nanog mailing list archives
Re: Please run windows update now
From: William Waites <wwaites () tardis ed ac uk>
Date: Mon, 15 May 2017 21:43:43 +0100
On May 15, 2017, at 21:17, valdis.kletnieks () vt edu wrote:So for example why does[n’t] a client OS confirm that you really meant to run a program on $THRESHOLD files…
How does the operating system detect that and throw a pop-up *before* that executes? It's a lot harder problem than you think. Hint: Fred Cohen's PhD thesis showed that detecting malware is isomorphic to the Turing Halting Problem.
The general problem might well be that hard, I don’t know, it seems plausible. However Barry’s suggestion doesn’t seem impossible. One strategy is as follows. Have a counter in the kernel about writes to files. Have some sort of log-structured filesystem with checkpoints or whatever. When the counter goes too fast, show Barry’s dialog box and if the user says no, roll back the filesystem to the time just before the process (or its parent, or its parent’s parent, …) started. There are details to be ironed out, of course, but there’s no reason in principle that it couldn’t be done like this. The reason that you don’t have to make the operating system solve the halting problem is because you ask the user. William Waites Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh Informatics Forum 5.38, 10 Crichton St. Edinburgh, EH8 9AB, Scotland The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
Current thread:
- Re: Please run windows update now, (continued)
- Re: Please run windows update now Joe (May 12)
- RE: Please run windows update now Keith Medcalf (May 12)
- Re: Please run windows update now Rich Kulawiec (May 14)
- Re: Please run windows update now valdis . kletnieks (May 15)
- RE: Please run windows update now Eliezer Croitoru (May 15)
- Re: Please run windows update now Randy Bush (May 15)
- Re: Please run windows update now Rich Kulawiec (May 15)
- Re: Please run windows update now Randy Bush (May 15)
- Re: Please run windows update now bzs (May 15)
- Re: Please run windows update now valdis . kletnieks (May 15)
- Re: Please run windows update now William Waites (May 15)
- Re: Please run windows update now bzs (May 15)
- Re: Please run windows update now J. Oquendo (May 15)
- Re: Please run windows update now Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG (May 15)
- Re: Please run windows update now valdis . kletnieks (May 15)
- Re: Please run windows update now Jonathan Roach (May 15)
- Re: Please run windows update now Brad Knowles (May 16)
- Re: Please run windows update now JoeSox (May 16)
- Re: Please run windows update now Brad Knowles (May 16)
- Re: Please run windows update now valdis . kletnieks (May 16)
- Re: Please run windows update now valdis . kletnieks (May 16)