Calgary Virus School
MonsieurEvil
Join Date: 2002-01-22 Member: 4Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
Join Date: 2002-01-22 Member: 4Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
<div class="IPBDescription">Blame Canada, blame Canadaaaaaa...</div> (from Silicon.com - <a href='http://www.silicon.com/news/500013/1/4454.html?rolling=1' target='_blank'>http://www.silicon.com/news/500013/1/4454.....html?rolling=1</a> )
Go to Calgary U, learn to write viruses. Soon Canada's master plan to take over the world will be realized... with their beady little eyes and their heads so full of liiiieeeees.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Calgary Uni's virus plans draw more industry fire
It really has angered a great many people...
Cyber security body the Anti-Virus Information Exchange Network (Avien) has joined the massed ranks of the opposition to Calgary University's plans to run a virus writing course for computer science students.
As with many others in the security industry, Avien's opposition is focused primarily on the University's plans to write new viruses for the purposes of 'dissection'. However, it also believes the course is fundamentally flawed on a number of other levels.
A statement released by the organisation said it believes the course "sends the wrong message to students and to current authors of malicious code, by providing a legitimising factor".
Avien also had little time for the University's plans to teach students how to write new viruses.
"If one wants to understand viruses, one need only examine one or more of the 70,000+ viruses that already exist, not write new ones!
"Avien encourages the spread of information but recognises the fundamental disconnect between learning how to produce a virus and the entire gamut of information about how viruses work.
"We disagree with the [University's] position that 'a critical element of being able to stop these viruses is to have sufficient knowledge about them to be able to write them'."
Avien's website is also carrying a public letter signed by members of the anti-virus community and the wider IT industry. Among the signatories are representatives of MacAfee, F-Secure, Hewlett Packard, Kaspersky, Siemens, Sophos and Trend Micro.
Although still well in the majority, the Avien line goes against the groundswell of support for the course.
Over the weekend silicon.com received a number of emails from readers who believe the course is a vital step in gaining a greater understanding of how to combat viruses - though this argument diminishes slightly given the industry's insistence that it will not employ graduates of the course. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Go to Calgary U, learn to write viruses. Soon Canada's master plan to take over the world will be realized... with their beady little eyes and their heads so full of liiiieeeees.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Calgary Uni's virus plans draw more industry fire
It really has angered a great many people...
Cyber security body the Anti-Virus Information Exchange Network (Avien) has joined the massed ranks of the opposition to Calgary University's plans to run a virus writing course for computer science students.
As with many others in the security industry, Avien's opposition is focused primarily on the University's plans to write new viruses for the purposes of 'dissection'. However, it also believes the course is fundamentally flawed on a number of other levels.
A statement released by the organisation said it believes the course "sends the wrong message to students and to current authors of malicious code, by providing a legitimising factor".
Avien also had little time for the University's plans to teach students how to write new viruses.
"If one wants to understand viruses, one need only examine one or more of the 70,000+ viruses that already exist, not write new ones!
"Avien encourages the spread of information but recognises the fundamental disconnect between learning how to produce a virus and the entire gamut of information about how viruses work.
"We disagree with the [University's] position that 'a critical element of being able to stop these viruses is to have sufficient knowledge about them to be able to write them'."
Avien's website is also carrying a public letter signed by members of the anti-virus community and the wider IT industry. Among the signatories are representatives of MacAfee, F-Secure, Hewlett Packard, Kaspersky, Siemens, Sophos and Trend Micro.
Although still well in the majority, the Avien line goes against the groundswell of support for the course.
Over the weekend silicon.com received a number of emails from readers who believe the course is a vital step in gaining a greater understanding of how to combat viruses - though this argument diminishes slightly given the industry's insistence that it will not employ graduates of the course. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Comments
Buy MacAfee now or students will pwn your computer.
If their logic should hold true, Virologists should be out of business, except for trying to find a cure for the cold using.. the cold virus only. I'm not really educated on this subject, but if someone is, or deals with a place that deals with this sort of thing, please jump in.
It sounds logical to me. Do firemen burn things down sometimes to contain a fire? Yes. Why can't that be true for people in our IT sector? Sometimes you have to play with fire to understand it better.
Go to Calgary U, learn to write viruses. Soon Canada's master plan to take over the world will be realized... with their beady little eyes and their heads so full of liiiieeeee.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Calgary Uni's virus plans draw more industry fire
It really has angered a great many people...
Cyber security body the Anti-Virus Information Exchange Network (Avien) has joined the massed ranks of the opposition to Calgary University's plans to run a virus writing course for computer science students.
As with many others in the security industry, Avien's opposition is focused primarily on the University's plans to write new viruses for the purposes of 'dissection'. However, it also believes the course is fundamentally flawed on a number of other levels.
A statement released by the organisation said it believes the course "sends the wrong message to students and to current authors of malicious code, by providing a legitimising factor".
Avien also had little time for the University's plans to teach students how to write new viruses.
"If one wants to understand viruses, one need only examine one or more of the 70,000+ viruses that already exist, not write new ones!
"Avien encourages the spread of information but recognises the fundamental disconnect between learning how to produce a virus and the entire gamut of information about how viruses work.
"We disagree with the [University's] position that 'a critical element of being able to stop these viruses is to have sufficient knowledge about them to be able to write them'."
Avien's website is also carrying a public letter signed by members of the anti-virus community and the wider IT industry. Among the signatories are representatives of MacAfee, F-Secure, Hewlett Packard, Kaspersky, Siemens, Sophos and Trend Micro.
Although still well in the majority, the Avien line goes against the groundswell of support for the course.
Over the weekend silicon.com received a number of emails from readers who believe the course is a vital step in gaining a greater understanding of how to combat viruses - though this argument diminishes slightly given the industry's insistence that it will not employ graduates of the course. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Monse, your not supposed tp promote hate, remember :-p
I always figured they wanted to turn everything into more beer. Go figure.
Not sure I understand the fireman analogy, but I'm still on my first cup of coffee. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
We'll see if the school pursues this though, as all major anti-virus and security companies have done a press release saying they will not hire any graduate of this course, out of hand. Seems to me the argument that you'd use this knowledge for good is then gone. NAd the point made that there are 70,000 viruses out there that bear scrutiny if you want to learn about them kind of nullifies the experience aspects.
But remember, h4xing the h4x0r, <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> , is illegal. Regardless of if you think it will work or not.
And I doubt hitting these guys below the belt is going to do anything in the technological world, if anything, it would make the case worse.
I think the security industry is burning their own bridges.
As for the 70k+virii... Ok, great? What happens when someone brilliant comes up with a new and unusual virus? <b>massive panic! OMG! something new! We're screwz0red!!111</b>
yeah, like I said, sounds self-defeating. Our school has a network security class, and for the first task they were asked to white hack, pass/fail for the first week.
Isn't there a quote somewhere talking about what happens when you make learning illegal and so-foth?
"So true, honorable master. Now if you'd please excuse me, I need to go, umm... practising. When I come back, can you teach me to steal the crown jewels too?"
Canadian student takes over W.H.O.P.P.E.R. with Trojan diguised as 'MonicaLewinsky.mpg', hilarity ensues.
"So true, honorable master. Now if you'd please excuse me, I need to go, umm... practising. When I come back, can you teach me to steal the crown jewels too?" <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Good analogy. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
As a programmer, I don't need to learn how to write a virus from scratch when I can simply examine existing ones. And more importantly, learning an established way to make a virus is a rather dumb thing to do. You will then write viruses with already recognized patterns that AV software will detect. Better to design without constraints and baggage and make something never before seen, so that you have a day or so of unimpeded attack while they figure out your work over at Symantec....
<!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
(And it was W.O.P.R! /me shakes fist at TenSix for not knowing 80's trivia)
lol its sooo easy to write a virus too, nobody knows that in both vb and c++ a simple loop and a simple command gives you a lil bugger under a few kb that either deletes files or filles them with random crap, and NO i am NOT gonna give you the scource code...
Not sure I understand the fireman analogy, but I'm still on my first cup of coffee. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
We'll see if the school pursues this though, as all major anti-virus and security companies have done a press release saying they will not hire any graduate of this course, out of hand. Seems to me the argument that you'd use this knowledge for good is then gone. NAd the point made that there are 70,000 viruses out there that bear scrutiny if you want to learn about them kind of nullifies the experience aspects. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
The bad thing about the fireman analogy is this:
Creating firebreaks can stop fires. By destroying its fuel source.
The same analogy applied to computers would read: "If we destroy computers then the virus cannot infect them now can it?"
* lolfighter has quit IRC (Ping timeout)