Re: The origin of breakin attempts

In article <slrne6vcat.uv2.ibuprofin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
ibuprofin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Moe Trin) wrote:

On Sat, 20 May 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.security.misc, in article
<barmar-5E7A7B.18353020052006@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Barry Margolin wrote:

ibuprofin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Moe Trin) wrote:

As near as I can tell, the problem with China (as well as in Korean,

My, these fingers are fumbling a lot today - try 'as well as in Korea,'

Taiwan, and many other countries) is that the providers there are
totally clueless, and the wide-bandwidth connected hosts are unsecured
because (like everywhere else) they are being run by wankers whose
computer knowledge is taxed by figuring out where the on/off switch is.

The problem, IMHO, is that despite having made great strides in the the
past decade or so, these are still essentially third-world countries.
Corruption and disregard for the law and personal property run rampant.

That point has considerable merit. I'd have to agree with it.

I don't think it's so much that the providers are clueless, but they
just don't care.

How do you explain the disaster when Korea decided to put broadband into
every school, and then left the systems in unpatched, wide open states
that got exploited by every spammer in the world, and every skript kiddie
running his 'ph34r-/\/\3' tool-kit.?

I don't explain it because I was totally unaware of it. I'm not
disputing it, I just haven't followed the details of far eastern
technology transfer that closely.

But I guess the crux of the question is: are the attacks originating in
the far east, or are the attackers over here and they're exploiting lots
of vulnerable computers over there because the Chinese, Koreans, etc.
don't know how to protect themselves from becoming zombies.


It's not part of their culture.

In the case of Korea, the problem was more the resistance to criticism from
outsiders. When admins all over the world started blackholing all packets
from Korean addresses (because ALL abuse complaints were ignored), we
started to see some changes. The Korean manufacturers were seeing the
result of blackholes on their bottom lines, and put the word out to the
Korean Ministry of Education, and to the various Korean ISPs. It's still
far from perfect, and I'm sure there are millions of firewall rules and
ACLs on private and corporate firewalls around the world that may remain
in place until the heat-death of the solar system. But as noted in my
April stats, _for_me_ Korea is barely in third place, just edging out
Canada and Brazil.

Part of it may be their communist history. In a communist society,
where individuals don't own their property, you don't give much
consideration to other people.

On the other hand, "I have heard"(tm) that the Chinese government is
slapping lusers in jail, or executing them for "dishonoring the country"
or some such "crime".

None the less, the communists are but a brief phase - and you need only
look at the traffic on the streets of Guangzhou (was Canton), Senzhen,
Yulin, or even Shanghai. Those Merc's and BMW's aren't owned by the state.

They're not owned by most Chinese citizens, either. Yes, China has an
upper class, and city dwellers live a relatively modern lifestyle. But
the majority of their population still live in backward villages where
chiefs run the town, black markets are a way of life, and bribing
officials is the only way to get anything done.

--
Barry Margolin, barmar@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***
*** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group ***
.

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