5 ms·

Have you been tempted to build a worm and click send? not to brake anything, just a text popup with an optimistic optimistic quote.

by thawab 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
oskarsv 6y ago
only as a thought exercise. the ability to 'switch off the internet' (115 million daily active big corp users) is tempting, but no, not really :)
- jojobas 6y ago
  That's one way to force them to not make bug like that "important, spoofing" and "out of scope".
throwaway201103 6y ago
Google Robert Morris to find out how that goes.
- thawab 6y ago
  From his wikipedia: He is a longtime friend and collaborator of Paul Graham. Graham dedicated his book ANSI Common Lisp to Morris. Graham lists Morris as one of his personal heroes, saying "he's never wrong." to be friends with Paul Graham, i should make a worm. Got it.
  - xyzzy123 6y ago
    Ehh in 1988 that worm was like an alien artifact from the cyberpunk future. First "real" worm code, multi-platform, multiple payloads, "staging", first practical buffer overflow exploit and it does credential brute-forcing. Heck it was not until nearly a decade later that people were really doing buffer overflows, and there were a LOT of easy overflows to be found. I'd make the case rtm didn't just "make a worm" he foreshadowed the next few decades of computer exploitation. Took a whole bunch of research and ideas, synthesised them, built an actual working "product" a decade or two ahead of its time and released it in a transgressive way. If you are the kind of person who can do that I'm sure lots of people would like to be friends with you.
- web007 6y ago
  In case people don't know already, he's one of the YC founders: https://www.ycombinator.com/people/ https://www.ycombinator.com/people/
- rasz 6y ago
  or Samy Kamkar.
  - elwell 6y ago
    Samy is my hero
- JamesBarney 6y ago
  Wikipedia: In 1989, Morris was indicted for violating United States Code Title 18 (18 U.S.C. § 1030), the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).[2] He was the first person to be indicted under this act. In December 1990, he was sentenced to three years of probation, 400 hours of community service, and a fine of $10,050 plus the costs of his supervision. He appealed, but the motion was rejected the following March.[4] Morris' stated motive during the trial was "to demonstrate the inadequacies of current security measures on computer networks by exploiting the security defects [he] had discovered."[2] He completed his sentence as of 1994.
stjohnswarts 6y ago
It's one thing to find a security issue, it's another thing to exploit it and easily leads to jail time even if it's harmless.

Have you been tempted to build a worm and click send? not to brake anything, just a text popup with an optimistic optimistic quote.

by thawab 6y ago

Have you been tempted to build a worm and click send? not to brake anything, just a text popup with an optimistic optimistic quote.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

oskarsv 6y ago

only as a thought exercise. the ability to 'switch off the internet' (115 million daily active big corp users) is tempting, but no, not really :)

jojobas 6y ago
That's one way to force them to not make bug like that "important, spoofing" and "out of scope".

throwaway201103 6y ago

Google Robert Morris to find out how that goes.

thawab 6y ago
From his wikipedia: He is a longtime friend and collaborator of Paul Graham. Graham dedicated his book ANSI Common Lisp to Morris. Graham lists Morris as one of his personal heroes, saying "he's never wrong." to be friends with Paul Graham, i should make a worm. Got it.
- xyzzy123 6y ago
  Ehh in 1988 that worm was like an alien artifact from the cyberpunk future. First "real" worm code, multi-platform, multiple payloads, "staging", first practical buffer overflow exploit and it does credential brute-forcing. Heck it was not until nearly a decade later that people were really doing buffer overflows, and there were a LOT of easy overflows to be found. I'd make the case rtm didn't just "make a worm" he foreshadowed the next few decades of computer exploitation. Took a whole bunch of research and ideas, synthesised them, built an actual working "product" a decade or two ahead of its time and released it in a transgressive way. If you are the kind of person who can do that I'm sure lots of people would like to be friends with you.
web007 6y ago
In case people don't know already, he's one of the YC founders: https://www.ycombinator.com/people/ https://www.ycombinator.com/people/
rasz 6y ago
or Samy Kamkar.
- elwell 6y ago
  Samy is my hero
JamesBarney 6y ago
Wikipedia: In 1989, Morris was indicted for violating United States Code Title 18 (18 U.S.C. § 1030), the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).[2] He was the first person to be indicted under this act. In December 1990, he was sentenced to three years of probation, 400 hours of community service, and a fine of $10,050 plus the costs of his supervision. He appealed, but the motion was rejected the following March.[4] Morris' stated motive during the trial was "to demonstrate the inadequacies of current security measures on computer networks by exploiting the security defects [he] had discovered."[2] He completed his sentence as of 1994.

stjohnswarts 6y ago

It's one thing to find a security issue, it's another thing to exploit it and easily leads to jail time even if it's harmless.