Tuesday, 17 January 2006

Malware Futures | FAT Travesty | MPG on BLOOD: G.War.Bush's Burnin' 'Maths'

Future Trends of Malware: "Key summary points and conclusion
(Score:5, Insightful)
by millwall (622730) Alter Relationship on Wednesday January 11, @08:23AM (#14445344)
Key summary points
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Malware authors update their multi-vendor anti virus signatures faster than most end users and enterprises do altogether

The high pressure put on malware authors by the experienced vendors is causing them to unite efforts and assets, and realize that it's hard to compete on their own. Yet this doesn't stop them from waging a war in between

Intellectual property theft worms have to potential to dominate in today's knowledge-driven society acting as tools for espionage

Don't matter what you always wanted to do to ecriminals, in case of a cryptoviral extortion, you'll be the one having to initiate the contact

The growing Internet population, E-commerce flow, and the demand for illegal/unethical services, would fuel the development of an Ecosystem, for anything, but legal

The 'Web as a platform' is a powerful medium for malware attackers understanding the new Web

The unprecedented growth of E-commerce would always remain the main incentive for illegal activities

7.0 Conclusion
--------------

I hope that the points I have raised in this research, would prove valuable to both end users, businesses and anti-virus vendors. The Internet as a growing force shaping our ways of thinking and living is as useful, as easy to exploit as well. The clear growth in E-commerce, today's open-source nature of malware, the growing penetration of the Internet in respect to insecure connected PCs, are among the main driving factors of the scene. Do your homework and stay ahead of the threats, most of all, less branding when making security decisions, but high preferences! Please, feel free to direct your opinions, remarks, or any feedback to me, at dancho.danchev AT hush.com or at ddanchev.blogspot.com where you can d"
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One word: Legitimization.

(Score:5, Insightful)
by Caspian (99221) Alter Relationship on Wednesday January 11, @08:32AM (#14445412)
Malware meets so many of the deep desires of the marketing world (and the corporate world in general). It can provides market data in bulk, practically "for free" (from the company's perspective). It can provide a further degree of control over a user's computer. It can enforce DRM. It can force ads on people.

Thus, I can only conclude that the future of malware is for it to go from something created by shady companies like Gator (a.k.a. "Claria") and 419WebSolutions (or whatever) to something created (or at least branded) by "household name" companies like HP, Dell, etc. A first step towards a future in which major corporations embrace malware has already occurred; just look at all the crap Dell shovels onto their much-maligned default software installations.
--
With spending like this [twu.net], just what are "conservatives" conserving? (Homophobia?)
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Well put -- I like the analogy.

Actually I think what people are doing today, is practically building another guest house out back for the foreman and the rest of his work crew to live in while they're patching up your house. Remember the discussion a few months ago here on Slashdot about why the average joe needed a dual-core or multiprocessor Windows box? It was so one processor could run his actual application, and the other one could run all the anti-virus/spyware/adware/intrusion programs.

The situation has really become ridiculous, but because it's happened so slowly and because so many people are highly invested in it, nobody with any authority wants to take a step back and call it for what it is.
--
If only we could make stupidity more painful...
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Categories by goal

(Score:5, Interesting)
by G4from128k (686170) Alter Relationship on Wednesday January 11, @08:51AM (#14445537)
Malware can be categorized by the goal of the creator. This can include:
  1. Marketing: Redirecting browser windows or overlaying pop-ups to promote a product or service
  2. Phishing: attacking an individual to extract passwords that let a criminal access the victim's accounts or identity
  3. Vandalism: Wanton destruction of a PC or network
  4. Spam Broadcasting: creating and controlling a botnet for spamming
  5. Extortion: Forcing a company to pay a ransom to avoid a DDoS or the triggering of an embedded bit of malware.
  6. Vilgilantism: Attacking P2P, spamming, or phishing networks to forestall perceived illegal activity
  7. Espionage: Illegally accessing company or country's secrets
  8. Military: Damaging an opponent country's IT infrastructure

Note that some of these goals target individuals and their PCs whereas other target larger organizations. One key commonality of nearly all of the goals is that they target large numbers of PCs or require large numbers of infected machines to achieve the goal. Thus immunological approaches that look for the spread of unusual code or data packet patterns can help address this problem. On the other hand, immunological approaches won't work if the malware attack targets a single individual or company -- e.g. implanting a unique virus in one computer in a company for purposes of espionage or extortion.

Note that half of the goals are very different from the stereotypical destructive virus or worm of yesteryear. With the exception of vandalism, extortion, vigilantism, and military, the other goals are essentially non-destructive. The malware creator's goals are not achieved if the malware crashes the target machine.
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Re:Food chain

(Score:5, Interesting)
by MobyDisk (75490) Alter Relationship on Wednesday January 11, @07:27AM (#14445082)
(http://www.mobydisk.com/)
The grandparent posted is correct.

1) Even if they do have FAT pre-installed, that doesn't matter. A patent applies to the device that is using the FAT system (camera, computer, etc.), not the media it is on. (For example: A patent woudl apply to a printing press, but not to the book that is printed by the press.)
2) His point is that they don't have to have it pre-installed anyway. The device you put it in can do the formatting easily enough.

Also, just because something is modded-up that you think is wrong, doesn't mean that the moderation system is bad. You may be modded down merely for the comment.
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Re:Food chain

(Score:5, Informative)
by redhog (15207) Alter Relationship on Wednesday January 11, @04:38AM (#14444511)
(http://redhog.org/)
There are Free Software ext2 drivers for all major OSes:
Windows: http://freshmeat.net/projects/ext2ifs/ [freshmeat.net]
MacOS X: http://freshmeat.net/projects/ext2fs/ [freshmeat.net]
OS/2: http://freshmeat.net/projects/ext2-os2/ [freshmeat.net]

The problem is, they don't come pre-installed...
--
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
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MOD PARENT UP

(Score:5, Insightful)
by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11, @05:14AM (#14444628)
There is no technical reason to use FAT at all, it is only in common usage because of Microsofts desktop monopoly. FAT was used by vendors for the benefit of Microsoft customers, Microsoft respond by stabbing everyone in the back. Time to start petitioning OEM's to ship a GPL'd 3rd party Windows filesystem driver by default, then we petition for device support.

C# and CLR on linux people take note, Microsoft never acts in good faith. Why file for patents unless you plan to enforce them? Ever heard the phrase "trust a fox"?

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Move Kernel.org to the EU

(Score:5, Insightful)
Thats why Linus needs to move the kernel.org server not from California to Oregon, but from Oregon to the EU*. That way MS can bitch all they want about vFat in the kernel, but can't get it out of the kernel cause the EU (for the time being, and if MS does try to enforce this agienst Linux, won't ever) have software patents.

*this would also mean Linus and everyone working on the kernel would have to move to the EU, and also a fork in the kernel in the US that does not included vFat.
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Re:So now...

(Score:5, Interesting)
by gerddie (173963) Alter Relationship on Wednesday January 11, @04:19AM (#14444456)
NTFS would be an obvious choice for microsoft to go with since it support removable media and journalling.
You wouldn't want to use standard journalling on a flash drive. IIRC for each write cycle at least 3 write actions are required: log in the journal that a write will be done (has to be synced to the disk), do the write, log in the journal that the write action ended successful. With flash, where you can only erase block-wise, this is not a good idea - for one its very slow, and on the other hand, the flash supports only so many write cycles. For journalling, special handling is needed as implemented e.g. in jffs2 [sourceware.org].
jqj: WTF why does M$ and ~all ~experts say to USE NTFS for OS partition, if it cant possibly be faster....
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The claims in US patent No. 5579517 - the patnet that was subject to re-examination - are rather strange, and to my reasding are not infringed by a Linux system reading or writing a vfat file system. The analysys is not straightforward, but as a clue to those used to looking at patent claims, think about the effect of the opening words of the claim: "In a computer system having a processor running an operating system..." followed by the words "said short filename including at most a maximum number of characters that is permissible by the operating system", i.e., not some other operating system but by the executing operating system.

US Patent 5758352 is more of a worry, because it relates to the way in which long and short filenames are stored in a directory structure by an (i.e., any) operating system. I cannot find any reference to this potentially much more damaging patent having been re-examined.

Note that the claims are not infringed by any system that does not support both long and short filenames. It is not FAT per se that is being protected, it is the backwards-compatible DOS filenames and the particular manner in which they are stored. You have to read the claims to understand this.
So the question about Linux etc., requires an analysis of the claims with an understanding of how the Linux FS driver works.

HTH
Anonymous European Patent Attorney

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by Phatmanotoo (719777) Alter Relationship on Wednesday January 11, @03:07AM (#14444231)

FAT is such a technical piece of crap that I would have thought nobody would want to patent it, out of pure
embarrassment.

For non-technical people who don't grok filesystems, there's a good story about FAT here: CyberSnare

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[netaction.org].


Re:What about UDF?

(Score:5, Informative)
by moyix (412254) Alter Relationship on Wednesday January 11, @10:17AM (#14446172)
(http://moyix.jobonet.com/)

Update:

So this probably won't work as a universal filesystem unless some pressure is put on MS and Apple to get native support for writing to UDF, unfortunately :\

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Re:USB Sticks and CF cards

(Score:5, Insightful)
by LordLucless (582312) Alter Relationship on Wednesday January 11, @04:48AM (#14444541)
As for digital cameras... well that was their decision. Unless I, as a consumer, am going to get fined for buying a piece of hardware that was unlicenced I don't care. The patents on FAT were no secret. They were, as are all the other patents, kept in a public place, next to the patents for lenses, CCDs, batteries and jpeg compression. As with any other patent, if you want to use the tech you have to pay the licence... and then pass that cost onto the customer.

Except that these patents weren't around when they were making these decisions. These FAT patents were *rejected*. Why would a company base a decision around patents that were rejected by the UPTO? This is yet another example of the USPTO's stupidity - VFAT was created how long ago? Some where between 92 and 95 IIRC. So at least 10 years ago. VFAT has had 10 years to creep into all corners of the industry, and only now it's going to start costing money? Imagine if 5 years after the motor industry really got going, the patent for internal combustion engines was finally approved. Progress of science and useful arts my ass.--

No trilogy should have more than four books - Arthur C. Clarke
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Re:USB Sticks and CF cards

(Score:5, Informative)
by deander2 (26173) * Alter Relationship <public@kered.org> on Wednesday January 11, @08:53AM (#14445553)
(http://kered.org/)
Actually someone named George B. Selden (who had never built an automobile) held a patent on a "road engine". All American car manufacturers paid royalties to him until Henry Ford came along, who blatantly ignored it (and later got it overturned).
Patent trolls are nothing new to society.--- derek
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Good Thing?

(Score:4, Informative)
by TwentyQuestions (945020) Alter Relationship on Wednesday January 11, @03:32AM (#14444323)
I'm actually glad MS won this. I think it will help clear the way for more devices to use more secure and open-source friendly file systems. But I doubt MS will try to crack the whip on people making technology to read FAT. It just doesnt make sense, plus the income would be so low. And as for drives coming preformatted with FAT. Alot of the flash drives and even some MP3 players I have received from Japan use FAT but dont come preformatted.
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Chain of events

(Score:5, Informative)
by daBass (56811) Alter Relationship on Wednesday January 11, @03:51AM (#14444381)
(http://bas.scheffers.net)
1. Microsoft spearheads USB standard
2. "Mass Storage Class" added to USB that is so low level, the OS uses it as any disk, needing to support it's file systems
3. 95% of computers run windows and the ones that support USB only support FAT, forcing device manufacturers to use that as filesystem.
4. Patent filesystem and demand royalties after the fact
5. No need for "???"
6. Profit!

Yup, they planned this all along, the sneaky bastards ==
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More accurate history of FAT

(Score:5, Interesting)
Marc McDonald is the inventor of FAT. If memory serves it was created to support Altair Disk Basic.

Bill Gates has received the credit in print. The confusion probably happened because Bill Gates identifies himself completely with Microsoft.

Marc designed it to be optimized for floppies, with an allocation table sized to stay resident even in the tiny RAM of the machines of those days. He always thought it was a little silly to use it on hard disks.
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