Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Storm botnet

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 22:39, 7 January 2008.

[edit] Storm botnet

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Self-nomination. I've been working on this article since I'd first heard of the subject, and have helped bring it previously to Good Article status, here. I've expanded it further, and feel it's ready to try to bring to the next level now with some help and review. I think the subject and the subject matter have the definite potential for an FA. This is my first FAC, so please let me know what is needed of me, beyond this point. Thank you! I'm aware of the lack of images, but I've been stuck for an idea on how to get free images that represent something more conceptual and 'unseen' as this is. Lawrence Cohen 22:59, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Note: Just on the images, I dug around a bit more and found some good ones to start out. Thanks again! Lawrence Cohen 23:35, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

  • Support. I had the good fortune of just reading this page while ambling about the wiki, and I must say I was very impressed. It was interesting, well written, well sourced, and puts forth the information in an organized fashion. Well done! Sean William @ 21:42, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Conditional support. The second paragraph is a bit speculative as it juggles with "one said, another said" phrases. It could be placed in the appropriate place out of lead. --Brand спойт 22:58, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
  • All set, I cleared up who said what in that paragraph. That was one of the earlier ones I'd written and had completely missed that lack of attribution for the comments. Lawrence Cohen 23:10, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment I have a few comments.
  • 1.2 billion virus messages have been sent by the botnet - in what period - the reference is from september.
  • up to 5,000,000 compromised systems - high in July 2007 of an estimated 1,500,000 systems How many computers are estimated to be infected?--Peter Andersen (talk) 12:34, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Fixed. For the 1.2 billion sent, I clarified this was through the approximate time frame of that source's publication.[1] I haven't seen any more recent estimates. For the estimates of the botnet size, the very beginning of the article lead that mentions 50,000,000 maximum was the highest range I had seen in sourcing, so I used that there as a maximum high end; all the experts seem to disagree on this. Some higher, some lower. For the up to 5,000,000 compromised systems, I went with a more general wording that seems more accurate.[2] I qualified Enright's to be his own estimate.[3] Is that better? Lawrence Cohen 15:32, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Support., as the WP:GA Reviewer. Great improvements since then, nice use of images as well. Cirt (talk) 10:40, 2 January 2008 (UTC).
  • Support. I had a couple of minor comments.
  • The article says on para 3: Used in a variety of criminal activities, Storm worm infected computers contribute system resources to support the overall functioning of the network in a method similar to the operation of distributed computing projects like Folding@home. I think this is ambiguous: this statement implies that bots in Storm run code to solve parallellizable problems such as folding@home. AFAIK, Storm is used for the regular stuff that most botnets are used for... parts of the botnet could even be used for separate activities. I think the sentence should go.
  • Having read most storm-related news articles myself, I think the set of articles about Storm having upto 50 million bots in the net is hyperbole to make people go wow. As the UCSD researcher notes (which you have paraphrased) 200k is the maximum number that are on the internet (and consequently usable for malice). Perhaps this fact should be mentioned upfront in the intro? Railrulez (talk) 00:58, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Thank you for the support, and these are both very good points. I'll make the adjustments tomorrow. Lawrence Cohen 01:00, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Hi, all set. Please take a look at the last three edits by me. Lawrence Cohen 17:14, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Support ... this article deals with a topic of current interest and is pretty well written. i do have some qualms about the length of the lead, see wp:lead but i hope to help with that soon. i also hope to clean up the Methodology paragraph which seems to repeat allot said earlier or proceeded later. frummer (talk) 20:38, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Thank you! I took your additions, copyedited them a bit, and integrated them. Thanks! Lawrence Cohen 22:06, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.