Over three million computers 0wned?

Tue Jul 1 18:08:55 UTC 2003

marc at sachsfamily.net ("Marc") writes:

> It would be interesting to know if the FBI or any other group can
> characterize how many computers are 0wn3d per minute.  Then, of those
> computers, how many remain 0wn3d indefinitely?

what's interesting here is the changing definition of "0wn3d".  there was
a time when installing malbots on someone's computer meant you "0wn3d" it
but now that there's spammer malware that searches for "open proxies" a
vast number of said proxies appear to be of "0wn3d" computers.  therefore
a spammer who would not go so far as to install the malbot is absolutely
willing to make use of it once it's been installed by others.  "0wn3rship"
seems to be pretty anonymous at this point.  (shades of "shockwave rider".)

i guess palladium will fix all this, somehow.
-- 
Paul Vixie