7 ms·

There's an example in this article: http://domainincite.com/bit-squatting-%E2%80%93-the-latest-risk-to-domain-name-owners/ http://domainincite.com/bit-squattin

There's an example in this article: http://domainincite.com/bit-squatting-%E2%80%93-the-latest-risk-to-domain-name-owners/ http://domainincite.com/bit-squatting-%E2%80%93-the-latest-r... Also, could ECC memory for clients solve this problem?

joss82 15y ago
They changed microsoft.com to mic2soft.com: only 1 bit difference between the two. I'm astonished that they got so many hits with that. Someone bit-squatting with many different combinations of the same domain can really do some damage...
- evilswan 15y ago
  Forgive me, genuinely interested - how does 1-bit difference turn microsoft into mic2soft.. ?
  - Mithrandir 15y ago
    In ASCII, microsoft is: 0110110101101001011000110_1_1100100110111101110011011011110110011001110100 micr2soft is: 0110110101101001011000110_0_1100100110111101110011011011110110011001110100 The important bit is the one between the underscores.
    - evilswan 15y ago
      Gotcha - thank you.
    - unwind 15y ago
      I think the question is made more relevant when taking into account that the poster above omitted the 'r' ("mic2soft"), thus causing the name to be shortened which is, indeed, very hard to call a 1-bit error.
- joss82 15y ago
  Sorry, I made a typo: please replace mic2soft with mic2osoft. And by the way, there are "only" 72 (9 characters x 8 bits) domains to register to cover all the 1-bit error for microsoft.com. If one discards not-valid characters like _,. or A-Z, it might actually be way less...
inaequitas 15y ago
I saw this talk at DEFCON. ECC memory solves the problem, however there are many components that don't have it, even in servers: NICs, HDDs/SSDs, or routers on the path. The most hits reported by the researcher were related to FarmVille, and what appeared to be caching of DNS entries by a Facebook CDN. But there were instances of Windows software updates and iPhone activations as well.

joss82 15y ago

They changed microsoft.com to mic2soft.com: only 1 bit difference between the two. I'm astonished that they got so many hits with that. Someone bit-squatting with many different combinations of the same domain can really do some damage...

evilswan 15y ago
Forgive me, genuinely interested - how does 1-bit difference turn microsoft into mic2soft.. ?
- Mithrandir 15y ago
  In ASCII, microsoft is: 0110110101101001011000110_1_1100100110111101110011011011110110011001110100 micr2soft is: 0110110101101001011000110_0_1100100110111101110011011011110110011001110100 The important bit is the one between the underscores.
  - evilswan 15y ago
    Gotcha - thank you.
  - unwind 15y ago
    I think the question is made more relevant when taking into account that the poster above omitted the 'r' ("mic2soft"), thus causing the name to be shortened which is, indeed, very hard to call a 1-bit error.
joss82 15y ago
Sorry, I made a typo: please replace mic2soft with mic2osoft. And by the way, there are "only" 72 (9 characters x 8 bits) domains to register to cover all the 1-bit error for microsoft.com. If one discards not-valid characters like _,. or A-Z, it might actually be way less...

inaequitas 15y ago

I saw this talk at DEFCON. ECC memory solves the problem, however there are many components that don't have it, even in servers: NICs, HDDs/SSDs, or routers on the path. The most hits reported by the researcher were related to FarmVille, and what appeared to be caching of DNS entries by a Facebook CDN. But there were instances of Windows software updates and iPhone activations as well.