How Slammer Slammed
from the anatomy-of-a-worm dept
For all the hype last week about how Wired was going to publish the details of the Slammer worm, most of the reports focused on the wrong thing. I still think it was a bit of a (successful!) publicity stunt by the folks at Wired to get some attention for the latest issue, drumming up some "controversy" over the fact they were publishing the details of the Slammer worm's code that has been available online for months. What that controversy left out, however, is that the actual article is a fascinating look at how the Slammer worm worked - written in a way that you don't need to be a complete geek to understand. There is a little fear-mongering in the article, pointing out that this sort of exploit is likely to occur again - but without giving any suggested way to deal with it.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
