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Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software

arstechnica.com

31–40 of 156 posts

Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software

#31

Off topic but is does anyone else feel that the phrase “logic bomb” is too meaningless for the frequency with which it shows up in reporting these days? It makes it sound more sophisticated than it is. What’s wrong with calling it malware? Or even better, simply criminal behaviour that happens to involve a computer.

Logic bomb is a term for a very specific subtype of malware, and it is quite informative and useful to use this term - it gives a proper impression about what this particular malware does and doesn't do.

It immediately suggests that it has a delayed action that creates a disruption after some time (and not right away); that it is hidden (as opposed to e.g. ransomware), that it's intentionally deployed there (as opposed to someone accidentally getting infected), that it's most likely not spreading itself automatically like a virus and that the damage isn't controlled in realtime like in a botnet, etc.

Simply saying 'malware' would not tell us this information, so it would be vague and inaccurate instead of using the appropriate terminology.

Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software

#32
post #20

All I can say is he must be a really good programmer if he needed to deliberately install logic bombs to make his software malfunction after a period of time. I've got my hands full just making things work properly in the first place!

Yeah, really, this is the first programmer I've ever heard of who had lacked bugs to be fixed. There's always new stuff to work on. Maybe he was only used for some older niche stuff that was going out of style and he was trying to cling to the past.

[deleted]

Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software

#33
post #2

Apparently it was a password protected spreadsheet. Which seems like incredible incompetence of the company to accept code in that format in the first place and to not have demanded the password when the first issue arose.

You must be crazy to use proprietary closed source software. Oh, wait...

Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software

#34

All I can say is he must be a really good programmer if he needed to deliberately install logic bombs to make his software malfunction after a period of time. I've got my hands full just making things work properly in the first place!

Or just the usual periodic business logic changes.

Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software

#35
post #2

Apparently it was a password protected spreadsheet. Which seems like incredible incompetence of the company to accept code in that format in the first place and to not have demanded the password when the first issue arose.

You must be crazy to use proprietary closed source software. Oh, wait...

Closed source software prepared and used by only one client is a lot different than distributed and used by many clients.

Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software

#36

Off topic but is does anyone else feel that the phrase “logic bomb” is too meaningless for the frequency with which it shows up in reporting these days? It makes it sound more sophisticated than it is. What’s wrong with calling it malware? Or even better, simply criminal behaviour that happens to involve a computer.

I guess it depends on your definition but something designed to go off (negatively) after a predetermined time and dork up the logic of a program seems apt.

Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software

#37
Wow, does 6-months in jail seem a little severe? How does one even get someone prosecuted for this crime?

We hired a licensed plumber on 2 occasions - to install a sink and later a shower.

We just had a different plumber out because the sink was plugged up. He pointed out that the prior plumber had installed the sanitary-t upside down basically guarantying it would eventually become clogged.

We also had him look at the shower because we couldn’t figure out how to get the screen out to clear the hair. Turns out the grate was also installed upside-down and the screws holding the screen in are in-accessible. So, there is no way to get it out without demoing the shower.

Should this plumber be sentenced to 6-months in jail?

Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software

#38

Shows the importance of code reviews. I wonder why this is illegal but it's legal for hardware to deny service or even break stuff when they detect you're using something they don't like (I'm referring to printers, but I also remember a case where a microcontroller would try to brick something when it detected a counterfeit cable).

What was the case of the microcontroller detecting the counterfeit cable? I don't think I've ever heard of this.

Network switches do something like this iirc.

Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software

#39
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That or he's hired by people who don't peer review at all, as in he's the only developer.

Still, I think the point remains having the time to even do this is astounding.. can't even keep up getting all my code to work properly in the first place as a mostly single developer!

Maybe that's where he purposely introduces the bug, he keeps the broken version and times the working version. But yeah I agree with you, it's interesting altogether. I didn't mean to sound dismissive / against your viewpoint, just adding on possibilities.

Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software

#40
I read the DOJ link and it just states “intentional damage to a protected computer.”

If he had accidentally written sloppy code that happened to break periodically would that have been illegal? I don’t fully understand what law he broke and how such a law would not also apply to the seemingly infinite cases of built in obsolescence.

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