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I have a question. | by sir lox elroy | 2001-07-31 16:05:54 |
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Hmm | by brion | 2001-07-31 16:17:17 |
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The only reason I though about this, | by sir lox elroy | 2001-07-31 17:11:33 |
| My .02 |
by skeegenin |
2001-07-31 20:53:36 |
I basically agree with brion's analysis. Installing or altering (updating) software on computers without the official authority to do it will result in prosecution (sadly, even for computers you sysadmin in some cases... see Sunday's toon).
However, I also agree with your analysis that security has not historically been (nor, I believe, will it ever be) a high enough priority in most institutions. And something like the antivirus-virus you suggest could very well help matters. There are already tools that test and report for known vulnerabilities in systems (servers esp.), why not take it a step further and attempt to patch the vulnerability as it is found (assuming the specific cause can be determined)? Most (all?) worms and many rootkits will attempt to block the door they used to get into a hacked computer so the same one doesn't get broken into twice, so it should be possible this with decent success. But these tools are only run when a sysadmin decides to use them, and without that, you still run into the issues brion stated.
Thus, my recommendation to you is this. IF you decide to give something like this a shot, make it easy to control and don't program it to spread (at least not without VERY specific limits), and then ALWAYS get written or digitally "signed" consent before releasing it onto a network that's not yours. You could even sell it as a service that your latest antivirus-virus gets released onto a consenting network periodically or something (of course now this begins to look like the familiar antivirus updates via the net, but with a slightly twisted distribution process). But, hey, the service industry is booming, man!
Hope that was a useful pair of pennies. :) |
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