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Re: [Rival] Police Chasing Tiny Portions of 320,000,000 Windows Zombie

  • Subject: Re: [Rival] Police Chasing Tiny Portions of 320,000,000 Windows Zombie
  • From: Rex Ballard <rex.ballard@xxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 05:11:58 -0700 (PDT)
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On Aug 4, 5:33 am, Roy Schestowitz <newsgro...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Dutch police arrest 19-year-old accused of bot herding
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | The alleged bot herder faces trial in the Netherlands, where he will face
> | charges including breaking into computers.
> `----

Of course, rather than offer him a plea bargain, and find out exactly
how he spread something so effortlessly to so many computers, they
will try to limit the release of this information, since the actual
technology is so easy to spread using Microsoft's built-in "back
doors".

> http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php?id=1469030552&rid=-50
>
> They can never stop this by catching crooks (teenagers). It's a waste of police
> resources (taxpayers' expense) and it's like using a bucket to prevent the
> Titanic from drowning.

More like using a teaspoon.

> They need to address the problem at its source (quarantine Windows). It's not
> built to be secure. It can't be saved and even Microsoft considers starting
> all over.

Microsoft has released patches that will close the back doors, but it
also cripples Windows.  IE becomes Mosaic, Office becomes OpenOffice,
and media player becomes mplayer.  In effect, Windows becomes Linux.

The irony is that Linux can deliver macros, scripts, and embedded
graphics and other types of objects without getting massively infected
because no code is transferred, only industry standard compliant
content.  Microsoft would have to pretty much destroy everything that
makes Windows Windows, including OLE, COM+, ActiveX, and proprietary
formats.  This should have been done back in 1994, when Microsoft
first started attempting to push their proprietary standards onto the
Internet.

Keep in mind that from 1983 to 1994, the ONLY major successsful virus
to infect UNIX systems was the Morris Worm.  And once that worm was
unleashed, system administrators and Unix distributors closed all the
back doors, which ended the spread of malware via Unix systems.

Then Microsoft came up with their own "enhancements" including DHCP,
WEBDAV, and SMB and NetBIOS over TCP/IP.  Within months, the internet
was spreading viruses faster than the floppy disks (the previous
malware spreading medium was the boot tracks of floppy disks).

> Recent:

> Bots rule in cyberspace
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | USA TODAY REPORTS that on an average day, 40 per cent of the 800 million
> | computers connected to the Internet are bots used to send out spam, viruses
> | and to mine for sensitive personal data.
> `----

I'm surprised that it's that low.  Perhaps only the really "public"
machines are being counted.  Some of the most malicious viruses are
carefully directed to spread to specific targets and not spread beyond
a few generations.

> http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/03/17/bots-rule-cybe...


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