Race To Zero

Ethical or not?

Race To Zero

 

Don't they have better things to do ?

 

I think several people always wanted to know how a atombomb really works. Just let's try it out in a fun weekend family project:
http://home.earthlink.net/~enigmaep/annihilation/buildabomb.html
You really have to have a nuclear explosion next to your neighbors door in order to understand that.

Instead of teaching people how to avoid antivirus detection (NO MATTER HOW EASY THAT IS) they should do something productive and teach them security manners. It's a FACT that you can avoid detection for EVERY antivirus product, no matter what the name is or will be! That's nothing new. And it's also nothing new that this might work for some brands easier than for others.

Computer Antivirus Products WERE NOT BUILD TO WIN ANTIVIRUS TESTS OR HACKING CONTESTS. They were build to protect their customers in the best possible way. And creating new malware and giving malware authors "new" ideas how to avoid detection is rather contra productive. This whole contest doesn't provide any solution how to solve the issue! I can also point up my fingers and complain that my car can't fly when driving over 180mph. Do i provide a solution for it? No. But i can complain that almost every car has the same "fault". Sure thing that some companies find that highly "disturbing", the ones without generic/heuristic detection but once again: You can EASILY change/modify malware that no heuristic pick it up anymore. You don't even have to have a technical degree for it. So there's NOTHING to proof. It's already a fact. The only result what comes out is that they find a method that keeps all av vendors busy with nonsense malware that doesn't even exist at this time on a users machine.

 

The running of a contest such as this should actually be considered illegal in my opinion. It is nothing but an attempt to make a big splash at their event with a very unproductive contest. I truly think the initiators of this event should be held legally liable for encouraging the creation on computer malware. There is so much money and time expended trying to protect the worlds computers it just doesn't make sense to me to allow an event with the specific purpose of creating more malware.

bigc

 

Why doesn't anyone organize a contest for making a program that will protect from a virus which will be unknown to the participants prior to the contest? That would teach people much better about how to make protections (and how difficult it is).

 

Hello,

I don't know what to say. Everyone has the right to their little corner of glory. However, it can be a good exercise for AV vendors to observe how the "hacker" mind works and try to adapt. Some may definitely fear their products won't stand up to the challenge, but if there's no pain, there's no gain.

Which brings a beautiful concept to mind - default deny. If it ain't yours, it ain't running. Thus, only whitelisted content runs and all else is dead.

Mrk