRC? 3) A wee bit of software piracy occurs? 4) That many organized DoS attacks through PC zombies are initiated through IRC? 5) The anonymity of the whole thing helps to foster all the illegal and malicious activity that occurs? The list goes on and on... Sorry to offend those that use IRC legitimately (LOL - find something else to chat with your buddies), but why the hell are we not pushing to sunset IRC? What would IT be like today without IRC (or the like)? Am I narrow minded to say that it would be a much safer place?
I daresay the world would not be much different. The early dedicated DDoS systems had their own inter-agent communication channels of varying complexity and sophistication. I'm sure if something easy and convenient such as IRC were not around for the skiddie copycats that came along later to usurp, at least one or two of said copycats would probably have managed to scrape together just enough talent to roll their own simple, lightweight distributed messaging system to use as a communication and coordination channel for their bot armies and thus we'd have ended up more or less where we are. Likewise, other methods of more or less "anonymous" intercommunication between like-minded skiddies would have evolved had IRC not, as the nature of the underlying structure of the Internet is essentially anonymous communication (recall that this is a completely unintended, and perfectly expected, effect of the purpose of the underlying network technology -- it was to be used for a physically closed network, where the fact a machine was on the network _meant_ that machine was supposed to be there _and_ that its location _AND_ the names and whereabouts of the ranking officers responsible for the techies running it would be readily available). Ditto, s/w piracy would have found other largely untraceable online outlets such rooted FTP and web servers, compromised SOHO machines with fast connections and totally clueless "admins", P2P, etc, etc... In short, without IRC I'd expect we'd be pretty much exactly where we are anyway (save we would have had one less inane question to answer on some mailing list). -- Nick FitzGerald Computer Virus Consulting Ltd. Ph/FAX: +64 3 3529854 _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html
Current thread:
- Re: Why is IRC still around?, (continued)
- Re: Why is IRC still around? J.A. Terranson (Nov 19)
- Re: Why is IRC still around? Andrew Smith (Nov 20)
- Re: Why is IRC still around? Christian Fromme (Nov 20)
- Re: Why is IRC still around? Chris Umphress (Nov 20)
- Re: Why is IRC still around? Barrie Dempster (Nov 20)
- Re: Why is IRC still around? Matthew Kent (Nov 20)
- Re: Why is IRC still around? bkfsec (Nov 20)
- Re: Why is IRC still around? Danny (Nov 20)
- Re: Why is IRC still around? Geo. (Nov 21)
- Re: Why is IRC still around? Danny (Nov 20)
- Re: Why is IRC still around? TheGesus (Nov 20)
- Re: Why is IRC still around? Nick FitzGerald (Nov 20)
- Re: Why is IRC still around? Steve R (Nov 20)
- RE: Re: Why is IRC still around? Poof (Nov 21)
- Re: Why is IRC still around? Steve R (Nov 22)
- Re: Why is IRC still around? Steve R (Nov 20)
- Re: Why is IRC still around? Janusz A. Urbanowicz (Nov 20)
- Re: Why is IRC still around? hutuworm (Nov 21)
- Re: Why is IRC still around? nicolas vigier (Nov 23)
- Re: Why is IRC still around? Danny (Nov 23)
- Re: Why is IRC still around? nicolas vigier (Nov 24)
- Re: Why is IRC still around? Danny (Nov 23)
- RE: Why is IRC still around? Bowes, Ronald (EST) (Nov 19)
- Re: Why is IRC still around? Danny (Nov 19)