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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

#401

Post by hutzlibu »

elago wrote: post #391
AYBABTME wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of topic but your defense for referencing Kaspersky makes me wonder why people would see a problem with it? I'm not familiar with the field and don't know who's who.

They're a Russian company and semi-recently Trump banned their software from government agencies. People theorize they're controlled by the Russian government but I've never come across any evidence that they're anything other than a top tier security company though. They have done some fairly bold moves in the past though, like cleverly calling out other AV companies that were copying their detections [0] and kind o…

From:

"[0]https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/10/kaspersky_malware_d...

"I've received feedback from people who were just focusing on the question why other anti-virus companies would detect a clean file we uploaded. And I can only repeat as I did in the blog: This could have happened to us as well," Kalkuhl explained."

Well, he clearly says, the test was to expose the "negative effect of cheap static on-demand tests" and not that others copied from them, because this seems to be routine and they do the same.

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

#402

Post by kchr »

jaclaz wrote: post #393
lima wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual monitoring is done by the embedded controller, Windows is just there for displaying fancy panels and programming the devices.

Ok, still seemingly the trick Stuxnet used was looping a good copy of those fancy panels and (still through windows) changing (slightly) the operating parameters of the machine, so in this case Windows (directly or indirectly) was capable of monitoring the device and change its operating status.

Are you saying that there are no zero-days for platforms other than Windows? There could just as well have been a Linux computer used as interface to the embedded system that runs the centrifuges, that could be owned.

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

#403

Post by 7952 »

vertexFarm wrote: post #214
organicmultiloc wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is not everyone on the world stage is a rational game theory nerd that links to papers like we want them to be. Also 60 years of treating every other country as a box in a threat model to be manipulated against other boxes has been a completely unmitigated disaster, so maybe we should stop that.

For all the evidence we have, MAD has worked. Still here. Still no WWIII. At the beginning of the twentieth century it was looking like we'd have another world war every twenty years or so for the rest of time. As best we can tell, nukes actually did end large-scale war. I would call that at least a partially mitigated disaster.

Do we really have enough data to draw conclusions? A nuclear war could break out in ten years time and be orders of magnitude worse than WWII. That would invalidate MAD in an instant.

Nuclear weapons create a requirement that you safety depends on the pragmatism and sanity of leaders and government. Not only of your own country but your enemies.

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

#405

Post by Dolores12 »

trumped wrote: post #377
Dolores12 wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>why would bugs even exist people make mistakes, it is innate feature of human being. Bugs exist because it is not economically effective to find them. Bugs, given unlimited amount of resources, is possible easy to find whenever they are. Google how one guy hacked infamous HackingTeam alone. He provided some estimates how long it took him. Does it make his software the most sophisticated one on the planet? If his sof…

Because something takes a long time to do doesn't necessarily mean that it is complex...

Are you talking about finding bugs? That's exactly the case.

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

#406

Post by bluGill »

Certhas wrote: post #392
bluGill wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are still pumps: a physical system. Give me a couple hours and I can get gasoline out of any gas station without needing electricity. Of course I will destroy large parts of the machine in the process. I'll get my gas, and so will anyone else while that turns the crank. The pump will need to be replaced to use normally afterwards. The bigger worry is gasoline in tanks is good for at most a month. The refinery is…

Maybe you would, would people everywhere? Also, the tanks are underground, encased in concrete, with a submersible pump, and there are no power tools. Might be possible to get to them. But that's solving one problem. If we're talking continent scale blackout it's also unclear what that gets you. Typical backup power is measured in hours or days. Black start time scale for a blackout that scale is potentially signific…

I said I could, not that I would.

My first thought when this happens is society will get itself going again in a few weeks. I wouldn't want to be the looter who robbed a gas station in the trouble. By time it was obvious that society isn't getting back together the gas in their tanks is bad so I wouldn't want it. I'd be more interested in robbing the hardware store to get shovels, and other supplies for gardening so that I can live long term. Hopefully my neighbors are helping as well, division of labor is helpful.

This assumes I survive. Anyone who is this interested in destroying society is probably going to use other means as well to kill people at the same time.

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

#407

Post by indiv0 »

bluGill wrote: post #399
tajen wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me the most surprising result would be if it cost fewer than bombing the nuclear facility. At 100k$ each bomb, Stuxnet looks affordable, plus all the expertise and other attack vectors you get from piecing it togethet.

$100K for a bomb? I have no idea what bombs really cost, but if we go with that number, they could have dropped a lot of bombs for that price. One junior engineer working for a year costs that much. We know that expertise in a lot of fields existed, that implies a number of engineers. I'm going to guess a bomb is cheaper. Of course a bomb has a lot of other disadvantages which is why it wasn't used.

One particularly expensive component of stuxnet is deniability. Although the commonly accepted theory for stuxnet's invention is "a state actor", specifically the United States, there's no proof of that at all. And conjecture without proof poses no threat to the US government.

If the government were to, on the otherhand, bomb Iranian nuclear facilities, one small mistake in the plan could ruin their chances of deniability, bringing down international condemnation on the US.

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

#408

Post by xtracto »

reitanqild wrote: post #378
ordinaryradical wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a powerful distinction that I feel it should help us rethink language paradigms. Complexity is not (just) the complications one can impose by construct or the involutions required of ones algorithms, it's the overall real world system your code addresses. Simple programs which are coded simply may address complex phenomena to complex ends--perhaps that's even the ideal?

Something something about simple rules being able to describe complex behaviour. Example: you can describe a flock of birds in motion around an object with 2 or 3 rules. Complex rules yields stupid results. Example: tax codes in most countries. Must be a quote but I wasn't able to find a source for it.

That something something is actually Agent Based Modeling / Simulation.

Back when I was in academia I used to develop ABMs to represent the behaviour of complex systems with a simple set of rules of agent action and interaction.

The game of Life is the quintessential example of that.

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

#409

Post by ythn »

fahdelm wrote: post #197
ythn wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You know what's worse than the instant obliteration of millions of people? The slow obliteration and starving of millions of people Yeah, I'm going to have to sort of disagree with you there. Once you are dead, you are dead. If you are starving, things can still change and you can still have free agency.

Well I don't think my dead self would mind being dead with it being dead and all. So I don't really see how any kind of suffering is better than death. In a way death doesn't really hurt you, since you stop living.

> So I don't really see how any kind of suffering is better than death.

So maybe we should round up all the poor people and gas them to put them out of their misery?

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

#410

Post by 0xb8000 »

I was waiting for someone to point out IDF (Unit 8200?) and NSA collaboration being responsible for this to come up. The only proof we have is a smile by a an Israeli Defense leader in response to a question asked on 60 minutes (or a similarly named show)

Also the author leave a few details out such as the intermitted activation ,for example it was only activated on day 7 and day 21. and other stuff like size of this.

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