Homework #13 - Botnets - Due Thursday April 2, 1PM

Turn in this assignment via email (vern@berkeley.edu) by the due date, with the term Homework in the Subject.

Read the paper Your Botnet is My Botnet: Analysis of a Botnet Takeover, Brett Stone-Gross et al, CCS 2009

  1. Briefly write up your views of:

    1. What are the main contributions of this paper?

    2. What parts of the paper do you find unclear? (optional)

    3. What parts of the paper are questionable? (That is, you think a conclusion may be wrong, an approach or evaluation technically flawed, or data ill-presented.)

  2. Do either of the following:

    1. Pick a facet of the botnet problem that interests you and frame your thoughts on the issues it raises with respect to: threat/significance, defense, arms-race evolution, research challenges/opportunities in terms of how one might go about investigating it further, and associated ethical/legal issues (if any). Provide citations/URLs for any papers/web resources that you draw upon.

    2. Suppose you were a company like Microsoft, Apple, or Google, and you perceive that it's strategically vital for your company to counter the general threat of botnets (not just the specific threat of botnets regarding your company's own systems). You have significant, though not infinite, resources available for doing so. What specific steps would you take? Briefly sketch how effective and costly you think these steps would prove to be. Include in your analysis an assessment of "arms race" evolution.