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In contrast, I think they're getting progressively more and more useful in light of an increasingly larger and more automatedly hostile world network. I imagin
by ethbro 10y ago
In contrast, I think they're getting progressively more and more useful in light of an increasingly larger and more automatedly hostile world network.
I imagine in the 1970s there weren't a whole lot of hacks that began with "scan the entirety of ARPANET to find a few vulnerable machines, then apply vulnerability."
- DanBC 10y ago>I imagine in the 1970s there weren't a whole lot of hacks that began with "scan the entirety of ARPANET to find a few vulnerable machines, then apply vulnerability." The RTM worm (1986?) springs to mind. Eugene Spafford write up: http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1701&context=cstech http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1701&... A different write up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5302924 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5302924 With Microscope and Tweezers: http://www.mit.edu/~eichin/virus/main.html http://www.mit.edu/~eichin/virus/main.html
- ethbro 10y agoGreat links! (Refreshing my knowledge now) :-) My point was that the economics that justified 80s worms didn't exist in the 70s and earlier. There simply weren't enough systems networked to make an automated attack preferable over a bespoke, single-system approach. And extrapolate that change into the future with more and more machines of standardized config being connected to the internet... and automated attack and use becomes more and more attractive. Which means prevention of automated attack should become more useful.
- omginternets 10y agoI tend to agree with you, but I'm a bit at a loss as to how we can gain some formal insight into this question. If an obfuscation layer were to reduce risk, what would that look like and how could we measure it? I'd be really interested in running an informal study.