«

On Sat, 12 Jan 2013 07:48:51 -0500, emf <> wrote,
quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :

>U.S. warns on Java software as security concerns escalate

I just got hit by a virus, the first time ever. It was what the RCMP
call "scareware". It suddenly popped up, locked screen, claiming I
had broken some law and must wire them $100 to unlock my computer.
If I failed to do so within 24 hours they would erase my hard drives.
They would also erase them it detected any attempts to remove it.

I follow all the usual rules to avoid infection. I figure it must have
got via running an unsigned Java applet or some JavaScript code.

Any way I got rid of it by booting to safe mode and running the Ace
Utilities and had a look at code configured to run at startup. I
noticed a suspicious runcff.lnk from Microsoft, disabled it and all
seems to be ok.

The police were very ho hum, saying there were a rash of such attacks,
and they wanted to treat them like ordinary virus attacks. I guess
they figured nobody would be stupid enough to fall for the extortion.
Apparently some variants claim to have found kiddie porn or accuse of
random crimes.
--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products http://mindprod.com
The first 90% of the code accounts for the first 90% of the development time.
The remaining 10% of the code accounts for the other 90% of the development
time.
~ Tom Cargill Ninety-ninety Law

Rajiv Gupta wrote:
> Browser manufacturers should stop supporting Java. Applets are a dead
> technology which hardly anybody uses (except for criminals).
>
> Java is irrelevant to the vast majority of computer users. Its
> irrelevance should be cemented by deleting support for it.
>
> The sooner universities stop teaching Java the better the world will be.

Troll much?

--
Lew

On Tue, 15 Jan 2013 15:22:07 +1100, Rajiv Gupta <>
wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :

>Browser manufacturers should stop supporting Java. Applets are a dead
>technology which hardly anybody uses (except for criminals).

Applets are an inherently much superior technology for client side
computing. Nothing else has a sandbox. Nothing else is so scrupulous
about signing for dangerous code. Nothing else is so compact.
Browsers don't load the Java engine at start up, which made them
appear slower than they really are. Even that has been fixed with
smarter JVMs that hang around as DLLs.

Compared with every other technology they have been remarkably malware
free. I use them all the time on my website. See
http://mindprod.com/aplets/applet.html
I am not a criminal. I don't think you know the first thing about
Applets. You are just repeating something read somewhere.


--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products http://mindprod.com
The first 90% of the code accounts for the first 90% of the development time.
The remaining 10% of the code accounts for the other 90% of the development
time.
~ Tom Cargill Ninety-ninety Law

On Tue, 15 Jan 2013 06:47:13 -0800, Patricia Shanahan <>
wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :

>The scary thing about this is how much it could cost in support service
>fees for an ordinary computer user who does not know how to boot in safe
>mode etc.

After I had done that I ran a Security Essentials which detected it
and removed it. I did not run that right off figuring it might
trigger its revenge. The full story is at
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/scareware.html

My next line of defence would have been to boot from a different disk
and run the security scan from there. Getting rid of it turned out to
be one of the easiest computer problems I ever solved. The very first
thing I tried worked. I have backups of all my data and
configurations, so the threat of a formatting was not all that
terrifying, just onerous reinstalling.

I am still puzzled how it got in. I am used to hearing scare stories
about Java vulnerabilities, which are just theoretical holes that no
one actually got around to exploiting. This one could well be just
that. I have my security level low to let me run my own Applets.
Security does not distinguish between local, trusted and untrusted
sites.

It is not on my room mate's machine.

Microsoft has a rogues' gallery. They had it described to a T with
screenshots, but it did not discus how it attacks.

--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products http://mindprod.com
The first 90% of the code accounts for the first 90% of the development time.
The remaining 10% of the code accounts for the other 90% of the development
time.
~ Tom Cargill Ninety-ninety Law

On 1/15/2013 5:23 PM, Roedy Green wrote:
> Applets are an inherently much superior technology for client side
> computing. Nothing else has a sandbox.

Nothing else does not have a sandbox.

Flash, SilverLight, JavaScript, Google Native Client all
use some type of sandbox.

> Compared with every other technology they have been remarkably malware
> free.

We just had one.

And there were another one just a half year ago.

Tools to exploit those are known to exist.

Arne

On 2013-01-16 09:23:29 +1100, Roedy Green said:

> On Tue, 15 Jan 2013 15:22:07 +1100, Rajiv Gupta <>
> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :
>
>> Browser manufacturers should stop supporting Java. Applets are a dead
>> technology which hardly anybody uses (except for criminals).
>
> Applets are an inherently much superior technology for client side
> computing. Nothing else has a sandbox. Nothing else is so scrupulous
> about signing for dangerous code. Nothing else is so compact.
> Browsers don't load the Java engine at start up, which made them
> appear slower than they really are. Even that has been fixed with
> smarter JVMs that hang around as DLLs.

The closed mindedness and general ignorance of Java fanatics never
ceases to amaze.

As for the Java sandbox, the real problem is that the sandbox is
implemented inside the VM itself, in Java (via the SecurityManager),
and the Java runtime is poorly equipped to secure itself against itself.

Contrast this with the sandboxing model the CLR uses, where access
grants can only originate from outside of the VM -- it is impossible,
by design, for managed code to enable grants that the VM itself was not
externally configured to provide.

Rajiv Gupta wrote:
> The closed mindedness [sic] and general ignorance of Java fanatics never
> ceases to amaze.

Troll much?

--
Lew

On 2013-01-17 12:01:54 +1100, Lew said:

> Rajiv Gupta wrote:
>> The closed mindedness [sic] and general ignorance of Java fanatics never
>> ceases to amaze.
>
> Troll much?

I notice that you completely ignored the factual technical information
I provied.

Head in sand much?

On 1/16/2013 6:47 PM, Rajiv Gupta wrote:
> Contrast this with the sandboxing model the CLR uses, where access
> grants can only originate from outside of the VM -- it is impossible, by
> design, for managed code to enable grants that the VM itself was not
> externally configured to provide.

You clearly do not understand the Java security management policy. It is
very much possible to request JVMs to lock down the policy in such a way
that the JVM cannot grant itself access. But why let facts get in the
way of attacking Java?

--
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not
tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth

Roedy Green <> writes:

> On Tue, 15 Jan 2013 15:22:07 +1100, Rajiv Gupta <>
> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :
>
>>Browser manufacturers should stop supporting Java. Applets are a dead
>>technology which hardly anybody uses (except for criminals).
>
> Applets are an inherently much superior technology for client side
> computing. Nothing else has a sandbox. Nothing else is so scrupulous
> about signing for dangerous code. Nothing else is so compact.
> Browsers don't load the Java engine at start up, which made them
> appear slower than they really are. Even that has been fixed with
> smarter JVMs that hang around as DLLs.
>
> Compared with every other technology they have been remarkably malware
> free. I use them all the time on my website. See
> http://mindprod.com/aplets/applet.html
> I am not a criminal. I don't think you know the first thing about
> Applets. You are just repeating something read somewhere.

I usually think of applets as an interesting idea that somehow failed to
catch on: the history of technology is full of such occurrences. The
recent problems with the security manager are simple negligence on the
part of Oracle.

Other than applets, are there any classes of Java programs that rely on
the security manager?

--
Jim Janney