Japan wants to write an anti-virus virus ...

[rslade]

Japan's Defense Ministry wants to build (oh, sorry, wants to get other people to build) a virus which can be used for defensive computer security.

Those who fail to learn the lessons of computer history are doomed to buy it again--repackaged. - Slade's Law of Computer History

It's been tried. It's failed.

Den Zuk was created to wipe out BRAIN, and did more damage than BRAIN. That was back in 1987, I think. Many other viruses were written to wipe out other viruses: just about all did more damage than the originals.

[dcontesti]

Reminds me of the course taught by the University of Calgary back in 2003......a great idea, but maybe not as well thought out as it could be.

MHOO

Diana

[rslade]

> dcontesti (Community Champion) posted a new reply in Industry News on 05-03-2019

> Reminds me of the course taught by the University of Calgary back in 2003......a
> great idea, but maybe not as well thought out as it could be.

Fred thought of it first, and then stopped doing it since it actually was a fairly
useless idea. His students didn't learn as much as he thought they would.

The UCalgary guy had even less to go on: his grasp of the technology and history
was pretty weak.

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[小熊慶一郎]

My understanding of this article is that Japan won't develop an anti-virus virus, but an attack-back virus.  This virus is supposed to be sent to the attacker after the attack to Japan.   I don't know the detail, but it sounds like a honeypot type virus.

[Kempy]

Finland already did this, it is called Linux 👌

[rslade]

> 小熊慶一郎 (Viewer) posted a new reply in Industry News on 05-03-2019 10:18

> My understanding of this article is that Japan won't develop an anti-virus
> virus, but an attack-back virus.

OK, since I've given a presentation promoting it, I'm all for active defence. But,
in that case, it's not a virus.

>  This virus is supposed to be sent to the
> attacker after the attack to Japan.

And if it *is* a virus, as we pointed out in 1988, it's a phenomenally stupid idea,
since accuracy and management of response go *right* out the window when you
are talking virus.

>   I don't know the detail, but it sounds
> like a honeypot type virus.

I have been researching and writing about computer viral programs for over three
decades, and I have never heard anyone talk about a "honeypot type virus."


(Oh, and, by the way, bye-bye, since I can't log in any more ...)

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[AlecTrevelyan]

---

@rslade wrote:

(Oh, and, by the way, bye-bye, since I can't log in any more ...)

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I can't login directly to the community either. I have to login to the member portal first and then stay logged in there while I access the community so the single sign-on functionality can log me in here.

[rslade]

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@AlecTrevelyan wrote:

---

@rslade wrote:

(Oh, and, by the way, bye-bye, since I can't log in any more ...)

---

I can't login directly to the community either. I have to login to the member portal first and then stay logged in there while I access the community so the single sign-on functionality can log me in here.

---

OK, now that is just completely, bizarrely weird.  But it works.

Many, many thanks, 006.

OK, I guess I'm back ...

[MikeGlassman]

I'd be interested to know how they would know who sent the Virus etc in the first place, in order to know who to attack back.

It's becoming increasingly harder to source the source of an attack, unless you have some very good reverse engineers, know how the propagation took place, can find agent zero not only in your organization but in the machines that sent the code in the first place and so on.

I would think that you may end up hitting some poor idiot who's computer system had been taken over as a bot network.

Then again, you could always ask Arnold Schwarzenegger to "return"...

Another thought. What if the system thought it was being attacked and it was itself, and it attacked itself back. Now that would be fun to watch.

[rslade]

... although now "subscriptions" seems to be broken again ...