[145729] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: [IP] Malware kills 154
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Chad Perrin)
Tue Aug 24 23:10:53 2010
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:05:20 -0600
From: Chad Perrin <perrin@apotheon.com>
To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
Mail-Followup-To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
In-Reply-To: <E0A21FB0-6E8D-4AC9-9F14-D7D119805496@cs.columbia.edu>
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On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 06:44:02PM -0400, Steven Bellovin wrote:
>=20
> On Aug 24, 2010, at 12:32 19PM, Chad Perrin wrote:
>=20
> > On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 03:35:45PM -0400, Steven Bellovin wrote:
> >>=20
> >> And the articles I've seen do not say that the problem caused the
> >> crash. Rather, they say that a particular, important computer was
> >> infected with malware; I saw no language (including in the Google
> >> translation of the original article at
> >> http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/ordenador/Spanair/anotaba/fallos=
/aviones/tenia/virus/elpepiesp/20100820elpepinac_11/Tes,
> >> though the translation has some crucial infelicities) that said
> >> "because of the malware, bad things happened. It may be like the
> >> reactor computer with a virus during a large blackout -- yes, the
> >> computer was infected, but that wasn't what caused the problem.
> >=20
> > The problem was evidently a couple of maintenance technicians who didn't
> > do their jobs correctly. The computer comes into the matter because one
> > of its jobs was to activate an alarm if a critical system whose failure
> > *was* the proximate cause of the crash was not working properly. It
> > didn't activate the alarm, which would have led to the aircraft being
> > prohibited from taking off, because of the malware.
> >=20
>=20
> What I have not seen are any statements attributed to the investigating
> agency that support your last conclusion: that the malware is what
> caused the alarm failure. =20
>=20
> I saw a very good summary of the official findings; I'll ask permission
> to repost them.
I'd love to see it. I don't for the life of me remember which articles I
saw from which I got that impression of events; if you have better
sources, I'd love to know about it.
--=20
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
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