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Slightly OT: Worms: Exploit Plug-ins and Benevolent Worms
- To: <linux-il(at-nospam)linux.org.il>
- Subject: Slightly OT: Worms: Exploit Plug-ins and Benevolent Worms
- From: Shlomi Fish <shlomif(at-nospam)techst02.technion.ac.il>
- Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 16:53:21 +0300 (EEST)
- Delivered-To: linux.org.il-linux-il@linux.org.il
- Sender: linux-il-bounce(at-nospam)cs.huji.ac.il
Just a thought I had in mind. It is probably a matter of time before some
smart hacker will write a worm that can be linked with the code or the
specification of various exploits. That way, this worm can propagate into
many computers, and in a way live on, assuming its source code is
available.
Now, I know there are differences of architectures and systems and that
not all computers are affected by the same worm (unless it compiles itself
or is written in perl or something like that), but it is still a very big
hazzard.
What could be done to solve it, is to make the worm a benevolent one. I.e:
one that closes the exploits as soon as it infiltrated the computer. This
is still illegal according to the law, but it's probably the best solution
yet. The worm should also make the existence of the potential exploit
known to the administrator, so he can fix it.
One could write an anti-Code-Red-II worm and put its source on USENET. He
should probably do it anonymously.
In any case, this fiasco raises some issues about the importance of
writing good code, and code auditing etc. My personal program (Freecell
Solver, which I mentioned quite a few times now) used to have quite a lot
of memory leaks and bugs in it. After I received some input confirming it,
and having learnt some tools to help me analyze it (and a lot of testing),
I managed to remove most of them. AFAIK, Freecell Solver 1.6.4, which is
the current stable version is bug-free, but I can never be certain.
Of course, I never recommend using it as part of a network service or even
running it as root, but it is a potential use for it.
Regards,
Shlomi Fish
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish shlomif@t2.technion.ac.il
Home Page: http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/
Home E-mail: shlomif@techie.com
A more experienced programmer does not make less bugs. He just realizes
what went wrong more quickly.
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