Thinking Thomas

There has been some discussion recently about the University of Calgary teaching students how to write viruses and malware so they will be better equipped to deal with such software.

For some background information visit Damien who has had his say in the matter. Read the "Virus writing at university" posts to get the crux of the matter. Duncan also has some links on his blog.

The opposing side seems to have a habit of finding false analogies to explain their position. But thinking just a little bit about these statement one realises that they do not represent the situation very well at all.

"You don't send somebody out to shoot someone so they understand what happens when somebody gets shot."

And you do not go around infecting deployed systems with viruses so you understand what happens when a system gets infected. The computers the students will be practicing on will be dedicated to this task and will not be connected to anything important. There is no way anyone is going to get shot.

"For example, I wouldn't need to know why somebody does graffiti to know that it's a problem and to know how to combat it."

So not knowing what allows a virus to be written and effective in the first place is not necessary if you want to write virus resistant applications? What would people say if the course was about teaching students what allows programs to exploited by viruses and other such malware? Would they feel differently then? If they do they need to rethink their position. One cannot fight an enemy whose methods are unknown.

"Don't bother applying for a job at Sophos," he said. "If you have written viruses you will be turned away."

This stance I honestly do not understand. These students are not doing anything illegal, wrong or unethical. I can't even argue against it because I have no understanding of this position. So if I have an old computer and I see if I can infect it with a virus of my own devicing I can suddenly no longer be considered to a potential valuable asset to these companies. Sounds like a knee-jerk reaction to me, a reflex without thought.

And while I am the topic of AV firms. They are not the solution against viruses as they do not solve any of the fundamental problems. The fundamental problem is of course that viruses can be written in the first place. "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." The AV firms are the branch hackers. The people who make it harder to write viruses in the first place, University of Calgary, are striking at the root. And that there is a thousand to one is self explanatory when the major players will not even look to see if any good comes out of this.

And I do not think that AV firms are the only potential employers of these students. The potential employers are all companies which write software. Someone with the knowledge of how a virus works can apply that knowledge on the other end and write virus proof software. And here is why so little headway is made in the battle againt malware, the first, last and only line of defense against the worst scum of the universe are reactive. If all we do is react then the enemy will always be one step ahead. That is why we need students from University of Calgary to proact so we can be one step ahead of our enemy.

My feet are firmly planted in the pro University of Calgary camp and I intend to stay here.

East Kilbride is as far as I am concerned a mall and a Motorola plant.

Perspective is important it seems :)

That HTML in e-mail is a bad thing is common knowledge. Everyone with a slight clue says it is so everyone believes it. But as the French would say: I have a doubt. I suddenly see very little reason for this hatred for HTML. I can see how some people with browsers without HTML support might not like it, but hell, get a better browser for gods sake.

I think this is just collectivism taking its course. Oh, see what they are doing. Lets agree with them.

Exams are over.

Lessons learned. Hopefully acted upon next year. I am very tired and quite happy.

I just feel like writing so excuse me if this seems a bit pointless.

I have no idea what I am going to write. Maybe a few more sentences which are telling you again and again that I don't know what to say. I could talk about tomorrows exam which is Computer Architecture and Design. Contrary to popular belief CAD is not so hard, it is just a lot of it. So it is hard to study enough for it. That is almost a contradiction, but I hope I am making myself clear :)

Then on friday I have Software Correctness. Not very hard and not very much. Should be a decent exam. I just regret not studying more for it though, only done a little work for that. Everything will be passed, remains to see if I'll do it in style.

And there is no use in talking about this so much. Or maybe there is, I don't know. Maybe it helps me clear up my thoughts so I can sleep better tonight... That would be good as I am very tired. Not sleepy tired, just brain exhaustion from intensive communication studying. Maybe I should do some exercise before I go to bed as well.

And have anyone noticed the disctinctive lack of people outside today? Something to do with football I am sure. If we want world peace we just need to stage a one year football world cup and no one will have time for war.

Oh, and I have more or less decided that I want to do this when I graduate. Well, that is still some time away, but right now that feels like the thing to do. Cannot walk around with just a Bachelor on my CV ;) Looks very challenging, but will no doubt be interesting. That communications was hard does not mean I did not somewhat enjoy it.

I had a look at the postgradute masters offered by the CIS department at strathclyde as well but nothing seemed really to appeal to me. It also seemed to be mainly targetted at students from other disciplines. Might be wrong though. Should advertise better if they have more to offer.

Main problem right now is to get a job. Well, lets be pragmatic about that and put it aside for a few moments (a few weeks perhaps :)

Have a nice night for everyone who managed to read this far.