Comments for Adept Technologies

Comment on Collaborate! But not with you… by Keith McMillan

Keith McMillan — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:46:21 +0000

I understand your concern. It’s one of the reasons that you delay talking about something until you’re ready to do it, so your understanding is “fresh”, and get frequent and early feedback, so you avoid “that’s not what I meant.”

What we find is if you need to write it down, you should do so after you’ve discussed it, and that’s only if someone who’s not part of the collaboration needs it (like, say, the guy who will someday in the future support it).

Comment on Collaborate! But not with you… by Andy Kailhofer

Andy Kailhofer — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:32:22 +0000

My biggest concern is that a talking process that is not a documenting process leads to misunderstandings and you really need to write it down anyway (and have everybody agree that was what everybody meant) so you can be clear as to who meant what after the fact. I can’t hold all the requirments in my head, I know I can’t. I suppose I shouldn’t expect people to be able express what they mean in written english any more than they can express it in verbally…

Comment on Making Development Complex on Purpose by Andy Kailhofer

Andy Kailhofer — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:08:57 +0000

In their example, if they just finally put gigE in the data center, they’re not really techno-geeks.

Don’t mind me, I just spent the night fighting with firmware on a Proliant server while adding another disk array for a project with underestimated disk usage. It might have left me especially curmudgeony today.

Comment on CAPTCHA Crack in the Wild by New CAPTCHA Replacement | Adept Technologies

New CAPTCHA Replacement | Adept Technologies — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 02:04:15 +0000

[...] was cracked some months ago (as I’ve previously mentioned) and one by one, the various implementations have fallen prey to the bots sending you [...]

Comment on The Anatomy of a Botnet by Keith McMillan

Keith McMillan — Wed, 14 May 2008 02:07:25 +0000

Hi Andy,

It’s a good idea, and this is the way that some of the researchers have gone about identifying the size of the Storm botnet, for instance.

Botnet controllers do go to lengths to prevent this sort of thing, for the obvious reasons. I know a number of them use IRC as a control channel, but I don’t really know too much about the actual infrastructure of an IRC network, what kind of survivability they have. Botnets do typically have redundant command and control, though. The Storm researchers actually registered a machine with the IP address of one of the failover controllers to assume control and measure the size of the network.

Eventually, I think that attacking the command and control is the way to go, but clearly there are some technical challenges that need to be overcome first.

Comment on The Anatomy of a Botnet by Andy Kailhofer

Andy Kailhofer — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:53:18 +0000

What about going after the heads? Just like with zombies, getting rid of the controllers should do the trick. I’m supposing that they’re mostly set up in places like NoLawsHereIstan?

Comment on Ethics prevents acting for good by Keith McMillan

Keith McMillan — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:11:19 +0000

Your remarks are true. I think I might be a tad upset if my computer vendor pushed an update at me that I didn’t request. Oh, wait, Microsoft already does that!

I think there’s a question here of a greater good, though. An infected machine is a danger to the internet society, as it will infect others as soon as it gets a chance. Is it better to have some people with a smoking hole for a computer, or another 1,000 infected machines in a botnet? When does it become a problem that these networks are out there? I hope it’s before they take out some major piece of infrastructure like the power grid.

Comment on Ethics prevents acting for good by Andy Kailhofer

Andy Kailhofer — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:28:02 +0000

Of course, the problem comes from when a well-meaning but less-l33t “good guy” does a removal which leaves a smoking hole where a computer once stood—”The operation was a success, but the patient had better have made a backup…”

Comment on CAPTCHA Cracked by New CAPTCHA Replacement | Adept Technologies

New CAPTCHA Replacement | Adept Technologies — Thu, 01 May 2008 02:23:02 +0000

[...] was cracked some months ago (as I’ve previously mentioned) and one by one, the various implementations have fallen prey to the bots sending you [...]

Comment on RFID Dust for Tracking by michaela

michaela — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 14:42:05 +0000

It would be an interesting addition to fighting crime.

For example, spread this dust in a store if you suspect after-hours theft. you’d need to have a way to sweep it up before the store opens to avoid contaminating the crime-scene.

You could chip Huber inmates to ensure that they comply with their work restrictions.

But, i agree, once you take steps in this direction, any illusion of freedom in our society is completely gone. If it isn’t already.