111–120 of 197 posts
So all that terrorists have to do is commandeer a drone (thanks to this virus) and then they can rain terror anywhere they want? This is scary.
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Perhaps they shouldn't use a platform that runs Norton in the first place? I suspect that under it all, you'll find an unpatched XP or even Win2000.
I guarantee UAV's are not running XP or Windows 2000. The government has heard of things called RTOS.
Of course. There is Windows NT for _that_ :
http://www.theragens.com/misc/MR%20-%20Windows%20NT%20Real-T...
It seems to me that a more interesting question than "how did the malware get there?" is "why are they telling us that they found it?" Presumably the default thing to do under these circumstances would be to shut up about it, so the fact that they're broadcasting it to the whole world must mean something. In any case I wouldn't take any of the details at face value -- e.g. do they really not have any idea where it ca…
They announced the big "jihad on all USB drives" back in 2009. There were factory shinkwrapped USB drives for sale on base which came pre-loaded with viruses; people would buy those, mark them as Secret, put them on SIPRnet, and then machines would be infected. It was lulztastic, actually. I think once something hits a large enough scale, they announce it; it's the easiest way to communicate to the affected DoD commu…
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If the drone is running a RTOS, wouldn't the GCS need RTOS-like reliability as well to communicate with it? That's all I can say (I think)
No. Windows boxes can communicate to an RTOS like VxWorks over a network just fine.
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Perhaps they shouldn't use a platform that runs Norton in the first place? I suspect that under it all, you'll find an unpatched XP or even Win2000.
I guarantee UAV's are not running XP or Windows 2000. The government has heard of things called RTOS.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They announced the big "jihad on all USB drives" back in 2009. There were factory shinkwrapped USB drives for sale on base which came pre-loaded with viruses; people would buy those, mark them as Secret, put them on SIPRnet, and then machines would be infected. It was lulztastic, actually. I think once something hits a large enough scale, they announce it; it's the easiest way to communicate to the affected DoD commu…
Wow, that's crazy. Do you have a link for that?
http://www.scmagazineus.com/militarys-ban-of-usb-thumb-drive...
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/11/military_thumbdrives_c...
http://www.dailytech.com/Pentagon+Lifts+Ban+on+Thumb+Drives+...
http://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/thumb-drive-attack-2008-co...
http://www.military-information-technology.com/mit-home/66-m...
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I don't know how I can be any more clear here: If they are not smart enough to keep malware off of what should be the most secure systems around, perhaps they shouldn't be building the fricking FLYING REMOTE-CONTROL DEATH MACHINES for a while, until they can figure out the basics. Capisce, guys?
I am totally with you. If software is going to operate deadly weapons, it sure as hell better be secure. But you are glossing over a LOT of detail here. The military doesn't work like Apple: they don't design, oversee, or directly control the construction of the hardware they use. And they shouldn't - the government is woefully inefficient at building products, that's what corporations are good at. Here's the situati…
they are just wined and dined by the contractor when they should be directly overseeing and controlling.
>And they shouldn't - the government is woefully inefficient at building products, that's what corporations are good at.
Starting at some architectural level, many DoD systems is a just one-off system, not a product.
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It's not that hard if you have a top notch engineer in charge and give him whatever he needs to get the job done. If you have a good engineer or a great engineer but any kind of bureaucracy, yes, it's near impossible.
google - top notch engineers, given whatever they need to get the job done, no bureaucracy, still get owned?
the quote used from the source seems to mean they don't know anything. a keylogger is benign? by what definition of benign are we operating under here? downside of things being "off the record" is this could be someone who oveheard two guys talking about something unrelated in the cafeteria, put "two and two" together, and picked up the phone. and since you can't get an official line ... you just run with the rumors…
Im not worried. Its the military. They'll soon come up with a "Feynman can open our safe locks ? Don't allow Feynman near the safe locks!" kind of solution.