PCs to developing world 'fuel malware' (Register) [LWN.net]

Our old friend Eugene Kaspersky never gives up; according to this Register article, he is now warning that systems like the OLPC will result in the creation of more malware. "'A particular cause for concern is programs which advocate cheap computers for poor third world countries,' Kaspersky writes. 'These further encourage criminal activity on the internet. Statistics on the number of malicious programs originating from specific countries confirm this: the world leader in virus writing is China, followed by Latin America, with Russia and Eastern European countries not far behind.'"

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PCs to developing world 'fuel malware' (Register)

Posted Jun 14, 2006 1:46 UTC (Wed) by yokem_55 (subscriber, #10498) [Link] (9 responses)

Correlation != causality!!!! If anything, these little PC's will reduce the malware coming out of these regions as their overall economic viability will improve, thus reducing the root causes of malware makers. Also, only a fraction of these machines will be on the global internet as the networking is designed around sharing information and documents with other OLPC's, not the whole internet.

PCs to developing world 'fuel malware' (Register)

Posted Jun 14, 2006 7:57 UTC (Wed) by rmstar (guest, #3672) [Link] (8 responses)

It seems to me that this iniciative might also be helpfull in disabusing naive 1st world people of their faith in their overly simplified economic theories. Do you really think that a laptop injection will make their economies viable? Do you really think the reason many of these countries are in the state they are is just lack of laptops?

Don't get me wrong. I hope they enjoy the nice laptops. But it won't solve much of anything beyond the lack of cheap laptops.

PCs to developing world 'fuel malware' (Register)

Posted Jun 14, 2006 8:09 UTC (Wed) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link] (3 responses)

The ability to read and do basic math will certainly solve lots of 3rd world problems. As it happens, OLPC will help illiteracy, since now people will have something to read.

The ability to know what's going on in the world will surely help a lot of 3rd world problems. As an example, email and/or a mobile phone is often pretty high on the wishlist of poor villages. It comes right after clean water, food and medicin. The reason for this is that farmers gain a tremendous advantage if they have some clue of the going rate of their products outside their own small community, when some big shot comes and makes a ridiculously low offer.

As it happens OLPC will make people better connected to world news. And, as it happens, better communication is usually helpful to foter democracy in general. See, you're wrong I'm right :-)

PCs to developing world 'fuel malware' (Register)

Posted Jun 14, 2006 18:25 UTC (Wed) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] (1 responses)

Its clear that the strategy behind the device is a trojan horse one - sell the device as an e-book, then see what students are able to do with a flexible, net-connected, programmable tool. -- Ethan Zuckerman

PCs to developing world 'fuel malware' (Register)

Posted Jun 14, 2006 18:51 UTC (Wed) by beoba (guest, #16942) [Link]

Dont sell them hammers! They could be used to.. uh.. BUILD BOMBS!!!

Can I have my paycheck now?

PCs to developing world 'fuel malware' (Register)

Posted Jun 15, 2006 9:10 UTC (Thu) by rmstar (guest, #3672) [Link]

You are underestimating the literacy of many of these countries, and are misunderstanding the nature of their problems. In some ways one would prefer to assume that if people act in selfdefeating ways, and/or keep consistently falling into tragedy, it must be because they don't know any better.

Wake up. If it were that simple there would not be any of these problems by now.

PCs to developing world 'fuel malware' (Register)

Posted Jun 14, 2006 10:35 UTC (Wed) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (2 responses)

Laptops provide people opertunity to learn and communicate.

Remember it's just about internet access and not just having the laptops to do home work on.

Right now, for the first time in history, all levels of society have free and easy access to large amounts of information just as long as they have the basic equipment and internet access. Previously in order to get equal amounts of information you had to be wealthy in a already rich country and attending a large university.

Now all you need is internet access. A child in Ugaunda will have access to the same amount of information that I have living in the United States. Of course most of it will be in English, but thats nothing compared to having to figure out a way to get a scholorship to some European or U.S. University in order to just read books or do research.

PCs to developing world 'fuel malware' (Register)

Posted Jun 14, 2006 11:01 UTC (Wed) by MathFox (guest, #6104) [Link] (1 responses)

You are assuming that the OLPC computers will be connected to the internet; allthough I think that may happen in the future, the first priority will be networking the kids with their schools. The goal for these laptops is to make distribution of educational material more convenient. One USB stick can hold the equivalent of over a hundred schoolbooks and is much more convenient to transport than a crate of dead-tree books.
It's hard to predict what will happen as the next step; internetworking between schools, telco's offering a private education network, collaborative writing of textbooks by rural teachers, "ugandapedia.org"... It will be interesting to see which development paths the people themselves choose.
For the first five years they won't be an internet problem.

PCs to developing world 'fuel malware' (Register)

Posted Jun 14, 2006 18:15 UTC (Wed) by freemars (subscriber, #4235) [Link]

Owners of OLPC computers who share a slow link to the internet will have a powerful incentive to keep out any malware which would use up limited bandwidth.

PCs to developing world 'fuel malware' (Register)

Posted Jun 14, 2006 12:57 UTC (Wed) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link]

>Don't get me wrong. I hope they enjoy the nice laptops. But it won't solve much of anything beyond the lack of cheap laptops.

Possible not immediately. But doesn't history agree that when a population increases in knowledge, standards of living follow?
We'll have to check back in a couple of decades and see if
a) the program has traction, and
b) anything improves.

PCs to developing world 'fuel malware' (Register)

Posted Jun 14, 2006 2:55 UTC (Wed) by Russell (guest, #1453) [Link] (1 responses)

Another register story http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/12/spam_distribution... seems to be saying the opposite. It would appear from this article that developed countries are where the criminals come from.

Don't you just love statistics.

PCs to developing world 'fuel malware' (Register)

Posted Jun 14, 2006 4:38 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Heh. Fortunatelly this time there are no contradition: "poor third world countries" are providing malware and developed countries - machines to be zombified. Looks logical...

P.S. Oh - and will be interesting challenge for anyone to create Windows virus with OLPC: without Windows development tools, WINE or even access to internet ? I'm pretty sure anyone who'll achieve this will be able to find better paying legal job. And virus for Linux will be patched ASAP by malware creator's neighbours ! FlexGo program, on the other hand is different in this regard: only Microsoft can patch Windows - and we konow how good it's track in this regard...

Not unreasonable

Posted Jun 14, 2006 6:49 UTC (Wed) by scottt (subscriber, #5028) [Link]

The OLPC effort will ship a large amount of identical machines which interpret active content in Python, Smalltalk and Javascript.

It's just that wireless mesh networking isn't as useful for sending spam as home broadband.

Tools bear responsibility for use

Posted Jun 14, 2006 13:57 UTC (Wed) by kirkengaard (guest, #15022) [Link]

The only other option is to artificially starve third-world areas of technology access. Do we like this option any better? So we have: let them continue without, deprive them further, or give them tools. Kaspersky shows no faith in the people receiving these tools.

PCs to developing world 'fuel malware' (Register)

Posted Jun 15, 2006 0:13 UTC (Thu) by anonymous21 (guest, #30106) [Link]

It's sad...

Improper analysis leads to improper conclusion

Posted Jun 17, 2006 22:50 UTC (Sat) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054) [Link]

His argument for the increase in malware is based on two premises:

Crime levels are determined by the following factors:

the size of the community (the bigger it is, the higher the number of potential and actual criminals)
the level of economic development (it's easier to earn a living by honest means in more developed countries)
the ability of law enforcement bodies (e.g. the police) to investigate crimes and imprison the perpetrators

and

A particular cause for concern is programs which advocate `cheap computers for poor third world countries') - these further encourage criminal activity on the Internet. Statistics [...] confirm this: the world leader in virus writing is China, followed by Latin America, with Russia and Eastern European countries not far behind.

There's a subtle distinction between the subjects of the these two paragraphs which renders the conclusion untenable: the first discusses the integral community, while the second is about individual sections of a community. The crime rate in New York City is a result of the first set of items, while the crime rate of Times Square is a result of the amount of money for the taking (to which the number of thieves is proportional), the ability of criminals to get there, and the number of police officers stationed there. None of those have any more than a tenuous connection to the first set of factors.

Thus, the since the amount of money available (everything in the world, to a first approximation :-/) and the ability to enforce the law are unaffected by the distribution of laptops, the question is what is the effect on the second factor (economic development). I can't see OLPC making things worse, and quite likely improving things (see hingo's comment), I see no justification for Kaspersky's conclusion.

Kaspersky's article is mainly about the anti-virus market, and mentions Microsoft's getting into the field...

<paranoia>
It must have occurred to someone in Microsoft that there's a nice market in building vulnerabilities into their applications so their anti-virus can be first, and most effective, against said vulnerabilities. Of course, it couldn't be done blatantly, but still.... They certainly don't seem to be in a hurry to detect their business partners' adware.
</paranoia>