Forums
New posts
Search forums
News
Security News
Technology News
Giveaways
Giveaways, Promotions and Contests
Discounts & Deals
Reviews
Users Reviews
Video Reviews
Support
Windows Malware Removal Help & Support
Inactive Support Threads
Mac Malware Removal Help & Support
Mobile Malware Removal Help & Support
Blog
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search titles only
By:
Search titles only
By:
Reply to thread
Menu
Install the app
Install
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Forums
Security
Malware Analysis
The Crooked Timber of Humanity
Message
<blockquote data-quote="upnorth" data-source="post: 739906" data-attributes="member: 38832"><p><img src="https://images2.imgbox.com/a4/8c/dJ8pQL1y_o.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p>François Blanc</p><p></p><p>Quote : " WannaCry, a computer virus that encrypts data and demands a ransom to unscramble it, hit thousands of computers in May, causing several hospitals in Britain to close their doors. Hardly a week now goes by without a large company admitting that its systems have been breached: Yahoo recently confessed that 1bn accounts had been compromised in an attack in 2013. Cyber-attacks are a scourge of modern life, but their history goes back further than you might expect.</p><p></p><p>The world’s first national data network was constructed in France during the 1790s. It was a mechanical telegraph system, consisting of <a href="https://images2.imgbox.com/83/e1/jPv33gTJ_o.png" target="_blank">chains of towers</a>, each of which had a system of movable wooden arms on top. Different configurations of these arms corresponded to letters, numbers and other characters. Operators in each tower would adjust the arms to match the configuration of an adjacent tower, observed through a telescope, causing sequences of characters to ripple along the line. Messages could now be sent much faster than letters, whizzing from one end of France to the other in minutes. The network was reserved for government use but in 1834 two bankers, François and Joseph Blanc, devised a way to subvert it to their own ends.</p><p></p><p>The Blanc brothers traded government bonds at the exchange in the city of Bordeaux, where information about market movements took several days to arrive from Paris by mail coach. Accordingly, traders who could get the information more quickly could make money by anticipating these movements. Some tried using messengers and carrier pigeons, but the Blanc brothers found a way to use the telegraph line instead. They bribed the telegraph operator in the city of Tours to introduce deliberate errors into routine government messages being sent over the network.</p><p></p><p>The telegraph’s encoding system included a “backspace” symbol that instructed the transcriber to ignore the previous character. The addition of a spurious character indicating the direction of the previous day’s market movement, followed by a backspace, meant the text of the message being sent was unaffected when it was written out for delivery at the end of the line. But this extra character could be seen by another accomplice: a former telegraph operator who observed the telegraph tower outside Bordeaux with a telescope, and then passed on the news to the Blancs. The scam was only uncovered in 1836, when the crooked operator in Tours fell ill and revealed all to a friend, who he hoped would take his place. The Blanc brothers were put on trial, though they could not be convicted because there was no law against misuse of data networks. But the Blancs’ pioneering misuse of the French network qualifies as the world’s first cyber-attack.</p><p></p><p>All this holds lessons for us as we grapple with online mischief today. The first is to avoid complacency. Network intrusions (like that at Yahoo) often go unnoticed for many years, and many (if not most) may never be detected. Malware like WannaCry hits the headlines because its effects are so visible, but it gives an inaccurate picture of the scale of the cyber-security problem. Most attackers, like the Blancs, do not advertise their presence.</p><p></p><p>Second, regardless of the technology, security is like a chain and humans are always the weakest link. "</p><p></p><p>Source : <a href="https://www.1843magazine.com/technology/rewind/the-crooked-timber-of-humanity" target="_blank">The crooked timber of humanity</a></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="upnorth, post: 739906, member: 38832"] [IMG]https://images2.imgbox.com/a4/8c/dJ8pQL1y_o.jpg[/IMG] François Blanc Quote : " WannaCry, a computer virus that encrypts data and demands a ransom to unscramble it, hit thousands of computers in May, causing several hospitals in Britain to close their doors. Hardly a week now goes by without a large company admitting that its systems have been breached: Yahoo recently confessed that 1bn accounts had been compromised in an attack in 2013. Cyber-attacks are a scourge of modern life, but their history goes back further than you might expect. The world’s first national data network was constructed in France during the 1790s. It was a mechanical telegraph system, consisting of [URL='https://images2.imgbox.com/83/e1/jPv33gTJ_o.png']chains of towers[/URL], each of which had a system of movable wooden arms on top. Different configurations of these arms corresponded to letters, numbers and other characters. Operators in each tower would adjust the arms to match the configuration of an adjacent tower, observed through a telescope, causing sequences of characters to ripple along the line. Messages could now be sent much faster than letters, whizzing from one end of France to the other in minutes. The network was reserved for government use but in 1834 two bankers, François and Joseph Blanc, devised a way to subvert it to their own ends. The Blanc brothers traded government bonds at the exchange in the city of Bordeaux, where information about market movements took several days to arrive from Paris by mail coach. Accordingly, traders who could get the information more quickly could make money by anticipating these movements. Some tried using messengers and carrier pigeons, but the Blanc brothers found a way to use the telegraph line instead. They bribed the telegraph operator in the city of Tours to introduce deliberate errors into routine government messages being sent over the network. The telegraph’s encoding system included a “backspace” symbol that instructed the transcriber to ignore the previous character. The addition of a spurious character indicating the direction of the previous day’s market movement, followed by a backspace, meant the text of the message being sent was unaffected when it was written out for delivery at the end of the line. But this extra character could be seen by another accomplice: a former telegraph operator who observed the telegraph tower outside Bordeaux with a telescope, and then passed on the news to the Blancs. The scam was only uncovered in 1836, when the crooked operator in Tours fell ill and revealed all to a friend, who he hoped would take his place. The Blanc brothers were put on trial, though they could not be convicted because there was no law against misuse of data networks. But the Blancs’ pioneering misuse of the French network qualifies as the world’s first cyber-attack. All this holds lessons for us as we grapple with online mischief today. The first is to avoid complacency. Network intrusions (like that at Yahoo) often go unnoticed for many years, and many (if not most) may never be detected. Malware like WannaCry hits the headlines because its effects are so visible, but it gives an inaccurate picture of the scale of the cyber-security problem. Most attackers, like the Blancs, do not advertise their presence. Second, regardless of the technology, security is like a chain and humans are always the weakest link. " Source : [URL='https://www.1843magazine.com/technology/rewind/the-crooked-timber-of-humanity']The crooked timber of humanity[/URL] [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Top
