The term botnet has been known to almost everyone in later generations. This is mainly due to the hype after the appearance of 360 security guards.

After being reborn, Gu Mojie no longer remembers the existence of 360, but as a former senior programmer and a person who has a deep understanding of the Internet industry, he is certainly not unfamiliar with botnets.

The so-called botnet refers to a network that can be controlled one-to-many by infecting a large number of hosts on the network with bot programs (bots) viruses through various means of propagation. The controller of this network can control the infected computers and do all kinds of concentrated attacks on the Internet.

The name botnet is used to make people more vividly aware of the characteristics of this type of dangerous hài: many computers are unwittingly driven and commanded by people like zombie swarms, and become tools to be used. When a botnet is in business, it may seem like there are thousands of computers doing the same thing, but in fact, only a few people are behind it.

So, what kind of business can botnets generally carry out? First of all, there are two types of business that "hurt others and do not benefit themselves", namely distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) and spam bombing.

The so-called distributed denial-of-service attack is to manipulate a large number of zombie machines to visit certain websites at the same time, and the instantaneous traffic to these websites exceeds the design quota of the server.

For example, in the future, on the "Chopping Hand Party Carnival" of Double 11, it is possible that Ahri Group will prepare enough servers for Taobao in advance to ensure that even if 10 million people click on the link on Taobao's homepage at the same time, it will be enough to refresh the page, and even if 5 million people pay with Alipay at the same time, his server side will be enough to respond.

But if you assume that at this point in time, a certain east spends money to buy the murderer behind it, hires a few big hackers who each have millions of zombie machines on hand, and agrees to maliciously click on the Taobao homepage at the same time, maliciously click to add to the shopping cart and then cancel the order, squeezing Taobao's server traffic resources (after all, the botnet structure is simple, but to enter the "payment transaction" link, you have to steal the number, so it is not easy to do, Ahri's security work is also very good, especially the security of Alipay. Then there is a possibility that the chopping party that really wants to buy things will be slow to open the web page, slow to respond to payments, or even unable to open the web page.

After explaining the "distributed denial-of-service attack", the same "spam bombing" is easy to understand, which is nothing more than replacing the target of the attack with an email service provider such as NetEase or Gmail, and then sending spam at the same time on tens of millions of computers, squeezing the mail server.

These two types of business are difficult to prevent, because even if the Internet service provider does a good job of securing its own servers, it cannot avoid this situation - compared to the traditional hacking attack that goes straight to the heart, the botnet operator does not need to infect your server at all, he only needs to pick the soft persimmon on the WAN and infect the "meat machine" with poor security measures and no anti-virus software. Then let the cheap meat machine be cannon fodder and keep crashing into your server.

In this case, it is like an Internet service provider who has built its own city so impregnable that it cannot be breached. But the people who deal with you do not use their own forces to attack the city at all, but coerce the people outside the city with soft persimmons, and then drive the people to attack the city like the long-haired thieves or the thieves. Even if it can't be breached, then the city will at least be besieged for a long time, cutting off internal and external trade exchanges. And no matter how high and strong the walls are, it will not help the thieves to coerce the people outside the city.

……

Supposedly, the botnet is so effective that hackers who use botnets to do evil should have been popular a long time ago, but fortunately, until August 2003, there were not many hackers on the market to do such things.

The reason for this is due to the profit model of the botnet - because the botnet is not a traditional hacker attack that directly takes the middle palace and goes into battle in person, so hackers cannot use zombie bombing to steal anything, at best they can only use it to cause damage.

In other words, the botnet itself will not generate profits, and it may lead to a loss for both sides, and at best, it is just "harming others and not benefiting oneself".

No one will sabotage when they have nothing to do, and hackers also care about the reputation of the circle.

Therefore, once a hacker who masters a botnet makes a move, it often means one thing: he has been "**" by the competitor of the target of the attack.

It's like a zombie hacker won't take the initiative to provoke Ma Feng's anger without profit, but if a certain Dong gives him a lot of money behind his back and buys him to do it, the hacker is very likely to do it.

In other words, this is a type of play that is only used when both sides are lost: the person who buys the murderer spends 1 million to buy the murderer himself, with the aim of burning the direct profit of 3 million, or even 5 million, of a particular competitor. This is a way of burning money between two non-ending competitors.

Therefore, it often only exists in an industry where there are only two giants, the boss and the second, compete for each other.

If it is in those fields where there are still the third and fourth children who are about to move behind them, the eldest and second children will not be able to work hard like this, and it is easy to let the third fisherman who sits on the mountain and watch the tiger fight after burning money with each other benefit. IT'S LIKE DIDI AND KUAIDI BURNING EACH OTHER'S MONEY UNTIL THEY ARE EXHAUSTED, BUT UBER HAS RISEN.

Gu Mojie is not an arrogant person, but he thinks to himself that at this point in time in August 2003, the new pinyin input method that can appear immediately in a short period of time should not exist zài. What's more, the second-place swift network technology is so big, if it weren't for the supergiants also eyeing this piece, it would be enough to scare away other small competitors.

In such a situation, as long as Gu Mojie can hurt this opponent, he can temporarily deter other people who are trying to copy and overtake him. For this reason, even if he knew that hiring those hackers who mastered the botnet was an act of burning funds, he had to do it, and in his mind, there was already a shortcut that would allow him to spend less money and do more than other people who hired botnets.

……

Cousin Zhou Lixin is now also a person who has worked on Taobao for three months, and he has just passed the probation period and turned regular. As a newcomer who is quite talented and interested in programming, he has met many people in the small circle of Taobao.

Qiantang City is still a place where domestic network technology talents are relatively concentrated, so when Gu Mojie asked Zhou Lixin to inquire about the gray pigeon and zombie-related insiders, he let him inquire within two days.

Gu Mojie sealed a red envelope, and then asked the other party to meet in a café.

(PS: There will be one shift in a while, this Wednesday River, Monday and the weekend will be four shifts in three days.) Ask for Sanjiang tickets, ask for recommendation tickets, all kinds of requests. Let's see the power of like-minded creatives. ）