Golden Jubilee
Posts: 5177
Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 9:28 pm
Location: Lyman, IA
Sun May 14, 2017 4:50 pm
Wannacry virus
By now most have heard of it. Developed with a zero day bug known to the NSA and released in a hack.
We seam unable to learn from our mistakes. The NSA wants to keep these zero day bugs to themselves, when the whole world would be safer if they were eliminated.
Just like with nuclear weapons, he who has them 1st has a limited jump on others, but very quickly finds themselves facing the very same weapons.
One could argue Stuxnet slowed the Iranians in the nuclear weapons dept but hasn't stopped it. Same could be said about North Korea. Unlike Nuclear weapons, the cyber warfare realm doesn't take special equipment or tooling, it takes someone good at writing code. I went to highschool with just such people, in the early 70's they had the knowledge and skill to write viruses but put their efforts elsewhere, thank goodness. I had 3 friends that were already programing for businesses when they were still in high school. Some of my old classmates became very rich, because of their computer skills. They argued then, and it is just as applicable now, that the best way to stop these attacks is to get the information out to as many as possible as quickly as possible. In that way, the holes get plugged and the people know when and where to look for the problem. Yes, it does make it harder on spy agencies, but in the end, it makes it much less likely we will have our own weapons used against us.
The nature of computer code is there will always be bugs and un intended "back doors", but the antidote to such is getting them known as soon as possible. I think Wannacry is a disaster of our own making. Our experience with nuclear should teach us we will not always be the ones with the secret. Sooner or later we face that we had wielded against others.
We seam unable to learn from our mistakes. The NSA wants to keep these zero day bugs to themselves, when the whole world would be safer if they were eliminated.
Just like with nuclear weapons, he who has them 1st has a limited jump on others, but very quickly finds themselves facing the very same weapons.
One could argue Stuxnet slowed the Iranians in the nuclear weapons dept but hasn't stopped it. Same could be said about North Korea. Unlike Nuclear weapons, the cyber warfare realm doesn't take special equipment or tooling, it takes someone good at writing code. I went to highschool with just such people, in the early 70's they had the knowledge and skill to write viruses but put their efforts elsewhere, thank goodness. I had 3 friends that were already programing for businesses when they were still in high school. Some of my old classmates became very rich, because of their computer skills. They argued then, and it is just as applicable now, that the best way to stop these attacks is to get the information out to as many as possible as quickly as possible. In that way, the holes get plugged and the people know when and where to look for the problem. Yes, it does make it harder on spy agencies, but in the end, it makes it much less likely we will have our own weapons used against us.
The nature of computer code is there will always be bugs and un intended "back doors", but the antidote to such is getting them known as soon as possible. I think Wannacry is a disaster of our own making. Our experience with nuclear should teach us we will not always be the ones with the secret. Sooner or later we face that we had wielded against others.