Worm Quotes

“These problems have been here so long that the only way I’ve been able to function at all is by learning to ignore them. Else I would be in a constant state of panic, unable to think or act constructively.”
― Mark Bowden, Worm: The First Digital World War

“Private sector networks in the United States, networks operated by civilian U.S. government agencies, and unclassified U.S. military and intelligence agency networks increasingly are experiencing cyber intrusions and attacks,” said a U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission report to Congress that was published the same month Conficker appeared. “. . . Networks connected to the Internet are vulnerable even if protected with hardware and software firewalls and other security mechanisms. The government, military, businesses and economic institutions, key infrastructure elements, and the population at large of the United States are completely dependent on the Internet. Internet-connected networks operate the national electric grid and distribution systems for fuel. Municipal water treatment and waste treatment facilities are controlled through such systems. Other critical networks include the air traffic control system, the system linking the nation’s financial institutions, and the payment systems for Social Security and other government assistance on which many individuals and the overall economy depend. A successful attack on these Internet-connected networks could paralyze the United States [emphasis added].”
― Mark Bowden, Worm: The First Digital World War

“The upbeat DHS report was some kind of high-water mark for government gall—a tough record to beat. After sitting back and watching the Cabal do all the work, and nearly succeed, Uncle Sam finally found a role for himself: proclaim victory and then stick a flag in it!”
― Mark Bowden, Worm: The First Digital World War

“remember the two signatures of modern war: (1) You never win, exactly; you claim victory. (2) Perception is paramount.”
― Mark Bowden, Worm: The First Digital World War

“Instead of being assembled by genes, the worm was assembled by “memes,” a word coined by British scientist and polemicist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene. Memes are original ideas. Dawkins argued that they play the same role in cultural evolution as genes play in biology, getting passed along from person to person, surviving and adapting as they move.”
― Mark Bowden, Worm: The First Digital World War

“Over four months in December 2008 and January, February, and March 2009, as Conficker assembled the largest botnet in the world, government, which would seem to have had the largest share of overarching responsibility, played a shockingly minor role. At first the übergeeks assumed the feds were constrained by the need for secrecy: you know, protecting official tactics and methods. Surely behind the scenes there was a sophisticated, well-funded clandestine official apparatus—everyone has seen the gleaming, dark glass and metal, see-everything/hear-everything sets Hollywood dusts off for its espionage blockbusters. What the anti-Conficker group discovered was deeply disillusioning. The real reason for the feds’ silence was . . . they had nothing to offer! They were in way over their heads.”
― Mark Bowden, Worm: The First Digital World War

“Profit is the universal trigger of innovation.”
― Mark Bowden, Worm: The First Digital World War

“Today the most serious computer predators are funded by rich criminal syndicates and even nation-states, and their goals are far more ambitious. Cyberattacks were launched at digital networks in Estonia by ethnic Russian protesters in 2007 and in Georgia before Russia attacked that country in 2008; and someone, probably Israel or the United States (or both), successfully loosed a worm called Stuxnet in 2010 to sabotage computer-controlled uranium centrifuges inside Iran’s secretive nuclear program.”
― Mark Bowden, Worm: The First Digital World War

“It is harder to defend a computer than to attack it.”
― Mark Bowden, Worm: The First Digital World War

“By some estimates, there are 250 hacker groups in China that are tolerated and may even be encouraged by the government to enter and disrupt computer networks,” said the 2008 U.S.–China Security Review. “The Chinese government closely monitors Internet activities and is likely aware of the hackers’ activities. While the exact number may never be known, these estimates suggest that the Chinese government devotes a tremendous amount of human resources to cyber activity for government purposes. Many individuals are being trained in cyber operations at Chinese military academies, which does fit with the Chinese military’s overall strategy.”
― Mark Bowden, Worm: The First Digital World War

“Regular users know nothing about program languages or varying exchange protocols. They just want the thing to run. So Microsoft invented a way to bundle executable programs and data, the DLL, that allows them to be smoothly exchanged by computers on different networks.”
― Mark Bowden, Worm: The First Digital World War

“But modern malware is aimed less at exploiting individual computers than exploiting the Internet. A botnet-creating worm doesn’t want to harm your computer; it wants to use it.”
― Mark Bowden, Worm: The First Digital World War

“60 Minutes, the most watched and most respected news program on the tube.”
― Mark Bowden, Worm: The First Digital World War

“Today there is big money for those who can stealthily invade computer networks, or construct a secure botnet, and no modern military arsenal is complete without state-of-the-art malware.”
― Mark Bowden, Worm: The First Digital World War

“Anyone who uses Windows on their home computer is familiar with routine security updates, which Microsoft issues on the second Tuesday of each month. In the Tribe it has become known as “Patch Tuesday.”
― Mark Bowden, Worm: The First Digital World War

“The Internet promised a truly global egalitarian age. That was the idea, anyway. The international and unstructured nature of the thing was vital to these early Internet idealists. If knowledge is power, then power at long last would reside where it belonged, with the people, all people!”
― Mark Bowden, Worm: The First Digital World War

“They remain, by definition, so far as the stereotype goes, odd, remote, reputed to be borderline autistic, and generally opaque to anyone outside their own tribe—They are mutants, born with abilities far beyond those of normal humans. The late M.I.T. professor Joseph Weizenbaum identified and described the species back at the dawn of the digital age, in his 1976 book Computer Power and Human Reason:”
― Mark Bowden, Worm: The First Digital World War