Garry McKinnon - The penalties of sanity

The establishment is attempting to extradite a computer hacker Gary
McKinnon. McKinnon hacked into NASA and Pentagon computers in a search
for ET.

There is one very obvious (insane?) question. How is it that an
amateur was able to hack into these computers? Can't secure systems be
built? What would happen if a hostile country tried cyber warfare?

The fact that systems are not secure is very much related to the
professionalism of software development. It is very much related to
Carnegie Mellon and the fact that for a long time Microsoft was level
0 and apparantly proud of it.

Are secure systems impossible to build? Well if you attack people
personally and comment on their sex lives they probable are. Are they
INTRINSICALLY impossible? Not a bit of it! Hacking is made possible
because operating systems allow programs to be downloaded and run
without human intervention. Run programs from a ROM which does not
allow this and the problem disappears. Mobile phones are largely ROM
based in terms of the way they operate.

Would this limit the operation of the Internet? Again not really. To
run an applet (say) the computer would have to go though an encryption
protocol. The RSA system gives a code which is in two parts public and
private. For a program to run it would have to get a requested
encryption code right. There would be self and friends whose programs
would run. Malware would not.

What is required is for people to think insanely and actually do a
design job top down for a malware free system. It is NOT impossible.
It seems odd that despite the vast amount the US spends on defense
this problem seems to have been totally neglected. It would seem not
only that the green men (Hamas and Hezbullah) would be able to use
DARPAs latest software, but that if it were placed on a network they
could hack it with relative ease.

I mention this because it is directly related to what I was talking
about in terms of AI. I think that sexual prowess is relevant in terms
of extradition and prison too. The answer surely is not to punish
individuals but to look at how the whole system works.

As for Gary McKinnon. If I were him I would mater prefixes and
suffixes, jump bail and go the Hezbullah controlled area of Lebanon.


- Ian Parker

I also note the Nokia (Scandanavian) s developing its mobile phone
into a general purpose Internet browser. Nokia have developed thier OS
in such a way that it could be used for PC like devices.

- Ian Parker


You have been weighed in the balance, you have been found wanting.

On Jan 13, 1:50*am, Ian Parker wrote:


Are secure systems impossible to build? Well if you attack people
personally and comment on their sex lives they probable are. Are they
INTRINSICALLY impossible? Not a bit of it! Hacking is made possible
because operating systems allow programs to be downloaded and run
without human intervention. Run programs from a ROM which does not
allow this and the problem disappears. Mobile phones are largely ROM
based in terms of the way they operate.

Cell phones still have problems with viruses:

http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusine... tbedismissed


* - Ian Parker

On 14 Jan, 19:13, wrote:
On Jan 13, 1:50*am, Ian Parker wrote:



Are secure systems impossible to build? Well if you attack people
personally and comment on their sex lives they probable are. Are they
INTRINSICALLY impossible? Not a bit of it! Hacking is made possible
because operating systems allow programs to be downloaded and run
without human intervention. Run programs from a ROM which does not
allow this and the problem disappears. Mobile phones are largely ROM
based in terms of the way they operate.

Cell phones still have problems with viruses:

http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusine...logy/security/...

A lot depends on precisely how the phone works and what capabilities
are allowed. If you allow all possibilities you are in the same
situation as with computers. However as it implied at the end viruses
on mobile phones are not nearly the ame threat. This as I implied
earlier is because mobile phone OSs are much more ROM based. If you
have a ROM you can simply press a button and the skulls or whatever
will disappear.

As mobile phones become as sophisticated as PCs in what they can do
this could change. However the ROM based OS will mean that problems
will be a lot easier to deal with.


- Ian Parker