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The Mirai Botnet Was Part of a College Student Minecraft Scheme

wired.com

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Re: The Mirai Botnet Was Part of a College Student Minecraft Scheme

#51

Post by Tomte »

tptacek wrote: post #35
sasas wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Schneier is a so-called expert who has testified in front of congress Schneier has been around for a long time, knows the industry well and has made significant contributions. Not everyone get's things right all the time including Schneier. Credibility wise he .. - has a master's degree in computer science - was awarded an honorary Ph.D from the University of Westminster in London - is chief technology officer of B…

I don't want to throw more shade at Schneier than needs to be thrown, but I want to point out that you've pointed out basically two† real credentials: * He has a masters degree. * He wrote a bunch of popular books, and reaped a lot of fame from them. I work, part-time, in the cryptography space his best-known books cover. His most popular book, Applied Cryptography, is not well regarded in the field. Opinions differ…

Schneier decided to leave the academic/technical side and become a pundit.

That‘s nothing to be ashamed of, I‘m sure he didn‘t just do it for the fame, but because he wanted to make things better. I still think he‘s a better cryptographer than writer, but he really seems to enjoy writing.

But it feels uncomfortable when people misunderstand his role.

(And he lost some of my good-will and admiration when he ridiculed Randall Munroe‘s comic and didn‘t have it in him to post a correction for what was basically him not reading the comic, but projecting something he already had in mind. That happens to everyone, it‘s a bit embarassing and not really bad, but sticking to it when he knows full well that the masses trust him is inexcusable.)

Re: The Mirai Botnet Was Part of a College Student Minecraft Scheme

#52

Post by tptacek »

disconnected wrote: post #43
chatmasta wrote: post #11

> “We don’t know who is doing this, but it feels like a large nation-state. China or Russia would be my first guesses.” [Bruce Schneier when Mirai first appeared] This looks especially foolish now. Schneier is a so-called expert who has testified in front of congress. He should be more careful when engaging in rampant speculation like this. What basis did he have for such an assumption? I don’t understand why every s…

Wired is misusing that quote, since it does not pertain to Mirai specifically, but to cyberwarfare in general. Here's the source titled "Someone Is Learning How to Take Down the Internet", dated September 2016: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/09/someone_is_le... The source paragraph does not mention Mirai at all (nor does the article): > Over the past year or two, someone has been probing the defenses of…

I read the original at the time and again yesterday, along with Brian Krebs' epic article, and it seems pretty clear that he's talking about the same phenomenon Brian Krebs is talking about.

Re: The Mirai Botnet Was Part of a College Student Minecraft Scheme

#53

Post by lbill »

fps_doug wrote: post #45
disconnected wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wired is misusing that quote, since it does not pertain to Mirai specifically, but to cyberwarfare in general. Here's the source titled "Someone Is Learning How to Take Down the Internet", dated September 2016: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/09/someone_is_le... The source paragraph does not mention Mirai at all (nor does the article): > Over the past year or two, someone has been probing the defenses of…

Yes, but still. I read the article when it was first published and felt it was the usual "evil communism" bs (which I honestly wouldn't have expected from Mr. Schneider), and this time around we actually got a definite answer proving these kind of claims wrong. Nowadays every time some news pop up revolving around cyber attacks more sooner than later someone points at China or Russia, with some very vague evidence at…

I think we are taking this the wrong way. The situation is "we more or less blamed Mirai on a State sponsored actor", and we focus our attention on "hey, you were wrong! How dare you suspect foreign governments? That's kind of racist!".

I see it as a minor concern, the major one being "Mirai is the definitive proof that your don't need the means and resources of a big hacking team financed by a government to cripple the internet. 3 kids who want to cheat on minecraft can do it". Sure, we already kinda knew that, but this proof is quite scary.

Re: The Mirai Botnet Was Part of a College Student Minecraft Scheme

#54

Post by drivingmenuts »

tptacek wrote: post #35
sasas wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Schneier is a so-called expert who has testified in front of congress Schneier has been around for a long time, knows the industry well and has made significant contributions. Not everyone get's things right all the time including Schneier. Credibility wise he .. - has a master's degree in computer science - was awarded an honorary Ph.D from the University of Westminster in London - is chief technology officer of B…

I don't want to throw more shade at Schneier than needs to be thrown, but I want to point out that you've pointed out basically two† real credentials: * He has a masters degree. * He wrote a bunch of popular books, and reaped a lot of fame from them. I work, part-time, in the cryptography space his best-known books cover. His most popular book, Applied Cryptography, is not well regarded in the field. Opinions differ…

> He should write HN comments rather than pieces that get syndicated into magazines.

Sure, but he wouldn’t get paid very well for that.

Re: The Mirai Botnet Was Part of a College Student Minecraft Scheme

#55

Post by TheBestKorea »

wolfgke wrote: post #39
chatmasta wrote: post #11

> “We don’t know who is doing this, but it feels like a large nation-state. China or Russia would be my first guesses.” [Bruce Schneier when Mirai first appeared] This looks especially foolish now. Schneier is a so-called expert who has testified in front of congress. He should be more careful when engaging in rampant speculation like this. What basis did he have for such an assumption? I don’t understand why every s…

> > “We don’t know who is doing this, but it feels like a large nation-state. China or Russia would be my first guesses.” [Bruce Schneier when Mirai first appeared] > This looks especially foolish now. Schneier is a so-called expert who has testified in front of congress. He should be more careful when engaging in rampant speculation like this. Perhaps by being not a native speaker of English and not living in the US…

People have the responsibility when making predictions that others will take action based on their prediction.

Speculation without merit, only going by "first guess" should not be shared.

If you are an expert, your opinion (even offhand) carries weight.

Re: The Mirai Botnet Was Part of a College Student Minecraft Scheme

#56

Post by wolfgke »

TheBestKorea wrote: post #55
wolfgke wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > “We don’t know who is doing this, but it feels like a large nation-state. China or Russia would be my first guesses.” [Bruce Schneier when Mirai first appeared] > This looks especially foolish now. Schneier is a so-called expert who has testified in front of congress. He should be more careful when engaging in rampant speculation like this. Perhaps by being not a native speaker of English and not living in the US…

People have the responsibility when making predictions that others will take action based on their prediction. Speculation without merit, only going by "first guess" should not be shared. If you are an expert, your opinion (even offhand) carries weight.

> People have the responsibility when making predictions that others will take action based on their prediction.

I agree - and this is why Bruce Schneier (in my opinion) formulated his statements so cautiously and clearly pointed out the lack of evidence.

Of course people will take action - but this can mean anything:

- Doing undercover investigation to collect evidence whether China or Russia is really behind it or this was a red herring: I would consider this as a pretty good idea under the given circumstances.

- Accusing China or Russia on the world stage that they are behind these attacks: A really bad idea.

But both are plausible actions based on the "prediction" - and I would call the first one actually a good idea under the given circumstances.

Re: The Mirai Botnet Was Part of a College Student Minecraft Scheme

#57

Post by wlesieutre »

PurpleRamen wrote: post #30
majewsky wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in Germany, it's illegal to leave your car door unlocked. (Not sure about house doors.) The rationale is that it invites crime.

Actually it's illegal to lock the housedoor, because of emergency situations. In case something happend and the people need to flee, they could be trapped in the house. Also technically it's not illegal to leave your car door unlocked, Police just handles it that way. The law demands that the car cannot be misused.

It's not illegal to lock your house door, that's only locks that require a key to unlock from inside. Normal deadbolts are fine. You just can't lock people in.

Example here http://www.ahouseonarock.com/chesterfieldhomeinspector/doubl...

People have used these thinking "Someone could break the glass, reach in, and turn the deadbolt to open the door," but it's really not worth the trade-off of "My house is on fire and I can't get out."

Re: The Mirai Botnet Was Part of a College Student Minecraft Scheme

#59

Post by dylz »

verroq wrote: post #37

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-... FBI indictments > JIIA further participated in a Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) hijacking scheme in which JIIA and co-conspirators fraudulently gained control over IP addresses that were in legitimate use by third parties. JIIA conducted these activities to consolidate and maximize the power of the Mirai botnet. [1] Uhh what? [1] https://www.justice.gov/o…

At the very least they stole IPs for the hell of it. Datawagon, Protraf, ....

The cybercrime hosts stole a ton of space, even impersonating dead people and falsifying documents. Served malware, etc off them

https://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/query/SBL180438

Also stole a ton for abuse/C&C/etc. https://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/query/SBL287709 (check whois names at bottom)

They also hijacked 1.3.3.0/24 to announce 1.3.3.7/32 (you can guess why).

Re: The Mirai Botnet Was Part of a College Student Minecraft Scheme

#60

Post by akhilcacharya »

chatmasta wrote: post #11

> “We don’t know who is doing this, but it feels like a large nation-state. China or Russia would be my first guesses.” [Bruce Schneier when Mirai first appeared] This looks especially foolish now. Schneier is a so-called expert who has testified in front of congress. He should be more careful when engaging in rampant speculation like this. What basis did he have for such an assumption? I don’t understand why every s…

>But I’m sure the DNC hack was the work of an advanced nation state

Do you have a better explanation? I'm all ears. I haven't heard one.

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