Military Botnet

[J]

So the world seems to have Botnet fever. Ever since I heard about the people who finally found a way to kill zombie computers by taking them over and cleaning them I have heard nothing more than the wonders of botnets, and how such a network could cure all our horrible brute force attack issues. While I see how the theory is nice, the practice seems a bit... large. To keep zombies out of large systems, like the latest idea from the Air Force to use them as both defensive and offensive, would take just an incredible amount of power, network pull, and space, that what would be the point? I much prefer the idea of sandboxing and virtualization. Using these technologies to compartmentalize and keep attacks to a minimum while still allowing quick and efficient use of both physical and memory space is a much better path to follow. Obviously in either case the chance of something causing some havoc is still present, but in virtualization the sandbox can be quickly folded and reopened, whereas if a server gets hit through botnets, it is really hit and there is no virtual backup that can be kicked in to replace it. Not to mention that you would probably lose some of your bots in the fight assuming something did leak through the front line.

So yes botnets are an interesting and very formidable opponent. Using them to fight eachother, however, just seems like a foolish waist of time, and would just end in wasted energy and space that could be used for small but powerful multiplexing systems. The only way I could see botnets being as good as virtualization would be to utilize virtualization in the botnet system. If you could setup a series of virtual bots that could all run on one or two servers then perhaps you might have something. That is getting a little past my area of knowledge though, and so it will just end in an idea.

*picture borrowed from politech.files.wordpress.com

[cryptik]

You would still have a problem with the throughput of the network your on. At least with a true botnet you get the added functionality of multiple diverse routes.

[J]

This is true. I was thinking more in a physical since with that hypothesis. There is that new upgrade throughput that many private companies are starting to work on now, but either way I wouldn't waste my megabits. Truthfully I think the idea of using botnets is a waste, especially the idea of using zombie computers to fight eachother. I'm sure there are much better ways to take on other countries as far as the air force is concerned. And using virtual machines and sandbox apps to protect systems would probably be just fine for the average government worker's system.

[OxFEMALE]

In most offices where i worked we use virtual networks and virtual boxes for chating for example and can oopen any link, if i got virus or something just use old snapshot:) About botnet takeovering, i think it's hard, but possible, requires experience for it.

[Andrei]

That's very sad but it's true.