Re: Get your computer viruses here!

[val smith <mvalsmith () gmail com>]

So my slight disagreement there is that its beneficial in the sense that
security people can learn from it. We wouldnt have techniques like binary
diffing or call graph comparison / analysis if it wasnt for malware. And
those methods are useful for much more than malware.

Also the idea of software protections (packing and encoding) that come  out
of malware are useful for copyright protection and other "binary security"
needs.

Again this is a rather subjective subject (ahah). You could make the analogy
that a biological virus has no good uses however we have begun using them
for genetic therapies and they have greatly helped us to understand how many
other biologic processes work.

This whole idea of publically available malware however is a "new" thing and
I guess it defies analogy.

I do see the difference between malware and a tool (i hope) but the langauge
necessary to talk about this subject is hard and any comparison or anallogy
that can be drawn will be flawed.

Thanks for the perspective though, I will think about it some more.

V.

On 12/28/05, Blue Boar <BlueBoar () thievco com> wrote:
> val smith wrote:
> > I guess what you haven't convinced me of yet is how "malware" is any
> > different from any other object in existance which can be used for both
> > good or evil. I could stand on the corner selling rocks which people
> > could use to study or to bash someone over the head with. How is that
> > much different?
>
> Again, not that I disapprove of your project in general, but I'm a
> little disappointed that you don't see the differences between "malware"
> and "tool".
>
> -Malware has no good applications.  The definition is that it is
> something you don't want running on your machine.  There are no good
> uses for it.  Good guys need to analyze it, so once it exists they need
> for it to be available to them, but they don't use it for its intended
> purpose.
>
> -Malware isn't like a vulnerability, technique or exploit.  Those
> already existed, and were just waiting to be discovered.  Malware isn't
> a problem and doesn't exist until someone creates it.  It's pure new
> problem.
>
> There's no beneficial use for malware, just a need to study it.
>
>                                                 BB
_______________________________________________
Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts.
https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec
Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list.