Red Flag Linux.
What Communist Do You Want to Help Today? (tm)
Posted on 01/30/2003 9:23:59 AM PST by John H K
Last Saturday, a little after midnight, someone, apparently the semi-official Chinese "Honkers Union", unleashed the Slapper worm. Similar to the 2001 Chinese Code Red worm, Slapper spread faster and did more damage. Like Code Red, Slapper took advantage of known flaws in Internet software (in this case, Microsoft's widely used SQL Sever.) A British Internet security firm discovered the software flaw six months ago and described how something like Slapper would work. A few months later, Honkers Union members published a more complete example of a worm, giving credit to the earlier work. Microsoft quickly created a patch for their SQL Server software. But, as is common, not everyone using SQL Server applied the patch (including some people at Microsoft itself).
Taking apart the code Slapper installs indicates that this was probably a Honkers Union attack. Slapper was faster and generated much more network traffic than Code Red. Within an hour of being released, Slapper infected 50,000 servers, and eventually got 200,000 servers. But what made Slapper so damaging was the enormous amount of additional data it put onto the net, clogging communications and servers. Because Slapper was attacking the "back office" parts of the Internet, and not user PCs directly, the damage was greater. Many ISPs had to cut service until they could block the Slapper flood and patch SQL Servers.
Fortunately, in the last two years, Internet managers and technicians have developed more effective procedures to respond to something like Slapper, and this limited the damage. However, our main ISP (Qwest) had Strategypage cut off from most of the world for nearly 24 hours because of Slapper. It was also revealed that some large financial organizations run Internet and non-Internet stuff through the same lines, which is why in some cases, ATM systems were shut down by Slapper.
China has been encouraging local organizations like the Honkers Union to operate agressively. This may change as many foreign governments (especially South Korea, a major Chinese trading partner and worst hit victim of Slapper) complain to the Chinese about their semi-official Information War activities.
For more information on how all this works, in plain language, see my new book; "The Next War Zone.")
Why bother?
Microsoft's license agreements absolve it from any responsibility to distribute safe code, so it can point the finger of blame at its customers who don't keep up with all of the patches or don't install new software when it's available.
The Trustworthy Computing Initiative promises that things will be better Real Soon Now, so customers won't lose confidence in future Microsoft risks like .NET or the next version of Windows/Office.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's old stuff continues to subvert the Internet, causing intermittent but stunning pain to international commerce, while Microsoft says, "Hey, not our problem!"... until the government -- in the persona of Fritz Hollings or Billy Tauzin -- finally asserts that it has to step in and do something.
And so to avoid regulation of the software industry, Microsoft admits that the old hardware/software model is fatally flawed, and as a "public service" to the computing world... rolls out Palladium.
Everything's going according to plan.
What Terrorist Group Do You Want to Help Today? (tm)
What Communist Do You Want to Help Today? (tm)
Pot, meet kettle.
As I said, Pot meet kettle.
It is starting to look more like your beef with red flag is that it is replacing Micro$lop as the OS of choice in one of the largest markets in the world.
And every dollar that enters China... might. How do you know your precious "education" projects are going to get all of the money?
China's Linux coders not sharing, says Red Hat
They take, but they don't give back. Big surprise. That's not exactly going to endear them to the Open Source crowd. Eric S. Raymond, for one, was not pleased about the Linux in China idea, and said so back in 1999.
On the other hand...
Microsoft China's Chief: "We Have One Customer: The Government"
Microsoft, China in $750-m investment deal
Microsoft is donating mucho dinero to education in China, helping to develop China's own software industry, which will (like India) eventually take jobs away from American programmers.
Thanks a lot, Microsoft.
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