Imagine this…..
An evil person..planing on creating a virus to turn human race into zombies and enslave them…He is planning…He is executing…..The plan is coming to fruition…The virus created is starting to spread globally, there is no cure…!
A man notices his wife acting strange…takes her to his local doctor…explains the problem…says he likes it that she doesn`t nag him about putting the toilet seat down anymore, but really would like the woman he`s been married to back…is there anything you can do for her doc…
The doctor realizes this is a new virus….Light bulb goes in his head with $ signs….thinking he can create the cure/antidote to make lots of money….I`ll keep this to myself thinks the doc……
Goes and creates the antidote and starts supplying at a price…anyone who can afford can buy directly from him…rid themselves of this damn virus…..
Meanwhile anyone who doesn`t have access to the cure is potentially a victim…
In the meanwhile evil man continues……and majority of public is unprotected….
But worry not…the above scenario doesn’t happen in our world..our physical world at least. Our doctors are responsible enough to think about protecting humans first. And we also have a legal framework that requires them to disclose any new virus
“In the world of public health, medical providers are required by public health laws to report occurrences of communicable diseases of which they become aware so that the outbreak of a known or new disease can be immediately contained and the public protected. For example, in New York, reporting of suspected or confirmed communicable diseases is mandated under the New York State Sanitary Code (10NYCRR 2.10). Although physicians have primary responsibility for reporting, school nurses, laboratory directors, infection control practitioners, daycare center directors, health care facilities, state institutions and any other individuals/locations providing health care services are also required to report communicable diseases”
So imagine the above scenario with the evil man sending out one virus to turn humans into zombies….now….multiply that by tens of thousands evil men…..and imagine doctors are all keeping the viruses to themselves for their own profiting. What do you see? Unethical, messy world where people are continuously getting infected and if this antidote from this Doctor didn’t work, you have to go get another antidote from another doctor because he is the only one with the solution (and the reason why he is the only one with a solution is because that doctor KEPT THE VIRUS SAMPLE and DIDN’T share it. (this is an important point…VERY VERY important point…the creation of antidote by NOT sharing the virus…)
I hear you say..thats wrong, very wrong!..thats unethical very unethical!…and illegal!…..and you would be right….but please realize that sadly this is how it is in the Digital world of Internet…..tens of thousands of evil men creating viruses (for computers)….and many doctors (called AntiVirus companies)…..who have come to stumble upon these new viruses are keeping it to themselves so that they can profit from the AntiVirus products they sell. And you wonder why people spend $10Billion a year and we still have virus problems with our computers! Now you know why.
But wait….there is more…..(remember what was a VERY VERY important point..eg: being the only provider of an antidote because the virus sample was NOT shared…)
“Moreover, the practice of not sharing the samples of a virus or malware file creates a dangerous condition for the general public as it compromises public safety for the benefit antivirus industry profit and marketing motives. Similarly, a criminal can compromises public safety by hiding an instrument of a crime, for example a gun or knife, from public safety officials.
It is typically considered a crime of the obstruction of justice to alter, destroy or hide physical evidence of a crime. This can be true even if an individual was under no obligation to produce the evidence.
A computer virus represents the physical evidence of a cyber or computer crime and should not be maintained in secret by an antivirus company in order to further their own profit or marketing goals. This is especially true when failing to disclose or share the existence of the virus places the public security in danger.
For example, if a person found a gun that was used in the commission of a crime, that person could not take that gun home and keep it from the relevant authorities, as doing so could be considered the obstruction of justice.”
A virus/malware found in a user’s computer is a physical evidence of a Crime! No two ways about it! It IS A CRIME to create and distribute viruses!
BUT WHY? Why our doctors in physical world are nice and caring and not profiting, but in the digital world this is just the opposite?
So why has this been happening in the digital world but has been operating well in the physical world? The answer is simple, there are simply no rules or regulations. No government or even “SELF” regulation in this industry called AntiVirus industry. Yep, ZERO standards exist for a product that is supposed to protect you from digital viruses…No government standards, no self regulation, no rules nothing! A big Zilch, Nada, Nothing… You are still wondering why the virus/malware problem is so rife 20 plus years on? 😉 (really? are you? 🙂 ).
So you have these self profiting Doctors (called Anti Virus companies) who are keeping physical evidence of a crime so that they can profit from it and people are paying them $10Billion a year! This behavior is protecting the criminal as it allows criminals to continue to infect victims because these so called doctors are not sharing with other doctors the virus samples so that other doctors can come up with their own antidotes. But of course, that would remove their marketing gimmick of “my detection is better than your detection” game. These Digital Doctors (called Anti Virus companies) are using this as a marketing gimmick to sell their products.
What to do?
How can end users be better protected by not being vulnerable to malware that their AV doesn’t detect?
Solution 1 (Share Samples in realtime): Get AV companies to share samples in realtime. By creating a clearing house of some sort, just like we have in the physical world…(relies on AV companies to do something)
Solution 2 (Share Detection):Get the users to use ALL AntiVirus product at the same time in their Computers. (relies on end users to do something)
So lets analyse
Solution 1:
I guess the scenario would be something like this: someone goes and knock on Anti Virus companies’ door and say: “Hi Mr AV guys…can you pls all of you get together and share these viruses in realtime so that we can be better protected?” (You might as well tell them to stop marketing with that statement J )
OR…
Solution 2:
We can empower end users! By giving them DACS! By giving end users an ability to use ALL the AntiVirus engines to scan their files, practically and for free!
So we built the DACS 🙂 Distributed and Collaborative Scanning…….If the AntiVirus industry does not want to collaborate and do something about it, then we’ll get the end users to collaborate to achieve the same result! Long live Solution 2 and long live the power of the end users!
Comodo is all about empowering and protecting end users! Our Motto is, “do good by the end user, money will follow”….its a simple motto that works well…why shouldn’t it.
DACS is about empowering end users.. let me explain….
End users use the power of ALL AV engines at the same time for detection. Its like running all the AntiVirus products you can find in your computer. You know what? You will have the best detection in the world then Why? Because you have combined the detection power of all AntiVirus products in one computer!
We believe end users should not have to pay to this AV company to protect from that Virus and that AV company to protect from the other Virus. This is unethical! This is a problem created by the AV industry and end users are suffering as a result! So the ideal solution for End user is to BUY Every AntiVirus product and run it at the same time! This way they will have the best Detection in the world! Sum of all is greater than any one of them individually! But practically and financially this was not possible….until now that is…..With DACS you will have the power of ALL anti virus products but without you having to run them all yourself! Thats where the power of end users and community come in. DACS is a community driven system where users with their Anti Virus product of their choice can participate in DACS to help the community. So you have an Anti Virus product from your chosen vendor, you simply register with DACS and now you can contribute towards the community by scanning files from other users who don’t have the same Anti Virus product. Its like P2P but slightly different. If there is an unknown file in your computer then this gets sent to DACS community, the community scans it with their anti virus products and send the result back to you! Of course all this is done automatically. Within DACS community we had early adopters who already volunteered their computers and their Anti Virus products to help the community! So DACS is fully up and running for anyone who wants the have the “power of all Anti Virus engines in one computer” combined into one!
So, DACS is going to give the best detection possible to any end user for FREE! Its fair, its ethical and its what the AV industry should have done ages ago! They didn’t! So now we are enabling the end users to fix that mistake! We can’t have digital doctors creating exclusive “protection” clubs at the expense of public’s health! It just doesn’t work! But DACS does 😉
Melih