261–270 of 507 posts
So stuxworm is more sophisticated than an OS its written for? Sounds ridiculous.
Stuxnet changed history. Any "game of chicken" style equilibria is broken if the probability a nuclear actor's command and control drops below 100%. If there is even a 1% chance that when a Big Red Button is pushed the missiles fail to launch the game becomes unwinnable. Simulations of imperfect information in dynamic brinkmanship where both players are known to have advanced cyber capabilities results in a single dr…
Yes, it has the potential to break the MAD equilibrium. It's very ironic to me that offensive technologies do not threaten world peace as much as defensive technologies.
Imagine the different "peace" if instead we had overwhelmingly powerful defensive capabilities.
I'd argue that Google Search is much more sophisticated than Stuxnet. Windows is much more sophisticated. Linux is more sophisticated than Stuxnet. The list goes on. We tend to ignore the sophistication of things we are familiar with, and hype those that surprise. But that's not a fair measure of anything.
Windows has to cover a huge area and a lot of "known" unknowns and be able to recover (somewhat) reliably. Stuff breaks, you get weird error messages, that driver for your Wi-Fi never really worked right, but at the end of the day you have a computer that works pretty well, and that's quite remarkable. The same is of course true of Linux and other operating systems.
Stuxnet is a hyper-specialized piece of software (malware) that cannot fail or it loses it's purpose. The authors clearly knew they had to have multiple fallbacks for every step of the process, but I find it very impressive that it reached it's end goal successfully and without being discovered. A lot of software (including malware) break because of regular software bugs, environments that differ from the expected, interference by the user, the list goes on. For Stuxnet to have avoided all of those, that is quite sophisticated.
I'd argue that Google Search is much more sophisticated than Stuxnet. Windows is much more sophisticated. Linux is more sophisticated than Stuxnet. The list goes on. We tend to ignore the sophistication of things we are familiar with, and hype those that surprise. But that's not a fair measure of anything.
In order for stuxnet to be effective, it was necessary to employ expertise in:
- Uranium enrichment methods and processes
- Capital equipment control systems and their development environments
- Theory of operation of centrifuge machines
- Corporate espionage of some sort
- Organizational management skills that can pull all that together
- and deep understanding of the operating systems referenced above
Stuxnet changed history. Any "game of chicken" style equilibria is broken if the probability a nuclear actor's command and control drops below 100%. If there is even a 1% chance that when a Big Red Button is pushed the missiles fail to launch the game becomes unwinnable. Simulations of imperfect information in dynamic brinkmanship where both players are known to have advanced cyber capabilities results in a single dr…
Yes, it has the potential to break the MAD equilibrium. It's very ironic to me that offensive technologies do not threaten world peace as much as defensive technologies.
I'd argue that Google Search is much more sophisticated than Stuxnet. Windows is much more sophisticated. Linux is more sophisticated than Stuxnet. The list goes on. We tend to ignore the sophistication of things we are familiar with, and hype those that surprise. But that's not a fair measure of anything.
I'd argue that Google Search is much more sophisticated than Stuxnet. Windows is much more sophisticated. Linux is more sophisticated than Stuxnet. The list goes on. We tend to ignore the sophistication of things we are familiar with, and hype those that surprise. But that's not a fair measure of anything.
Without any kind of metric for “sophisticated” it’s all subjective anyhow. I like Stuxnet as an example - it’s devious and a true hacker approach, albeit as blackhat as they come.