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Off topic but is does anyone else feel that the phrase “logic bomb” is too meaningless for the frequency with which it shows up in reporting these days? It mak
by ghostpepper 7y ago
Off topic but is does anyone else feel that the phrase “logic bomb” is too meaningless for the frequency with which it shows up in reporting these days?
It makes it sound more sophisticated than it is. What’s wrong with calling it malware? Or even better, simply criminal behaviour that happens to involve a computer.
- thrower123 7y agoHmm, is this a common turn of phrase in reporting these days? I can't recall that expression being used outside of some rather old science fiction.
- markstos 7y agoI rarely see "logic bombs" in the news, but I remember the day the customer called angry on April 1st, complaining that their spreadsheet quit working. It seemed unlikely to be an April Fool's Day joke, but I knew the code hadn't changed so I couldn't understand why it would quit working. Root cause? The fiscal year in the spreadsheet started in April, which made it the "zeroth" month, which triggered a logic failure due to this being a false value. It would have made a great hard-to-spot logic bomb... if I had planted it intentionally!
- jrockway 7y agoWe really like PR in this field. We call making a copy of a file "piracy", as in piracy on the high seas. We call adding a password to an Excel spreadsheet a "bomb", as in a device designed for leveling entire cities and brutally murdering everyone nearby. We call adding restrictions to books and films "digital rights", kind of like the "bill of rights" that protects our country's core values. The prosecutors and industries that coined these terms are very clever. For the petty crimes that they describe, they can turn the outrage up to eleven by comparing the most minor transgression to murder. In the case of DRM, the industry managed to convince people to buy new TVs, monitors, video cards, and cables... to protect their rights? Their right to be turned upside down and have the coins and bills shaken out of their pants, I guess.
- elcomet 7y agoI think the word piracy was not invented by tech people, but by right holders who wanted to make it look as bad as real piracy. It was an amazing strategy for them.
- im3w1l 7y agoAs I remember it, the pirates called it piracy, and the right holders preferred calling it theft (you wouldn't steal a car).
- justincredible 7y agoTo be precise, the "bomb" was being obfuscated by the password, not the password per se.
- vokep 7y ago"Digital rights" feels quite appropriate and accurate though, and in fact should be considered a natural extension of the rights in the bill of rights.
- jrockway 7y agoI'm not sure that software which prevents you from attaching a debugger to iTunes is giving you rights. The FSF seems to like calling it "digital restrictions management". I can get on board with that. (Every few years I edit the Wikipedia article to try and make that name stick, but it gets reverted immediately.)
- friendlybus 7y agoMost things in computing come with a metaphoric or symbolic phrase. The desktop, windows, a mouse, bugs. It's not just limited to things you perceive as weaponized. Whatever they call piracy that isn't 'piracy' will come to have the same prosecutorial meaning behind it when it is mentioned because of the ad campaigns and actual legal action committed in real life under it's name.
- PeterisP 7y agoLogic bomb is a term for a very specific subtype of malware, and it is quite informative and useful to use this term - it gives a proper impression about what this particular malware does and doesn't do. It immediately suggests that it has a delayed action that creates a disruption after some time (and not right away); that it is hidden (as opposed to e.g. ransomware), that it's intentionally deployed there (as opposed to someone accidentally getting infected), that it's most likely not spreading itself automatically like a virus and that the damage isn't controlled in realtime like in a botnet, etc. Simply saying 'malware' would not tell us this information, so it would be vague and inaccurate instead of using the appropriate terminology.
- ghostpepper 7y agoSo the delay, or triggering condition, is the differentiator? Thanks, that actually makes a bit more sense. I skimmed the wikipedia page before posting and it wasn't immediately obvious.
- jlgaddis 7y agoI think the "delayed action" aspect is key to the use of the term "logic bomb" -- as in the phrase "a ticking time bomb waiting to go off" that we've probably all heard. As PeterisP mentioned, the delayed action is integral to the concept of a logic bomb, as opposed to just invoking a piece of malware that immediately starts breaking things. Delaying the "attack" helps to hide its origin, making it harder to discover the cause of the problems.
- im3w1l 7y agoGoing even further off topic, but it's pretty neat that logic bombs exist in nature. Plasmids are circular dna molecules found in bacteria. They can replicate independently of their host, and they can spread to other bacteria. They often provide useful functions, most famously - antibiotic resistance, to their host. So there is a high degree of symbiosis. Anyway plasmids have these things called addiction molecules to prevent the bacteria from eliminating them. They create a long lived poison, and a short lived anti-poison. If the plasmid is no longer around, then the anti-poison degrades and the cell dies.
- duxup 7y agoI guess it depends on your definition but something designed to go off (negatively) after a predetermined time and dork up the logic of a program seems apt.
- markstos 7y agoWeapons don't have be sophisticated to be used as weapons. Even physical bombs don't have be sophisticated to be bombs. "It wasn't an armed robbery, it was just unsophisticated criminal behavior that happened to involve a gun."