Viruses - Undergraduate Project

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Viruses - Undergraduate Project black0fire@gmail.com 05-24-2007
Posted by kurt wismer on May 28, 2007, 7:45 am
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Nick FitzGerald wrote:
>
>> [snip]
>>> Viruses are product and OS specific and don't justify credible
>>> academic study,
>> tell that to fred cohen...
>
> Virus Guy is mostly right there, though he somewhat overstated
> the case that there is nothing of academic worth in studying
> computer virus, or more generally malware, related issues.
>
> That said however, note the dearth of _significant_ virus or
> malware related PhD theses presented since Fred's. When it
> comes to the theoretically significant aspects of computer
> viruses, Fred pretty wrote the book and put the _academic_
> field to bed all in one move.
>
> Of course, various "populists" have come along since, offering
> various courses of questionable academic and/or pedagogical
> value, but which I'm sure have produced nice economic returns
> to their hosting institutions because of the "sexiness" of
> (superficially) studying hot-button topics.

hmmm... i considered following up with "maybe i should have said tell
that to richard ford", but given the above, perhaps that's not good
enough...

--
"it's not the right time to be sober
now the idiots have taken over
spreading like a social cancer,
is there an answer?"

Posted by Nick FitzGerald on May 29, 2007, 12:11 am
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"kurt wismer" wrote:

> hmmm... i considered following up with "maybe i should have said tell
> that to richard ford", but given the above, perhaps that's not good
> enough...

I'd be surprised if Dicky's courses are not worthwhile and largely
beyond my "populist" tag -- I had some rather more egregious examples
in mind involving folk with no history of publishing anything in the
area before starting their courses and who were completely unknown
within antivirus research circles...


--
Nick FitzGerald



Posted by samantha on June 9, 2007, 2:51 am
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Remove the samples you'll find if you look around.
>
>> [snip]
>>> Viruses are product and OS specific and don't justify credible
>>> academic study,
>>
>> tell that to fred cohen...
>
> Virus Guy is mostly right there, though he somewhat overstated
> the case that there is nothing of academic worth in studying
> computer virus, or more generally malware, related issues.
>
> That said however, note the dearth of _significant_ virus or
> malware related PhD theses presented since Fred's. When it
> comes to the theoretically significant aspects of computer
> viruses, Fred pretty wrote the book and put the _academic_
> field to bed all in one move.
>
> Of course, various "populists" have come along since, offering
> various courses of questionable academic and/or pedagogical
> value, but which I'm sure have produced nice economic returns
> to their hosting institutions because of the "sexiness" of
> (superficially) studying hot-button topics. However, such
> economic "success" does not make those studies worthwhile. If
> you need to spend more than a few minutes of your entire life
> pondering the theoretical, academic and practical significance
> of "runs arbitrary code on the target computer", then CS is
> clearly the wrong field for you...
>
>
> --
> Nick FitzGerald
>


Posted by Virus Guy on June 9, 2007, 9:16 am
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Lurker/newbie samantha wrote:

> Remove the samples you'll find if you look around.

What the hell does that mean?

Posted by Ertugrul Soeylemez on May 25, 2007, 11:57 pm
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> I'm a computer science undergraduate student interested in doing my
> final year project regarding viruses. The project needs to be done in
> a team of 4 students and will go on for about an year, and it has to
> have both academic value and and end product to present. Though I
> really wish to do a project in the area of viruses, detection of
> viruses, mutaion engines, etc, I can't find or think of any suitable
> project ideas that would suit the criteria. So I wonder if anyone can
> present some ideas that would make a suitable project?

Well, since you have picked such a popular topic, there isn't much left
to write about. If you have proper knowledge, including how they work
and how to write your own, don't waste your time with collecting
information that is well-known anyway. Be creative. A few questions
you could address:

What are future viruses going to look like?
How will they work?
In what way will they be different?
What will their purposes be?
Which new technologies will be used/abused?
Why is writing a virus much easier than detecting it?

In the past, viruses were written to pop up a funny message once in a
while or otherwise confuse the user. Very few viruses (I reckon less
than 10%) were destructive. Now viruses tend to have social or even
economic purposes. In what ways can viruses be used criminally?

Another interesting point is the psychological view. Why are there
botnets with millions of bots? A lot of people don't care much about
security; why? Will that change? In what way will it change? How
could we promote security?


Regards,
Ertugrul S=C3=B6ylemez.


--=20
Security is the one concept, which makes things in your life stay as
they are. Otto is a man, who is afraid of changes in his life; so
naturally he does not employ security.

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