Hax attax.

I don't know anything about programming, but here's a very general question:

Is anybody working on (or already knows the answer to) the problem: can one computer, connected to a network of computers, running some sort of operating system, be made absoultely impenetrable to hacker attack, even when the attacker knows the source code of the operating system, as well as every other piece of information about the first computer?  A very simple sort of operating system is an acceptable answer.  The mere fact of connecting to other computers via a network is the thing which raises the question of remote access in the first place.

Here's my naive take: computers, being after all physical objects, should eventually be made impervious to certain types of attacks.  It's a bit like enclosing a jewel inside a solid concrete enclosure: you can pretty easily smash the first enclosure, take the jewel, and reconstitute an indistinguishable enclosure if you have enough information (especially when no one's looking).  However, you could build various traps into the first enclosure which would signal a break-in, requiring an ever more clever thief/attacker.  Can this game ever end in a definite physical sense?  It seems that the presence of 'information' in computer science gives vastly more power to a knowledgeable attacker.  The analogy most likely breaks down when you consider that a computer is all about information, and that information can be manipulated nearly any way you want in order to get what was desired from the victim computer-whether merely access, or files, or meta-data, or whatever else.

by allowing remote access over a network, you're vulnerable to hack attempts.  the only way to be 100% safe is to not allow remote access in any form.

of course, using fifty-billion character long passwords which must be changed every five minutes and are never written down makes it highly unlikely that said hack attempts will actually /succeed/.  but it's not 100% guaranteed.  someone might get really freaking lucky.

this is completely disregarding social engineering and stupid users who open I_AM_A_TROJAN_VIRUS.EXE files which claim to be important time-critical banking information from nigerian porn stars.

It's impossible to guarantee perfect security as their is no generic proof that can be applied to any given piece of code to say "yes, this does this and only this"

It really depends on what your definition of "operating system" and "connected to a network" is. As far as computer theory goes, it is possible.

>>3
That's not really true; once you've broken it down into assembly code, it's fairly straight forward exactly what it does. Is it complex and physically improbable that a human being could do this on a complex computer program? Yes.

what do you mean by hacker attack?  authentication can get a bit messy.  who's who and are they really who they say they are.  if you have a machine on the network you will definitely want to communicate with some machines and not others.  now although authentication is only one facet of security, security itself is (and seems to always be) a process rather than an end-all magic tool.

>>4
would further reasearch into Fuzz and Black Box testing bring greater insight? 

Blackbox testing can only prove there are flaws in the code, not the absence of them.

>>6
Signed. This is why software generally goes through the process of
1) Vulnerability found
2) Patch
3) Repeat

I felt like bumping this thread.

>>8
hax my anus

How the mighty have fallen.

this thread fails

EB FE

selinux + strict ACLs with a patch disabling the ability to turn it off will ruin the fun of remote attempts when sshd or bind doesn't have permission to access /bin/sh or any other non-needed file.

plenty of other tricks to harden the kernel. owall in 2.0 added some nice protection, haven't kept up since i just use selinux and a port binding patch so services don't ever run as root in the first place.

none of this will help if they have physical access but it is easy to lock down remote access.

inb4 OMG BUT I WATCHED HACKERS

$ cat /etc/pf.conf
block all quick

>>1
9/10. Expert troll

>>1
6/10 decent troll but not really anything new

>>16
2/10 not even close

>>15-----17
1/10

>>10 was pretty good

>>10/>>10

>>19
Seconded, I give >>10 an 8/10

>>3
SPJ would like to have a word with you.

I can think of an operating system that is perfectly secure over a network. All it does it obtain an IP address via DHCP, that's it. How is anyone going to hack that, if it has no running services at all, not even a shell?

Linux is entirely open source, yet hackers have the most trouble getting into it as opposed to Windows or OSX.  It's still not perfect though.

^{[citation needed]}

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>>26
I invented this meme.

>>27
This may surprise you, but I invented this meme.

>>27
wel if youre so smort smartyman then whycome you have no saurce code for this? haha, you ain't got fancy answer for that!! Ownership refuted, I win!

>>29
Stop trolling me before I rage.


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>>30
You might have invented the asskey version, but it was I who improved it through the means of UNICODE!

Overflow is the answer, also hax my anus.

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>>23
Hack your DHCP server and then hack you.

I'm sorry but all of you are failures.

Also my glans is huger and throbbier than your asscheek

>>34
oh right how could i be so blind as to not realize that

It's pretty understandable >>36-san, you can't even type.

The DHCP server can be compromised, and then you can exploit a vulnerability in the DHCP client. That wasn't even hard to figure out. You must be a cretin.

BOOTLEGGING

my glans is huger and throbbier than your asscheek
my glans is huger and throbbier than your asscheek
my glans is huger and throbbier than your asscheek
my glans is huger and throbbier than your asscheek
Best post on /prog/ right now.

Enclosure take the jewel and reconstitute an   indistinguishable enclosure if   you have enough   open files Seriously?

is up but drawings. SICP drawings. is could RESET LIVES  THE BEING MAKING THE THEN load stage2 +--------------+----------------+      is ./a $ long: |  this int | \___ | __ | \___ |  a for  programmers that want about programmers

>>39
Best post on /prog/ of all time

actually, the one where GS replies to an email is the best.

>>35
oh right how could i be so blind as to not realize that

<-- check em dubz