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Comment by lolinder | Hacker News Reader

Has anyone said that the login attempts all came from the same system?

A smart attacker would spread the logins out over a large number of devices and a long period of time to avoid detection.

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What do you think the word "system" means? Do you think it means "computer"?

"System" could refer to a botnet -- i.e. a whole bunch of distributed computers from which the credentials may have been exfiltrated.

In context, "computer or collection of computers that are distinguishable as a unit by the server they are attacking".

I'm not really sure how to proceed with a conversation in which you invent, from scratch, your own definitions of the words I am using.

From Wikipedia [0]:

> The term computer system may refer to a nominally complete computer ... or to a group of computers that are linked and function together

The only thing that I added was "that are distinguishable" because you implied that the server ought to be able to tell that this is a coherent attack by a single system and not just normal traffic from unrelated systems.

If victim hosts do not have enough information to recognize the disparate computers as part of a botnet, then from the perspective of the attacked host the computers are separate systems.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer

So you substituted the definition of "computer" for "system" then complained that my use of the word "system" somehow implied a single computer. Interesting.

This... isn't a response to what I just said. I very clearly just cited the Wikipedia definition of "computer system", and explicitly called out the possibility of a botnet composed of multiple computers. From the beginning, you were the only one who introduced the notion that I might have meant that a system exclusively meant a single computer.

I try to assume that people are interacting in good faith, but it's getting very difficult. Have a nice day!

The word 'system' is ambiguous and has multiple meanings. In general, and as per HN guidelines, you should assume good faith, and when someone guesses incorrectly about your assumed meaning clarify your definition.

That said, I'm shadow banned so you should probably ignore my advice on HN guidelines.

I think you're being a bit dishonest with these replies. By any definition of the word "system", you're implying that they act in concert as a single unit. The entire point of a botnet is that none of the endpoints are individually distinguishable from the rest.

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