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The Stuxnet worm may be the most sophisticated software ever written

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Re: The Stuxnet worm may be the most sophisticated software ever written

#271

Post by 3pt14159 »

nathanm412 wrote: post #67
vbsteven wrote: post #39

The scary thing about this is: Stuxnet is one of the "most sophisticated" pieces of malware we have discovered up until now . Who knows what kinds of software are still out there quietly doing their thing in the shadows.

We're quickly heading toward the age of the first Virtual WMD. The implications can be as wide as your imagination, but possibly worse than existing WMDs.

You're 100% right, but you should use the word cyber, not virtual.

I know hackers hate the word cyber because grandma uses it, but it's the right word for it. The stand-in "computer based" almost works, but it doesn't cover things like hacking radios.

Re: The Stuxnet worm may be the most sophisticated software ever written

#272

Post by Sangermaine »

kbutler wrote: post #262
ckocagil wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

MAD is a local maximum of peace, but only if we define "peace" to include "tense standoff". It appears to be the best we can do in the presence of overwhelmingly powerful offensive capabilities. Imagine the different "peace" if instead we had overwhelmingly powerful defensive capabilities.

But everyone would have to have those, or else the first country to develop them would have an insurmountable advantage. A country that has both nuclear weapons and the ability to block all attacks including nuclear would rule the world, or at least dominate it without opposition.

Re: The Stuxnet worm may be the most sophisticated software ever written

#273

Post by otakucode »

bingojess wrote: post #206
ssijak wrote: post #54

And then people make a fuss about Russia "hacking" the election with some dumb Facebook ads which cost less than maxed out Ford Mustang. When on the other hand we have the state-sponsored military grade/purpose viruses used to attack other nations/regions (Flume attacked a large number of targets and countries) and nobody blinks an eye.

Engineering an election to install a malleable leader in a rival country is the holy grail if you ask me. Developing the cyber equivalent of WMDs to get what you want is a relatively blunt tool, just like how North Korea is doing but they use nukes

It can backfire spectacularly, though, as the US (but sadly not the CIA) learned with their adventures with the Shah in Iran.

Re: The Stuxnet worm may be the most sophisticated software ever written

#274

Post by sodafountan »

Lionsion wrote: post #228
cobbzilla wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm sure whoever created it doesn't consider it a failure. Its mission was to destroy some expensive industrial centrifuges and set back Iran's nuclear program. And it destroyed some centrifuges precisely as it was designed to. At that point discovery is inevitable, but whatevs because "mission accomplished".

> It's mission was to destroy some expensive industrial centrifuges and set back Iran's nuclear program. And it destroyed some centrifuges precisely as it was designed to. At that point discovery is inevitable, but whatevs because "mission accomplished". I think it might be considered a partial success, but mostly failure. It did successfully set back Iran's nuclear program and destroy some centrifuges, but it spread…

^ Exactly

If Stuxnet was as successful as I'm sure its creators wanted it to be, we wouldn't be discussing it.

Re: The Stuxnet worm may be the most sophisticated software ever written

#275

Post by rjplatte »

This confuses cleverness for sophistication. Yes, Stuxnet is ingenious, but mostly in concept/access to secret Windows bugs, not execution. Something like Pagerank or modern video encoders easily beats Stuxnet in terms of sophistication/complexity.

Re: The Stuxnet worm may be the most sophisticated software ever written

#276

Post by eberkund »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #266
perlgeek wrote: post #236

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 my view, the sophistication is implied by the breadth of expertise required to put the whole thing together. Google Search and the OS landscape are for sure broad and sophisticated. However, their development was accomplished by computer scientists. 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…

But do those things really contribute to the sophistication of the software? For example imagine some code written with no understanding of uranium enrichment:

    const int CENTRIFUGE_RPM = 500;
And then some other code written with a deep understanding of uranium enrichment:

    const int CENTRIFUGE_RPM = 1203;
Can you really say that the second bit of code is more "complex"? Same goes for stolen driver signing keys and some of the other things mentioned in the post.

Other large software projects like operating systems or Google search involve much more complex software concepts which I think is the primary thing that should be measured when discussing the sophistication of software.

Re: The Stuxnet worm may be the most sophisticated software ever written

#277

Post by ivanhoe »

perlgeek wrote: post #236

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.

Lets not forget software used for extremely complicated and risky operations like Mars Rover or Rosetta mission, developers did some quite amazing things there with very limited hardware resources...

Re: The Stuxnet worm may be the most sophisticated software ever written

#278

Post by ktpsns »

eberkund wrote: post #276
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my view, the sophistication is implied by the breadth of expertise required to put the whole thing together. Google Search and the OS landscape are for sure broad and sophisticated. However, their development was accomplished by computer scientists. 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…

But do those things really contribute to the sophistication of the software? For example imagine some code written with no understanding of uranium enrichment: const int CENTRIFUGE_RPM = 500; And then some other code written with a deep understanding of uranium enrichment: const int CENTRIFUGE_RPM = 1203; Can you really say that the second bit of code is more "complex"? Same goes for stolen driver signing keys and so…

The complexity or quality of a software code does not neccessarily say anything about the complexity of the problem it solves.

Re: The Stuxnet worm may be the most sophisticated software ever written

#279

Post by jjcc »

threeseed wrote: post #73
vbsteven wrote: post #39

The scary thing about this is: Stuxnet is one of the "most sophisticated" pieces of malware we have discovered up until now . Who knows what kinds of software are still out there quietly doing their thing in the shadows.

"Russia has hacked into many of our government entities and domestic companies in the energy, nuclear, commercial facilities, water, aviation and critical manufacturing sectors" https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2018/03/16/russia-ha... The same was also reported by MI5, Europol and of course within Ukraine.

Whataboutism

Re: The Stuxnet worm may be the most sophisticated software ever written

#280

Post by lucideer »

eberkund wrote: post #276
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my view, the sophistication is implied by the breadth of expertise required to put the whole thing together. Google Search and the OS landscape are for sure broad and sophisticated. However, their development was accomplished by computer scientists. 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…

But do those things really contribute to the sophistication of the software? For example imagine some code written with no understanding of uranium enrichment: const int CENTRIFUGE_RPM = 500; And then some other code written with a deep understanding of uranium enrichment: const int CENTRIFUGE_RPM = 1203; Can you really say that the second bit of code is more "complex"? Same goes for stolen driver signing keys and so…

The second piece of code is not more complex, but it is (presumably) a lot more sophisticated.

The fact that I had to prefix that with "(presumably)"—i.e. I can't actually tell using my own expertise—is evidence of that.

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