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Alien computer viruses?
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FredF59 Send message Joined: 2 Jan 09 Posts: 1 Credit: 2,186,308 RAC: 0 |
Keine Aliens in Sicht. Also auch kein Virus. Ausser bei Spielberg's Falling Skies. Mfg FredF59 |
Horacio Send message Joined: 14 Jan 00 Posts: 536 Credit: 75,967,266 RAC: 0 |
Well, I guess since thousands of users are working with lots of random data here, that any data sequence that could cause a buffer overflow should have occured mutiple times by now. If that is the case then we can consider the client apps being completely overflow-free. Therefore any harmful code within our workunits, be it written by ETI or another I (means: human hacker), would never be executed. I agree, but... the science apps are not perfect, BOINC is not perfect, the compilers are not perfect, libraries are not perfect, drivers are not perfect, the OSs are not perfect, and the hardware is not perfect... so there is some probability to find a certain bug that could be exploited to do something like branching the execution of a valid app to a certain address in memory where the data is stored... Anyway, to do it, the aliens will need first to get a copy of our current technology, study it, find a bug to exploit, write some clever code and then send it back to us... but unless they are close enough in the space, by the time that code comes here it will be useless as the software for which it was designed will be deprecated several years ago... IIRC, the closest star is at 4 light years, I doubt any current software will still be running (without any upgrade) in the next 8 years. |
OzzFan Send message Joined: 9 Apr 02 Posts: 15691 Credit: 84,761,841 RAC: 28 |
Well, I guess since thousands of users are working with lots of random data here, that any data sequence that could cause a buffer overflow should have occured mutiple times by now. If that is the case then we can consider the client apps being completely overflow-free. Therefore any harmful code within our workunits, be it written by ETI or another I (means: human hacker), would never be executed. I don't believe I ever claimed our stuff was perfect. The point I was making is that an alien virus could not be spread through the workunits because the workunits are un-executed data and not code. Our code doesn't need to be perfect unless there is a way to execute foreign code on our systems, such as an alien virus. That comes back to trust in the software you use. |
wulf 21 Send message Joined: 18 Apr 09 Posts: 93 Credit: 26,337,213 RAC: 43 |
I don't believe I ever claimed our stuff was perfect. The point I was making is that an alien virus could not be spread through the workunits because the workunits are un-executed data and not code. Our code doesn't need to be perfect unless there is a way to execute foreign code on our systems, such as an alien virus. That comes back to trust in the software you use. Well, I think the point Horacio was making is that there actually exist bugs that can lead to data being executed as if it were code. There is no physical seperation between data and code in the system memory, that seperation is purely logical. That's the only reason why a feature like Data Execution Prevention exists and is by default turned on for critical windows system files. Hence my question: Can we rule out the existence of this type of bug in the SAH software because it should have occured multiple times by now simply because of the amount of random data being processed? |
OzzFan Send message Joined: 9 Apr 02 Posts: 15691 Credit: 84,761,841 RAC: 28 |
I don't believe I ever claimed our stuff was perfect. The point I was making is that an alien virus could not be spread through the workunits because the workunits are un-executed data and not code. Our code doesn't need to be perfect unless there is a way to execute foreign code on our systems, such as an alien virus. That comes back to trust in the software you use. Agreed about the code and data execution. It also helps that BOINC runs in a completely sand boxed environment which minimizes the risk of a virus infecting the entire machine. Can it be ruled out? I suppose that depends on the user's level of paranoia and the effectiveness of the security implementations in place. I personally don't think it is large enough of an issue to worry about, but others may not feel the same. |
Hamed Golamraj Elyasi Send message Joined: 9 Dec 10 Posts: 1 Credit: 24,815 RAC: 0 |
it seems your link is broken in some gateways! but i could load it by changing my settings. human is addicted to digital life, but there are many security bugs, in fact our digital technology is not a completed technology so every thing is possible in this field! |
feifeiCai Send message Joined: 22 Jun 12 Posts: 1 Credit: 10,858 RAC: 0 |
ä½ ä»¬éƒ½ç»™æˆ‘è¯´ä¸æ–‡,OK? |
OzzFan Send message Joined: 9 Apr 02 Posts: 15691 Credit: 84,761,841 RAC: 28 |
ä½ ä»¬éƒ½ç»™æˆ‘è¯´ä¸æ–‡,OK? You can translate using http://translate.google.com/ å¯ä»¥ä½¿ç”¨è¿™ä¸ªç¿»è¯‘ http://translate.google.com/ |
å‚…æ’æ–° Send message Joined: 30 Jun 12 Posts: 1 Credit: 50,243 RAC: 0 |
终于看到一个会ä¸æ–‡çš„ï¼ï¼ |
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