Ethical Proactive Threat Research

Through a provocative examination of the positive effects of computer security research on regular users, we argue that traditional security research is insufficient. Instead, we turn to a largely untapped alternative, proactive threat research, a fruitful research area but an ethical minefield. We discuss practices for ethical research and dissemination of proactive research.

[1]  John P. Sullins Artificial Moral Agency in Technoethics , 2009 .

[2]  Peter Szor,et al.  The Art of Computer Virus Research and Defense , 2005 .

[3]  Keith W. Miller Computer security and human values interact , 1997, Proceedings Frontiers in Education 1997 27th Annual Conference. Teaching and Learning in an Era of Change.

[4]  Ludovic Mé,et al.  Are current antivirus programs able to detect complex metamorphic malware? An empirical evaluation. , 2009 .

[5]  Fred Cohen,et al.  Computer viruses—theory and experiments , 1990 .

[6]  John Aycock,et al.  Code Obfuscation Using Pseudo-random Number Generators , 2009, 2009 International Conference on Computational Science and Engineering.

[7]  John Braun,et al.  Internet security , 2001 .

[8]  Nathaniel S. Borenstein,et al.  Breaking Anti-Spam Systems with Parasitic Spam , 2006, CEAS.

[9]  Vern Paxson,et al.  The top speed of flash worms , 2004, WORM '04.

[10]  John P. Sullins Ethics and Artificial life: From Modeling to Moral Agents , 2005, Ethics and Information Technology.

[11]  Rocci Luppicini,et al.  Handbook of Research on Technoethics , 2008 .

[12]  John Aycock,et al.  Creating a Secure Computer Virus Laboratory , 2004 .

[13]  John Aycock,et al.  The tale of the weather worm , 2008, SAC '08.

[14]  John Aycock Computer Viruses and Malware (Advances in Information Security) , 2006 .

[15]  Simon Rogerson,et al.  Computer Ethics and Professional Responsibility , 2003 .

[16]  Eugene H. Spafford,et al.  Are computer hacker break-ins ethical? , 1992, J. Syst. Softw..

[17]  John Aycock,et al.  Computer Viruses and Malware , 2006, Advances in Information Security.

[18]  Farnam Jahanian,et al.  CloudAV: N-Version Antivirus in the Network Cloud , 2008, USENIX Security Symposium.

[19]  Stefan Savage,et al.  An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of internet miscreants , 2007, CCS '07.

[20]  John P. Sullins When Is a Robot a Moral Agent , 2006 .