Define "Attack"

Hi there,

while sitting here, waiting to able to reconnect, I am wondering from what kind of "Attacks" SL is suffering these days.

Attacks from inside:
Sure, I've heared of "self-reproducing" objects. I am no programmer, but I am "surprised" that the LSL still allowes objects that reproduce themselves - endless and exponentially, I assume. Can't they limit this reproduction by [fill in technical reasonable solution]??

Attacks from outside:
Then,... are there any attacks from outside as well? Thinking of "classic" intrusions (password hacks, login on SL servers,...).

Well, last but not least: I hope very much that those attacks by idiots will not lead to a major reduction of the wonderful range of capabilities the LSL framework provides us.

Gross speculation follows:

There are no doubt situations where objects that replicate themselves are very useful, so banning them entirely probably isn't an option. The tricky part is determining when an object is reproducing TOO fast, before it bogs down the whole system. This is a problem that's been routinely confronted on UNIX-based operating systems, where programs can launch copies of themselves with a system call called fork(). This is used, for example, by web servers, which often fork off a copies to handle requests. You might find a web search on the term "fork bomb" kind of instructive.