Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: "Osmium" Newsgroups: comp.programming Subject: Re: finding backdoors and security holes Date: Wed, 9 Dec 2015 09:22:14 -0600 Lines: 27 Message-ID: References: <6fd70338-1997-404e-a371-51577f91dbd3@googlegroups.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="Windows-1252"; reply-type=response Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: individual.net twzd51PNRUdC1Hltf9D3QgQG739EtIGjVc7WvMjWwWbG4jHVcs Cancel-Lock: sha1:mDPMZLrZUWU3f3KUG2kz6hMmSb4= X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2180 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2180 Xref: csiph.com comp.programming:6034 "Richard Heathfield" wrote: > On 03/12/15 01:59, G G wrote: >> How are these guys (generic) find these backdoors and security holes? > > Do they have the source? If so, imagine trying to find a shoe shop on > Oxford Street (not a particular shop - any shoe shop will do), looking for > a hill in Wales, tracking down a cow in Gloucestershire, or identifying a > crank in sci.crypt. These are tasks of comparable length and difficulty. I will make a wild guess that they sell shoes on Oxford Street and Wales is hilly, therefore finding backdoors is a trivial exercise.. I would describe a program that does something other than what was expected by the user, as having a backdoor. Using that base, one link on Google says there are 482,000 VW diesels in the US that have backdoors in their software. Here's one link describing how that particular backdoor after several years, was finally found. Sounds like a good base plot line for a movie on the Airdbus 380 or whatver they call that big thing. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34519184