Farrar, Strauss, Giroud
In November 1988, a Cornell University graduate student Robert Morris Jr. Unleashed a self-replicating computer worm on a VAX 11/750 computer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, accidentally causing a national crisis. Morris had no malice. It was just a scientific experiment to see how many computers he could infect. But he made a serious mistake by setting the reinfection rate too high. The worm spread so quickly that his entire network of Cornell University computers went down, his networks of several other university computers crippled, and even Ross He They even broke into a computer at a national lab.
What makes the situation even worse is the his father He is a computer scientist and cryptographer and was the Chief Scientist for the National Security Agency. National Computer Security Center. He was convicted of felony computer fraud, even though it was unintentional and witnesses testified that there were no “rogue or rogue bones in Morris’s body.” The judge was merciful during the sentencing. Instead of 15 to 20 years in prison, Morris received three years of probation for community service and had to pay a $10,000 fine.he went on to discover Y Combinator with his longtime friend Paul Grahamand other results.
”morris worm“This is just one of five hacking incidents Scott Shapiro covers in his new book. Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: 5 Incredible Hacks Reveal Dark History of the Information Age. Shapiro is legal philosopher I was at Yale University, but when I was a kid, my mathematician father, who worked at Bell Labs, brought home various components such as microchips, resistors, diodes, LEDs, and breadboards to use in computing. sparked my interest in The father-son outing also included attending the annual Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers convention in New York City. Then a classmate from Mr. Shapiro’s high school biology class introduced him to programming on his TRS-80 at school, and Mr. Shapiro was hooked. He went on to develop his Apple II and majored in computer science in college, but then lost interest and went to law school.
with colleagues at Yale Oona HathawayShapiro co-authored a book called Internationalists: How Radical Plans to Outlaw War Reshaped the Worlda comprehensive historical analysis of the laws of war that extends to: Hugo GrotiusThat experience raised many questions about the future of warfare – whether the same “rules” of cyberwarfare apply. Especially considering Shapiro’s background in computers and coding, the subject seemed like a natural choice for his next book.
Despite that background, “Honestly, I had no idea what to say about it,” Shapiro told Ars. “I found everything very confusing.” He was then asked to co-teach a special course, “The Laws and Techniques of Cyber Conflict,” with the computer science departments of Hathaway and Yale Universities. But an even mix of law students and computer his science students trying to learn about two very different high technology fields proved to be a difficult mix. “This was the worst class I’ve ever taught,” Shapiro said. “At any given time, half the class was boring and the other half was confusing. I didn’t learn anything from it, and neither did the other students.”
The experience prompted Shapiro to spend the next few years trying to solve the problem. He brushed up his C, x86 assembly his code, Linux and immersed himself in the history of hacking, achieving his first hack at the age of 52. But he also approached the issue from his own area of expertise. “I’m a philosopher, so I like to go back to first principles,” he said. “But computer science is only a century old, but hacking and cybersecurity are probably decades old. does not think it through from first principles.” The result is that fancy bear goes fishing.
This book is a lively and engaging read filled with engaging stories and colorful characters. dark avengerwhose identity is still unknown. Cameron Lacroix, a 16-year-old from South Boston notorious for hacking Paris Hilton’s Sidekick II in 2005.Rutgers University student Pallas Jar, who designedMirai botnet“–apparently to escape a calculus exam–and most destroyed the internet When he hacked in 2016 Mine Craft; and of course, as the title says fancy bear A hack by the Russian military intelligence agency that played a central role in the 2016 presidential election. (Interesting fact: Shapiro said: John von Neumann “We built a self-replicating automaton in 1949, decades before any other hacker… [and] He wrote it without using a computer. ”)
But Shapiro also brings keen insight into why the internet is still so insecure decades after it was invented, and how and why hackers do what they do. And his conclusions about what can be done about it may be a bit controversial. teeth There are no permanent solutions to cybersecurity problems. “Cybersecurity is not primarily a technical problem that requires primarily engineering solutions,” Shapiro wrote. “This is a human problem and we need to understand human behavior.” This is his motto throughout the book. “Hacking is about humans.” And for Shapiro, it was a premonition of “the death of ‘solutionism’.”
Alus spoke to Shapiro to find out more.
