Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Botnet
Botnet Diagram
Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 11 Jul 2011 at 22:19:55 (UTC)
1. A botnet operator sends out viruses or worms, infecting ordinary users' computers, whose payload is a malicious application — the bot.
2. The bot on the infected PC logs into a particular command and control (C&C) server (often an IRC server, but, in some cases a web server).
3. A spammer purchases access to the botnet from the operator.
4. The spammer sends instructions via the IRC server to the infected PCs, causing them to send out spam messages to mail servers.
- Reason
- Accurately succinctly conveys how botnets are created and operated. The diagram is also effective across language barriers.
- Articles in which this image appears
- Botnet
- FP category for this image
- Wikipedia:Featured_pictures/Engineering_and_technology/Electronics
- Creator
- Tom-b
- Support as nominator --Vcelloho (talk) 22:19, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
- Support. Functional diagram to illustrate complicated relationships. TCO (talk) 00:26, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
- Comment. The caption and image page are inconsistent with the image. They say "4. The spammer sends instructions via the IRC server ...", but the diagram clearly shows the botnet operator sending the spam. Which is correct? --jjron (talk) 11:23, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
- Comment 2. I don't really get the significance of the horse in the 'first' image. Is that meant to signify a Trojan horse, and if so, why aren't Trojans ever mentioned in any captions, while viruses and worms are? I mean, the horse is really obvious and significant, and Trojans do make sense in terms of botnets. --jjron (talk) 11:33, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
- Comment: No references are given for the information, either in the article or the file information page.--RDBury (talk) 13:56, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
- Comment I wondered the same about the horse as jjron before I even read his comment. The image implies people know about trojan horses, viruses etc. Maybe they do, but maybe they don't and we shouldn't assume. Also agree that sourcing is required in both places though, otherwise how do we know the image is correct? The one thing going for it is that the wording in the article about the operation is pretty poor, but the diagram does help in understanding it. Not ready to commit yet until these things get sorted. Matthewedwards : Chat 22:47, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
- Comment Hi, creator here. jjron, you are right, it's a mistake. They should be reversed, the gray spammer should be activating it, with the red operator looking on. Maybe even delete the operator and keep only the spammer. I've fixed it. Yes, the horse represents a trojan. I used layered meaning — my thinking was: the space is too small to unambiguously show that this is a trojan and explain what trojans are. People who know what they are immediately get it, people who don't, don't get distracted by extraneous detail like little wheels on the horse legs etc. — they see a image with a virus 'hidden' inside it, notice how the recipient sees only the horse head. No, I don't have sourcing for this. I was looking for processes to illustrate as an exercise and this one seemed interesting, so I just made a diagram of what the article said. Since it's an exercise, suggestions for improvement are very welcome! Thanks for the critique. Also, please suggest other process descriptions (sourced) that would be helped by a diagram in comics form. Tom-b (talk) 21:20, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
- CommentI know what a trojan is - and now it's been explained that is what the horse represents it's obvious, but initially I didn't catch the allusion. This is my first visit to featured images so I'm not making any vote. EdwardLane (talk) 09:21, 8 July 2011 (UTC)