Alien computer viruses?

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FredF59

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Message 1261300 - Posted: 16 Jul 2012, 22:15:28 UTC

Keine Aliens in Sicht. Also auch kein Virus. Ausser bei Spielberg's Falling Skies. Mfg FredF59
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Message 1261704 - Posted: 18 Jul 2012, 6:49:02 UTC - in response to Message 1261157.  

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.


That is correct. The science applications are the ones performing the analysis and are therefore the only thing executing any code on our systems. The random data in the workunits is not executed/executable and therefore could not cause a buffer overflow or even execute a virus on our systems. A buffer overflow would have to come from the science app itself.


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.




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Message 1261774 - Posted: 18 Jul 2012, 11:36:40 UTC - in response to Message 1261704.  

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.


That is correct. The science applications are the ones performing the analysis and are therefore the only thing executing any code on our systems. The random data in the workunits is not executed/executable and therefore could not cause a buffer overflow or even execute a virus on our systems. A buffer overflow would have to come from the science app itself.


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.


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.
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wulf 21

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Message 1261888 - Posted: 18 Jul 2012, 16:45:45 UTC - in response to Message 1261774.  
Last modified: 18 Jul 2012, 16:48:30 UTC

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?
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Message 1261902 - Posted: 18 Jul 2012, 17:14:41 UTC - in response to Message 1261888.  

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?


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.
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Profile Hamed Golamraj Elyasi

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Message 1262312 - Posted: 19 Jul 2012, 21:10:06 UTC - in response to Message 1252673.  
Last modified: 19 Jul 2012, 21:39:02 UTC

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!
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feifeiCai

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Message 1263748 - Posted: 23 Jul 2012, 16:35:20 UTC

你们都给我说中文,OK?
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Message 1263760 - Posted: 23 Jul 2012, 17:02:02 UTC - in response to Message 1263748.  

你们都给我说中文,OK?


You can translate using http://translate.google.com/

可以使用这个翻译 http://translate.google.com/
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傅恒新

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Message 1264287 - Posted: 26 Jul 2012, 0:57:13 UTC - in response to Message 1263748.  

终于看到一个会中文的!!
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Message boards : News : Alien computer viruses?


 
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