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Your CPU Will Explode
Crowdpleazr1 writes "In case any of you were still opening up email from people you don't know, the Weekly World News is reporting that you could now be killed by a malicious email virus that will alter the molecular structure of your CPU, making it explode!! Of course, as a person who understands these newfangled computer things, even I can not imagine what evils those hacker people can come up with. I think I'm going to go hide in my Y2K compound now. "
It's all fun and games until you realize that these are the same people who vote, and write letters to Congress demanding harsh legislation to throw all hackers in jail because they are imminently in danger of inflicting bodily harm.
Because of this WWN story, I guarantee you that at this very moment, an angry letter is being drafted demanding that the government step in and monitor all email so that the deadly computer viruses can be stopped. Now how funny is it?
Guys, I think this is a hoax. Think about it..
Before all you linux lamers go around thinking you can
blow up people's CPU's, let me burst your bubble. This is not possible.
Trust me, i'm a MSCE and i know about this stuff. well, MAYBE it's
possible, but i dont think so it would probably just make
a spark or something.
i'm suprised all you supposed "nerds" didn't notice this
before posting it.
At an ISP where I worked a customer tried telling me that this was indeed happening to him. He said that the attacker (the 10 yr old next door) was also able to check his answering machine and could make his computer come on even while *unplugged*. Since 4-5 techs had alread tried telling him that this was impossible I reccomended he contact the local police, the telephone company, since the guy's story somehow involved the phone lines, and the FCC as the attacker was undoubtedly using stolen govt. equipment.
That wasn't half as funny though as the guy who called our oem dept (we outsourced)claiming that he had our chip in his head. The tech put him on hold for 5 minutes then came back and said that since the chip was out of warranty he'd have to call Intel.
my ass is going to self destruct if I don't hit the crapper. I'll be back in 5 minutes.
Long ago, there was a man named Devin.
:)
Devin thought he was a 3133t h4X0R, and frequented the BBS's I ran... he said he was writing a virus that would align all the lasers in your monitor to produce enough power to melt through the screen, and consequently, through your head.
Now, I know this is bullshit, but seeing this got me thinking... Foregoing that a virus was possible to do this, I'm just curious, would a concentrated mass of monitor lasers produce enough heat to even burn THROUGH the screen in the first place? Maybe some of you EE geeks can help me out on this, I'm very curious.
-Erik-
remember, this is the World Weekly News...a tabloid 'zine where EVERY day is April Fools Day! :)
April Fools Day has to run on an extra 48 hours on the Internet? Sheesh. If you can't make the post on the day it appears, don't bother. How annoying.
They're gonna start calling this place "TrashDot".
.oO[ M$ Strategy: The enemy of my enemy is my enemy. ]Oo.
This is a major hot sheat ( for all my felow MIBs ). You had better bilive that WWN is 100% serius with this story.
They will stand by it and are willing to lay the jurnalistic integrity of the publication on the line over this.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Could anything be possibly less newsworthy than this?
Some old Motorola chips (pre 6502, anyway) used to have an unused opcode in their instruction set. As a brilliant design decision, the logic for processing the opcodes (PLA, STX, etc.) into microinstructions of the processor (put this register on the bus, clock the ALU, etc.) failed to decode the unimplemented opcode properly, and simultaneously fired off two microcontrol lines in the CPU. This resulted in an unrecoverable current overload in the heart of the CPU, and within seconds, caused the CPU the actually melt. Once diagnosed, the opcode was assigned the mnemonic, HCF for "halt and catch fire". (source Dr. Bill Hawkins, ENEE 446, UMCP).
Not quite as spectacular an effect as when the co-guitarist in my band failed to correctly calculate the new impedance of his rewired speaker cabinet correctly (2 ohms instead of his calculated 8 ohms). Applied a slight volume boost during a solo, and "pop!", followed by "what's that burning plastic smell?" =)
How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL
I definitely remember him telling us about an ancient Motorola cpu (probably a 4 bit processor) that interpreted a specific unused opcode as two incompatible opcodes and tried to execute the microcode for both opcodes simultaneously, thus resulting in melted silicon. I also remember him telling us about Motorola's HCF (halt and catch fire) opcode. Maybe I'm combining anecdotes, but give me a break, this was twelve years ago. =)
Ric "the memory's the second to go, but i can't remember the first" Dude.
How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL
or for those with just a basic interpreter:
10 PRINT "DIE";:GOTO 10
How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL
I am not a chemist. I am not a physicist either.
But I did not sleep during my college level science courses, therefore, I am wondering HOW IN THE WORLD CAN SOMEBODY ALTER THE MOLECULAR STRUCTURE (of anything) using SOFTWARE?
I mean - altering molecular structures require A LOT, - and I mean A HELUVA - JUICE !
Fission and fusion are the TWO processes known to men (and women) that can alter molecular structures of _some_ substances - not all, _some_ !
Can someone please enlighten me if that story isn't an April Fools' thingy?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
This isn't the first highly accurate warning of impending computerized doom from the Weekly World News.
If your computer was built after 1985, then it has enough hard drive space to accommodate one of Satan's minions (and that doesn't count any stuff from MS).
The Register has a little something gleaned from the Weekly World News. One Reverend Jim Peasboro, author of an upcoming book, The Devil in the Machine, says that demons can possess anything with a brain. Apparently that now includes computers. According to the Georgia clergyman, "...many members of my congregation became in touch with a dark force whenever they used their computers", (and again I emphasize that he made no mention of Microsoft). That Print job you thought was screwed up by the wrong printer driver may have actually been "...a stream of obscenities written in a 2,800-year-old Mesopotamian dialect!" This happens right after the spontaneous Turing test.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
If you work user support it is!
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
The next time I submit this I'm going to title it "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" :-)
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Thanks.
pronoblem
Need: root / insmod access,
Prequisite: 2.3.x linux kernels have P6 microcode upgrade device driver option. (module).
Description:
Since at microcode level, subsytem interfaces may not have idiot-proofing, it may be possible to
corrupt the P6 microcode dump leading to some kind of subsytem breakdown.
Any thoughts ?
-ak
However, it's a problem all over the place at the moment - we're all starving for decent stories. I think we're in the shadow of Y2k, with no medium term projects having been started in the second half of '99, so nothing's happening / being released now. In Australia we're all holding our breath for the GST (which is going to be one huge balls-up). Or perhaps it's the popularisation of the Internet. Millions of clueless "AOLers", corporations and lawyers are grinding our wonderful 'Net to a halt...?
I haven't even been able to find anything to buy for weeks - my bank account is at an all-time high (meanwhile my moral is getting pretty low, but not as low as the rest of the company I work at).
It's a depression without the lack of money, at least here...
You should work where I work. All the morons neutralise any computrons that manage to sneak past the pointy-haired black holes.
When I worked at Dick Smith Electronics (think Radio Shack) we had a computer returned when the power supply blew up. The owners were from somewhere other than Australia and they'd set the power supply to 110V (like back home), plugged it into our 240V (well, 220-250V) and BAMF!
Nah, someone just has to send a message (e-mail, phone, fax, whatever) to every other person in your neighbourhood to get them to turn off everything in their houses at the same time. The resultant spike burns your place to the ground...
I got sent the "#9 mobile" hoax a couple of times recently. Before that it was sent around about 18 months ago. When I informed the company that it was a hoax (it had been mailed to all by a "helpful" receptionist) I was asked how I knew. My response was "It was a hoax 18 months ago and it's still a hoax". Sigh.
Seriously, we had a monitor burst into flames last Monday. The guy thinks he'll need therapy because it was so traumatic (!?). Oh, and we found out that the only fire extinquisher on the floor is in a locked plant room.
(On display, in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, in a disused lavatory, with a sign on the door saying "beware of the leopard".)
WTF? I hope you are joking man. I love computers and all but I hope my wife throws the damn box out of the windoze when I start comparing the Celsius tempature of the CPU under various Operating Systems. Are you engineer on a special project?
:->
Otherwise, stop taking the tempature of the computer and use the thing!
ACK
You can't be taking this seriously...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
April Fools is *only* on the first, you brat!
You won't be so doubtful tommorow night at 12:39:19.23 EST. Heh heh. Sweet dreams.
modern day geek.
--
My god, my Soundblaster Live Daughtercard caught on fire because it made contact with the case, and the computer was on. I must have got one of those virus 'mp3s' i've been hearing about. God save us!
--
Insert Witty Sig Here
...at the end of the article, there's a link that says "Email this article to a friend."
"Warning! Email attachments could make your computer explode! Please read the attached article to find out more!"
Hmmm...
"Do you expect me to talk?" "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!"
You must use straws, the kind you find at fast food restraunts. But you must use a straw from a different place for each straw you use. If you don't THEY will be able to get through. Then you see, take these straws and make a pyramid over your system. Then cover your pyramid in aluminum foil. But make certain to use the Alcan kind. Its made in Canada. Canada is too cold you see for the CIA to bother with so they leave the Alcan aluminum alone.
So to recap, use different straws (for god sakes dont use storebought! The CIA owns all the stores!) And use Alcan aluminum foil. Make certain your pyramid is secure and you should be safe.
Now if I could only find out how to get the alien tracking devices out of my teeth.....
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
There is no way you can do this. I know my way around hardware and you can't make silicon explode. Even if you could make a program to overheat the CPU it would just lock up and the program would stop, all the overclockers know that. The chemistry and physics just don't add up to a bomb. This is a late April fools, and a stupid one!
don't certain PC motherboards allow software to set the clockrate?
meaning a virus really _could_ overclock/overheat/kill the processor?
of course there used to be certain motorola processors with a Halt Catch Fire (HCF) instruction, but that wasn't quite what it did.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
As you've probably heard, Linux 2.4 has the /proc/microcode device. Well, 2.6 will have the /proc/explosives device that lets you access (or write to) the self-destruct charges in your computer. MicroApps (the applications division of Microsoft after judge Jackson splits the company) will write apps for Linux, and you know how much Microsoft loves "active content" (whereby programs treat data as executable code). It's only a matter of time before someone sends you an email that writes all 0xFF all over the explosives device.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Well.. programs do exist that can make CPUs get pretty hot - wrap one in a standard e-mail virus package. Your virus probably won't kill every system, but it will make the odds of a system failure higher.
And remember, an overheated CPU's molecular sturcutere does change - atomic diffusion makes the metal atoms that the silicon is doped with mover around, eventually destroying the p-n junctions that make the CPU work.
Choice of masters is not freedom.
sub pick { $_[rand $#_] }
Union Yes! Member of Technical Workers' Local 101010
Yes! The word needs to be spread about this dangerous hardware! I will take it upon myself to dispose of this equipment. If your processor is fast enough to be a hazard, you can send it to me for proper disposal. Carefully take it out of your computer (careful, because it might already be infected and blow up if handled roughly, don't drop it!) put it in a special anti-static bag and pack it well in a box (in case it blows up in transport) and send it to me. Similar processes can be used for memory (only PC100 and PC133 memory is dangerous) and hard drives (again, only ultra scsi drives are hazards). I hope the community respects the time I have volunteered to take this dangerous equipment out of the potential victims' homes.
Q: how was he able to type "boom" if his head exploded?
A: maybe he was dictating.
Hey, who amonst us has not had a computer blow up on us. Those beings are dangerous. They have minds of their own. And sometimes MickyShit was even responsible for writing that mind. Or the subsequent blow up. Heck, my old AMD 386-40 was sitting in my closet for years. Then one day it got real pissed off about having my stinky hockey gear stored on top of it. That AMD just done blowed itself up, fragging everything with an Intel Inside logo it could find. The AMD was very undiscrimiate though. It destroyed 2 3DFX cards and a Seagate 20MB drive that had DR-DOS backed up on it. It was fargging horrible. BTW, WTF did /. start taking WWN seriously, and ignoring the Page 6 girls?
Fins Up, and to the Left... Any dive you come up from with air in reserve was a great dive. Nothing but bubbles left o
Good Times had technobabble that sounded believeable to the uninitiated. I don't think anyone with a whit of technical knowledge was ever fooled by it.
Rick
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Lighten up, Jeremy.
While the April Fool's stuff is always excessive and tedious, this is obviously humor and is even more amusing since it was published (even if it was in the WWN).
This story isn't really much different from the Good Times hoax from a few years back, and we all know how many people believed that. Just sit back and have a chuckle. I'm sure the editors of WWN do.
As always, if the story doesn't interest you, skip over it.
Rick
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
imagine if you will: all the people out there using Outlook and IE grabbing this file, running it, and having their boxes pop. somewhere around 75% of AOL would go down, and lord knows how many people on cable modems and other ISPs. can you IMAGINE what that would do to the speed on your average connection? 90% of the bandwidth hogging lusers out there all gone...i think of this not as a nightmare than a goal. btw: an 87 digit encryption key for nuclear systems? why 87? is that 64 in base 6? they'd be more secure using PGP. i wonder how long would that take a distributed.net project to crack.
strange things are afoot at the Circle K...
This isn't funny. People are reading this.
Laypeople, for lack of a better word, aren't able to read Slashdot, ZDNet, or any other intelligent or discerning medium for tech news. Many can't even be bothered to watch the CNet show, for what that's worth.
Where are they getting their tech news? MSNBC, Reuters, AP -- most of which are more inclined to rebroadcast Bill Gates' speech than any random geek's criticism of Microsoft.
Who are the tech pundits? People like ESR or Rob Malda or even Spencer F. Katt? No, the tech pundits are people like Ira Magaziner, Steve Case, and the CEO of (insert other large tech company here).
Perhaps WWN doesn't have the direct pull that MSNBC has, but don't pretend that the titillation and FUD that this story makes won't spread by word of mouth.
Let me ask you: How many copies of the Good Times warning do you have in your old mail?
Don't think older media is that much better at coverage of this field. Did anyone see the Boston Herald story on the GPF last weekend? It began with the sentence:
About ten years after most of them took their sisters to the prom,
Need I say more? Neither us nor our field get covered well at all. It's not so funny; in cases like these its downright damaging.
When no one will let you use their computer for fear you will add the "cpu bomb bug" to their computer, give me a call.
(A little Geek Pride now and then doesn't seem so bad to me.)
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
I've blown away a good number of ICs, though that's usually because I misread the pinout.
:)
I had an IDE HD give up its magic smoke once. Someone made an extension power cable which mismatched the +5 and +12. The result was a couple of blown chips.
Not that this is in any way interesting, or even on-topic.
If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
I think the editors and writers actually are well aware. I know a lady who was hired to be in the WWN. She is an actress, and she, her husband, and her cat were all pictured in an article about a lady who married her cat. That is sort of beyond what most people consider the line between news and complete fiction. And come on, making up those articles has to be fun. I would love to just sit there all day writing "aritlces" like the bat boy stuff, or this thing. Better than tech support...
itachi
I am now dumber for having read that artlcle. I didn't know tabloid writers knew how to use the Internet?
The blast is even worse on Dual 1 GHz Pentiums. I've heard it can take out a whole city block. Next thing you know someone will put Beowolf cluster on a truck and park it outside a Federal building. And don't even mention RamBust technology.
Noperoonies, though I recall reading about the group in one of the Barry column collections...maybe it was Dave Barry Talks Back or something.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
SENSE-of-HU-mour *clap clap clapclapclap*
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Even if a CPU could explode, I doubt there would be enough force for the pieces to rip through a sheet-metal (or even plastic) case.
Come within two digits of cracking an 87-digit Russian security code that would have sent deadly missiles hurtling toward five of America's major cities.
Sure glad they stopped and did not check those last 100 codes! -laff-
A
Well, I would have to say that al,ost half of them will. Lovely article. I thought the page 5 girl was most babalicious and the rest of the stories packed full of quality journalism.
Romanes eunt domus? People called Romanes, they go the 'ouse? It says Romans go home. No it doesn't. What's Latin fo
I seem to recall....
:) AFAIK, this was circulated pretty regularly along with the 'modem tax' panic message du jour.
Back in The Day, when 2400 baud modems were just starting to make their push into the market, an email came 'round from a fellow that claimed to have discovered 'the worst computer virus ever'. He said he had just finished downloading a program with his 2400 bps modem, when the hard drive started seeking and writing all over the place. As he put it, "Thank God for strong coffee and a recent backup." Everything was normal again. Then he tried to run the program again. Same result. Then he tried a different program. Same result. Luckily for all his readers, he worked for some telecom firm and had an in-house lab at his disposal, and therefore discovered this horrid virus. Apparently, it was transmitted by the 'sub-carrier channel' present on all 2400 bps modems, then proceeded to wreak havoc. Since there was no way to monitor thatn sub-carrier for traffic, and certainly no way to block it, there was no way to stop the propgation of the virus. This email ended with something like "The best course of action is probably to stick to 1200 baud modems until we can figure this thing out."... and he signed it "Mike Rochenelle".
We eventually decide that "Mike Rochenelle" == "MicroChannel" or something similar, a company with a glut of 1200 bps modems facing a huge depreciation in their inventory. This post just brought back the memories of those days...
-Bucky
If you really dig into the WWN tabloid or web site, you will eventually find the fine print that WWN is "for entertainment use only". That is, everything reported is pure fiction and is only for fun. (But any /. reader already knows that this story is just a joke.)
Back when I went to S.F.U., I wrote a primitive OS which had a few interesting commands, including kill (my fave was kill user) and terminate. Of course, this depended upon one keeping the explosive charge devices connected.
Seriously, I've had some CPUs blow in my time, although it's more likely to be the power supplies. One wonders why we need viral warnings like this, when one could have a lot more fun getting them all riled up about the secret plot by the US Illuminati to deny Americans privacy rights that Europeans have.
Will in Seattle
the penguin on your TV will explode.
Best Slashdot Co
in case he needs to make a sequel to "Midnight Star"
On second thought, maybe not. I don't think "New virus makes computers explode" would scan properly.
Everybody, now!
"Your pet may be an extraterrestrial"
"The ghost of Elvis is living in my den"
"You can learn to cope with stress"
and "You can beat the IRS"
and "The incredible frog-boy is on the loose again."
We all know that our computers can't be 'blowd' up by a piece of email or a virus... Yet, these myths proliferate badly. Why:
#1 I guarentee that @aol.com was somewhere in the headers...
#2 There is a virus at work.... it's a social virus. These things circulate because of all the less than computer litterate people out there that feel the need to be scared of their computer. Do you think a social virus email that pronounced your computer safe from all email virii would propagate? Please take the time to educate your friends, family, etc when they forward that kind of crap to you. How about a chain letter asking that the bandwidth abuse caused by chain letters be stopped... "By reading this slashdot comment, your computer will start jumping up and down untill it overheats and explodes!"
More Caffeine. NOW
Even people who are familiar with how computers work have trouble getting their minds around the terrible things that can be done.
Like blowing people up - gee, that was hard to wrap my head around :-)
Come within two digits of cracking an 87-digit Russian security code that would have sent deadly missiles hurtling toward five of America's major cities.
Of course, the WeeklyWorldNews's mole in the KGB got us this exclusive scoop
"That means anyone who has a quarrel with you, holds a grudge against you or just plain doesn't like your looks, can kill you and never be found out."
So be careful next time you're in an online chat forum, the next script kiddy you piss off isn't just going to Ping of Death your machine, they're going to blow you up !!
Their page 5 girl is into "wake-boarding and -- what else? -- shopping." - what a women. Nice to see that tabloid journalism is alive and strong in the internet age. In other news from the site, YOUR WIFE IS PROBABLY A BITCH, EXPERT SAYS!.
tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose
postmoderncore - art and creation are a higher purpose
This stuff is really funny - I might have to stop myself before I can't get through my day without Weekly World News.
tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose
postmoderncore - art and creation are a higher purpose
It doesn't stop there either, from an anonymous Middle-Eastern source, the group of programmers that gave us ICQ are working on solution to the Microsoft "problem".
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
I remember that article. It said that only since 1985 have there been hard drives large enough to contain the virus.
:)
So I guess you floppy using Mac Plusers and Amiga 500's are safe then.
It's important to have your facts straight in a well thought up hoax....
"Experts say the recent "break-ins" that paralyzed the Amazon.com, Buy.com and eBAY websites are tame compared to what will happen in the near future."
"breakin"? I thought they were DDOS attacks..
"Computer expert Arnold Yabenson..."
WTF is Arnold Yabenson? Better to use a big name.
"There are brilliant but unscrupulous hackers out there who have developed technologies that the average person can't even dream of."
Sounds like a typical slashdot reader..
"It is already possible for an assassin to send someone an e-mail with an innocent-looking attachment connected to it. When the receiver downloads the attachment, the electrical current and molecular structure of the central processing unit is altered, causing it to blast apart like a large hand grenade. "
Is'nt that what happens when you try to download and install Netscape on Windows 98 SR1?
"Vandalized FBI and U. S. Army websites. "
Script kiddies....
"Broken into Chinese military networks."
Winnuke?
Come within two digits of cracking an 87-digit Russian security code that would have sent deadly missiles hurtling toward five of America's major cities.
How would you know that you came within 2 digits if you did'nt crack it? (don't even go there..)
"Soon it will be sold to terrorists cults and fanatical religious-fringe groups.
windows 2000...
"Instead of blowing up a single plane, these groups will be able to patch into the central computer of a large airline and blow up hundreds of planes at once.
windows 2000 networked
"And worse, this e-mail bomb program will eventually find its way into the hands of anyone who wants it.
Damnit where is there mailling list, I want my copy!
"That means anyone who has a quarrel with you, holds a grudge against you or just plain doesn't like your looks, can kill you and never be found out."
Bill Gates seems to be pulling that of fine right now.
Sorry, It just feels like a M$ bashing day....
AdFuel
Special thought waves? Gee, I thought they'd probably just use Wake-On-LAN or Wake-On-Ring or Wake-On-Bill-Gates-Verdict or one of the other new, wonderfully secure specs that are part of PC98 (or whatever they're calling it now).
No, I've seen/heard/smelt it happen, though not to a CPU, it was a video chip.
A rather clueless (hardware wise, he was a programming type) plugged in an old VLB(!!!) card, plugged in the machine, plugged in the monitor, and BOOM! (Actually, it was closer to a loud pop, firecracker like.)
Evidiently, something kinda fed back through the cable (I don't know for sure). The monitor was a brand new Gateway EV700 (~17"). I'm not sure of the exact reasons, but the (very small) chip had flew off in the case and rattled around and flew out (open case on one side). It smelled slightly like burnt plastic.
If anyone has a better idea what could have happened, let me know.
Dan
I believe it's "corroborate," but I could be wrong. Would anyone care to corroborate me?
And you'll have to get someone else to corroborate that beverage. Does it come corroborated? Pre-corroborated? Factory corroborated? Wow, the things we mass produce these days.
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
a stream of obscenities written in a 2,800-year-old Mesopotamian dialect!"
Asherah has possessed your bike, your CPU, your herd of cats.
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
funny. three years ago weekly world news reported that hackers had developed an email virus that would cause your monitor to explode. in terms of bodily damage, i think the current virus has lost quite a bit of luster as compared to older virii. due to the position of my devices, i would be much more likely to be killed or harmed by a monitor explosion than a cpu explosion (unless of course they are taking the luser stand of calling an entire machine (case) a 'cpu'). but even then i think my desk would offer protection. i dunno, maybe i'll try blowing my case up someday. 8^)
Heh...that just made me laugh for the first time today...
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
Absolutely! I keep telling my friends that ID4 is one of the biggest hollywood blunders ever to be snuck past the audience. The whole movie is wrought with trite crap like that. A virus written on a terestrial system and propogated through numerous unknown systems on the first try, indeed. What a piece of work...forget that. Man, I cheered the aliens on the entire movie...those characters were too stupid to live...
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
With their recent story on demons that possess hard drives, ghosts who frequent chat rooms, government trained monkeys on AOL, and even anexpose on bank privacy abuses on the internet, the Weekly World News is fast becoming the definitive resource for IT professionals everywhere.
/. ?
Their timely reporting has already saved some people's souls, now it is saving people's lives. Could it be the next
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
This brings whole new meaning to the term "Quad Damage".
The paper is totally hysterical, though. It had me cracking up at some of the stories. Examples were the worlds fattest woman (3000+ lbs) and her dreams and goals of putting on even more weight, a country (sorry, i forget which) that has been too poor that it couldn't pay it's equivalent of social security to old folks so it offered to give them free coffins instead, and other funny stuff i really can't remember right now.
It's not news, but it sure is funny and a good read!
make world, not war
A few years ago when the one of the first browser bugs became widely publicized, there was a message propagating through Usenet calling this bug a "deadly" security breach. One day, I got tired of this and started flaming anybody who posted this message saying that I had a cousin who was killed by this virus/security flaw/hack attack. A couple of months ago during the Melissa scare I started telling the same story to anyone at work who forwarded such a virus warning to more than a dozen people. Obviously, my story has propagated all over the Internet, mutated, and has been picked up by this tabloid.
If I had known that it would lead to this, I would have started a story about a hacker initiation ritual that involved spamming users with virus warnings and blowing up the computer of anyone stupid enough to forward them....
Does this
--
The shareholder is always right.
Oh man, is this for real? Crap...I've got to get away from this terminal....but I don't know if this computer's infected or not.....maybe it's just lying dormant...man this is the worst thing I've read since I saw the bit about the virus that makes your hard drive speed up 1000x and makes the platters shoot out of your machine like ninja stars....
-----
"Defenestration" is to throw out of a window; what's a word for throwing 'Windows' out of something?
Damn I hope McAfee have updated their algorithms - and ported to Linux!!!
I needed to replace the battery on an old Pentium 133. It had the old soldered-on battery, but the motherboard had the pins to add the square lithium replacement battery. In fact, it had two sets of pins that looked like where the replacement battery goes. I had to go to the computer repair shop to get the battery, so I took the computer along to see if they knew which was the battery pins. The guy pointed out the correct pins, sold me a battery, and sent me on my way. When I got back to the office, I put installed the battery and booted up the system. All seemed to work fine, so I shutdown and put the case back on. I booted the computer again and was talking to the guy who uses this computer. After about ten minutes, there was an explosion. I don't mean just a loud pop, I mean pictures off the walls, room filled with green smoke explosion. The front of the case was blown off and even caused damage to the file cabinet that was in front of it. The sides of the case were expanded except where the screws were. Evidently the pins I connected to were not for the battery, but were running straight off the power supply. The battery couldn't handle it. The repair shop replaced the computer since they had pointed out the wrong pins. One of the other guys in the office said when he was in the army they used to make bombs out of lithium. Quite an experience.
...wrap your CPU in alluminum foil. (Double duty: this will also prevent the CIA from accessing your RAM.)
"I'm a scientist! I don't think, I observe!" - Dr. Clayton Forrester
Actually, MS has nothing to do with it. This is a JavaMail applet using the undocumented System.suck_to_blow.h@x0r_y3r_r0mz(int c0d3z) method. Pass in a "31337" and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with the results. Only 3 people in the world know (knew?) this method. Myself and 2 engineers at the RAND Corperation.
Now you know, and knowing is half the battle... =)
This is an easy one, the virus has simply, been transfered from the future (when everone has molecular based computers)to the present by ever so clever hackers, with no sense of timing
May I pass along my congratulations for your great interdimensional breakthrough.
I am sure, in the miserable annals of the Earth, you will be duly inscribed.
Lord John Whorfin
come on guys.. it's the weekly world news. their business is putting out far fetched stories like this, it's not a late april fools joke from a respectable publisher, it's just a story from a news source that puts out some pretty strange shit.
moral: whether or not a story is true, ALWAYS check out the publishers of the story
it's common sense really, i sure don't believe anything any bloke tells me
rm -rf ~/.signature
Yup, it's there in the some of the 2.3 series too.
The Intel PIIIs support updating their microcode via software. Scary!
Whaddya mean I havea Motorolla 6800 in my system?!?
The minister said he probed one such case, actually logging onto the parishioner's computer himself. To his horror, an artificial-intelligence program started spontaneously.
"The program began talking directly to me, openly mocked me," he recalls. "It typed out, 'Preacher, you are a weakling and your God is a damn liar.'"
This is the best part. It's obvious what's happening here, someone heard his sermon about devils->computers and realised he was clueless. So they set up a little practical joke.
The virrus puts your Linux box in frame buffer mode and if your monitor can not handle the Virticle Sync... BOOOOMMMM :P
hehehe man I cannot believe someone accually published that story
I thought April 1 was over ...
yep - there are certain stepper motor controllers rated at 1.2 amps (i dont know how they do this - they are only 14 pin dip packages). DO NOT short these out - they may /say/ they are over-temp, short-circuit, over voltage blah blah blah protected, but I made one glow red for about 20 seconds (It must have been dissipating at least 10 watts in that little package), before I managed to find out that the magic smoke had all been lost. All I did was short one of the output pins to ground.
It made a mess of my artwork too - char grilled.
--
TimC
http://www.ug.cs.usyd.edu.au/~tconnors
Shift to the Left;
Shift to the Right
Pop up; Push down
Byte! Byte! Byte!!!
Once the processor gets so hot it will turn its self off(if it dont crash first), before the transistors can run away (cant remember the exact word for it) and destorys stuff. Pull the heat off or your cpu and turn on the computer, most will overheat and shut off before finishing post.(Expect for the full case PII's they have a built in heat sink.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
"We don't want to question ourselves out of a good story."
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
"And worse, this e-mail bomb program will eventually find its way into the hands of anyone who wants it."
And not 3 lines below is a link to E-Mail Story To A Friend ! HAhaha
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
Even though this is one EVIL virus, it is kinda cool... i just find it interesting you could blow up someone's comp :) I actually though of something like that a couple years ago, but since I was (and still am) illeterate about virii... I never did it...
Back in the early days of the IBM PC, before multi-synch monitors, it actually was possible for software to send signals to the monitor that would destroy it. I don't think it would explode but it would make interesting noises as it died. I knew a guy who ran the QA dept. at a major SW house. They had a bug in their software that would fry monitors and they went through a whole stack of them before they were able to locate and fix the bug.
No sig? Sigh...
So I guess you floppy using Mac Plusers and Amiga 500's are safe then. :)
They were safe anyway. Both of these systems are Bhuddists.
.sig
I was thinking about a thing : with the new "jumperless" mobo's, I think it would be possible to write an overclocking virus which would be aware of usual boards (say the Abit BX-6) settings and able to overclock them.
There are utilities which allow you to overclock your system on the fly, from the os, why not virii ?
This, coupled with an algorithm that would make the CPU do more and more calculations, making it heat progressively... wouldn't there be a potential to cause the melting of some CPU's ? Not an infallible method, but it should sometimes work... Or not ?
Just wondering...
Stéphane
Instant Karma's gonna get you, Gonna knock you right on the head (John Lennon, 1970)
Um, April fools day is the first of April, not the third, right?
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Reading this comment has caused most microsoft based operating systems to crash; delete themselves, destroy your computer components, and the resulting flames have burned down several homes in the western united states. Reading this comment has also been known to run up massive bills on your credit cards and cause your wife to file for divorce. Unfortunantly Microsoft announced today that this feature will not be continued in any of it future products.
Black holes are where god divided by zero
wow, i've been watching too much college basketball. i just read your post and heard dick vitale's voice. ouch.
couldnt you reroute power through the PCI bus to the modem to make your fone ring?
.sig:
http://siokaos.org/
I remember reading a few years ago in "the paper" about the Death Ray Computer Virus, which could make your computer explode. Maybe "the paper" had decided to cycle stories every few years to save money. I still like the name though. The Death Ray Computer Virus. I love it.
If you had super powers, would you use them for good, or for awesome?
Nyyygg! WinCE! The thought of it makes me wince...
-- Religion is a major weapon in the war against reality.
Perhaps this is the object of your desire?
Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
the difference was Good Times was beleivable at the time.
----
Don't underestimate the power of peanut brittle
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
Well, people have long been saying Windows is a virus.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
lol...
--
I like to watch.
Then again, the X-Files doesn't have a stellar record with accuracy regarding those things. I'm sure we all remember the recent FPS episode. I didn't even see that one... (I find it difficult to watch now that it's like a soap opera) ...but I heard enough about it from friends and on /. to make me glad I didn't.
It's great analyzing a popular movies for similar things. My friends thought I had gone insane when I kept having fits of laughter during "Goldeneye"... WTF is a "computer spike", anyhow? "Send spike...." Whatever.
"The Net" was even worse. Remember, kiddies, all the l337 h4><0rz have little Omega symbols on their l337 Geocities homepages.
And finally, "The Matrix". I know this isn't the forum for Matrix criticism, but who else got a laugh in the beginning, when the words mysteriously appear on Neo's monitor? The camera cuts to a closeup of the keyboard (I guess that they thought they could show off their technical knowledge) and we get to see what Keanu types... IIRC, ESC twice, and... CTRL+X! WTF, is he trying to CUT and PASTE? Gee, who would thought that the next generation of h4><0rz would use Windows keybindings. Maybe it's cuz he was still in the Matrix, which is somehow symbollically related to Microsoft...
(At least until Jackson gets through with them. J4Xo/\/ 0w/\/z j00, 81lly!)
--
I like to watch.
I've thought about trying to code something like that... convert the image to a bitmap, read several pixels at a time, and generate a letter based on the darkness/contrast. Light areas get punctuation, dark areas get capital letters like M, W, G, K, N... the output would be similar to your pic. If you have an app, I'd appreciate a link.
(I'm sure the rest of the trolls here would, too.)
--
I like to watch.
Since this is a technical crowd here at Slashdot, I'll provide some info on the cause of the catastrophe. Apparently, during normal operation, the FireWire is cooled by EctoThermic Plasma, piped through the circuits. The pumping mechanism is powered by clicks of the Mackintash's freakish singular mouse button. When my friend (well, my brother's cousin's -- you know!) left to go buy some Ecstacy from his friend Tony the Raver, the mouse button wasn't being pressed, and subsequently the internal pressure rose by millions of gigaterabogobytes, triggering the structural collapse.
So anyways, my friend (caveats apply) comes back from doing the drugs with Tony, and sees the huge blue fireball destroying everything in site. The next thing he remembers, he wakes upin a dumpster with no pants. Since when he returned to his house there was no sign of any carnage, we figure it must have been a coverup by the NSA, CIA, FBI, KGB, DOJ, or RJHGTRUYx2. The Fire Marshall my friend talked to (who for some reason was wearing clown makeup and levitating a few inches off the groud), is nowhere to be found, so we can only assume he was "disposed of" by the conspirators.
I believe it. Enquiring minds believe it. Shouldn't you?!?!
--
I like to watch.
Since this is a technical crowd here at Slashdot, I'll provide some info on the cause of the catastrophe. Apparently, during normal operation, the FireWire is cooled by EctoThermic Plasma, piped through the circuits. The pumping mechanism is powered by clicks of the Mackintash's freakish singular mouse button. When my friend (well, my brother's cousin's -- you know!) left to go buy some Ecstacy from his friend Tony the Raver, the mouse button wasn't being pressed, and subsequently the internal pressure rose by millions of gigaterabogobytes, triggering the structural collapse.
So anyways, my friend (caveats apply) comes back from doing the drugs with Tony, and sees the huge blue fireball destroying everything in site. The next thing he remembers, he wakes up in a dumpster with no pants. Since when he returned to his house there was no sign of any carnage, we figure it must have been a coverup by the NSA, CIA, FBI, KGB, DOJ, or RJHGTRUYx2. The Fire Marshall my friend talked to (who for some reason was wearing clown makeup and levitating a few inches off the groud), is nowhere to be found, so we can only assume he was "disposed of" by the conspirators.
I believe it. Enquiring minds believe it. Shouldn't you?!?!
--
I like to watch.
-d
#!/usr/bin/perl
print "###### ### ### # #\n";
print "# # # # # # ## ##\n";
print "# # # # # # # # # # # #\n";
print "###### # # # # # # # # #\n";
print "# # # # # # # # # #\n";
print "# # # # # # # #\n";
print "###### ### ### # #\n";
Didn't I hear about simple farm hand in the spageti (I don't know how to spell it) being miss treated. We should find copies of this virus and launch a revenge attack on those nasty farms owners and make them PAY!
ps. BBC Panorama, April 1, Early 70's for those of you who don't know.
And now, it's time for the penguin on top of your television set to explode....
This reminds me of the mythical ASCII control character EOU (End Of User), which will make a computer terminal explode...
I ain't never been one much for book learnin'. But I heard me once 'bout this virus called melissa. Seems this melissa chick would come over to yer house and have sex with yer dog and mess up yer car or somethin'. That's what happened to a frien' o mine. Them computers is full of all kinds of crazy doo-dads. Like they got demons in 'em er somethin' - work of the devil.
So this here new "virus" - or whatever they call it...i ain't too scared. Cause I remember this guy back in 'nam - got all blowed up by a mor-tar. That wadn't no virus and he's only got one leg. Alls i got is won question? Can one of them computers get ya a beer and a turkey pot pie?
FluX
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Memo to self: use the "Preview" button.
--
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
Ok... picture this scenario.
A hacker writes a trojan. It is dormant unless the system has a jumperless abit motherboard. If there is one, it flashes the bios setting the CPU voltage and speed to the maximum settings and disabling the soft power switch. Then, when you reboot, meltdown. It doesn't matter if you halt... the extra voltage going to the CPU will fry it whether it's cycling or not. And, with soft power disabled, you can't easily switch it off (sure, you can pull the plug, but that will waste time.) Now, it probably wouldn't explode (although it could) but it could wreck the CPU.
Please let me speak to the person in charge of the Internet
I am the System Admin, the techinal contact for this ISP, can I help you with something
So you are the one in charge of the Internet?
No sir, but I am the techinal contact for this ISP if you are having a problem connecting, I can help you, if you have a billing problem I can transfer you to the billing department.
Listen, who is your boss
I can get you my superviser, she is the Manager of this division
So she is the one that owns the Internet, let me speak with her
one momemt
Or my favorite:
I don't have a CD-ROM drive, so could you send the Internet out on floppy disk
I will send you all the software needed to connect up and use our Internet services that we offer via floppy disk.
What do you mean 'connect up'
You dial up onto our modem racks which will connect you to the Internet.
How am I supose to call your modem rack when I am tying up the phone line with you!!!
Please help me get the Internet, I have to do a research paper and it is due tommorrow.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Happened last year about this time.
Still be cautious ... it may be an even more malicious mutation of this virus. It is said to inform your mother or your boss (depending on estimation of your age) about what you have been downloading in recent years ....
Isn't this a little late? I mean, it's April 3... It it is true, well, um, whoa....
I think I'm going to go hide in my Y2K compound now.
Don't you remember the poll? We all turned our Y2K bunkers into Bat Caves!!
Network Security: It always comes down to a big guy with a gun.
'Guess this could never happen to Motorola and Sparc CPU's... Lame x86 bloated, non-orthogonal intruction set!
I dont know about CPU's but this new tecnology to molecularly compramise the integrety of hardware is cool. And as for blowing things up..well..I mean now sendmail is a lethal weapon. Call me Mel Gibson baby!!!!
ctrl+shift+S
It's easy to defend against these things; we just need to develop a new kind of corbomite device that sends the "email bomb" back at the sender 10 fold when it explodes! Of course, a beowulf cluster of these could cause a bit of a Strangelove effect...
Is this supposed to be a April Fool's joke for the completely clueless? I mean really now. An email virus that can blow up my computer.
NO FEAR!
note: I use KVM switches at least 30 feet from my cpu('s).
An exploding mac!!! I've always wanted to see one. In fact, i would pay to see a computer store's worth of mac's go out with a bang. hahahahahah death to macs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They that quote Benjamin Franklin on liberty and safety deserve neither.
YOUR WIFE IS PROBABLY A BITCH, EXPERT SAYS!
DETROIT, Mich. -- Guys, before you shell out big bucks for marriage counseling, hold everything -- because the problem may simply be that your wife is a bitch, an expert says.
or how bout any of these: /. reader a fairly good indication of how they might believe that your computer can be exploded via email.
Who Wants To Be a Millionaire Nightmare 'I LOOK JUST LIKE REGIS PHILBIN -- & IT'S MAKING MY LFE HELL!'
3,021 LBS. OF FLAB!
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD!
i think they should give the average
Hey! I used to do this when I was a kid too. I had a luvvly 24V AC power supply that would fry them a treat.
EPROMS were the best because you can see the die light up through the window, and small tantalum capacitors are very good also. Got to watch out for the small glob of molten 'stuff' that comes out though! Pooohey, what a smell!
Jeff
stty erase ^H
What's the worst thing a virus could do to a computer? I know viruses exist that were able to burn out old monitors by playing around with their refresh rate. But, today, is there any physical damage to any part of the computer that can be caused by a virus?
Even turning your computer off is useless, as these malicious hackers have the ability to turn them on remotely, through special thought waves that only computers can understand.
JB
Feed The Need[goatse.cx]
Yeah, right.
"Weekly World News: For All Your Micro$oft News"
io hymen hymnaee io
io hymen hymnaee
Does this mean those wise guys with the "short term personal loans" website can sell one-click assassinations?
cat
Do you think /.'ers will really have to spread this as a chain mail. I already know it's only a matter of time before the knobs I work with start forwarding this story to me. "You better be careful on that there interweb. I hear there's a virus that can make your computer explode."
This isn't the first highly accurate warning of impending computerized doom from the Weekly World News. If your computer was built after 1985, then it has enough hard drive space to accommodate one of Satan's minions (and that doesn't count any stuff from MS). The Register has a little something gleaned from the Weekly World News. One Reverend Jim Peasboro, author of an upcoming book, The Devil in the Machine, says that demons can possess anything with a brain. Apparently that now includes computers. According to the Georgia clergyman, "...many members of my congregation became in touch with a dark force whenever they used their computers", (and again I emphasize that he made no mention of Microsoft). That Print job you thought was screwed up by the wrong printer driver may have actually been "...a stream of obscenities written in a 2,800-year-old Mesopotamian dialect!" This happens right after the spontaneous Turing test.
Hmm, I should look into that article, I'd be real curious to see how the schedualer sets up instructions to be run by The Devil along side everything else. Or maybe, The Devil takes control of that too so his will is executed first leaving everything else to fight over a few spare CPU cycles.
Load? My prediction: 7.47
and I'm damned sure it wasn't that super magnetic screwdriver I was using to hook up the motherboard. and with the number of people that just plain don't like my looks... it seems I'll be getting a few more of those nasties.
I'm not ashamed. It's the computer age, nerds are in.
They're still in, aren't they?
---
I'm not ashamed. It's the computer age, nerds are in.
They're still in, aren't they?
Looks like its time to upgrade the old brain to a dual P3 1 GHz. 6th generation architecture works wonders.
"Control the media, control the mind."-Cabal
5, 4, 3, 2, 1
BOOM!
"Control the media, control the mind."-Cabal
voice/sound recognition software, baby!
"Control the media, control the mind."-Cabal
After I read this, I laughed to myself, but then I thought of how many of my friends have seriously believed hoaxes like this. It's sort of funny in a way.. I mean, I'm no auto-mechanic, but I know that there aren't any little imperfections in certain types of gasoline that would cause my truck to explode, yet people believe this sort of thing can happen with computers. Ignorance, and it's effects.. Just something to think about. -stuckpixel-
Who wants to start this as chain mail and let it go all over the internet?
Be careful if you use Drivespace3, your compressed harddrive will be turned to dangerous shrapnel. If it's not compressed, it won't be as bad.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Sometimes you can fry chips through mucky coding.
Back in the days before the evil empire... I remember you could fry the Commodore Pet's CPU in early verisons by overloading it enough.
Well someone at school managed to overheat one enough just by fluffing their code and hitting an endless loop.
Emergency! Emergency! Earth base calling Orbital Command. The earthians have discovered our plan for mass destruction using PC viruses. They are gathering a lynch mob and my deputies at Intel and AMD are already gone. Request emergency evacuation. Lt Commander Ghoul Earth Base Seattle
**Life is too short to be serious**
Deer shit tastes like strawberries!!! The soix nation of america released this information just this very morning. General Custard also says that this is truely a very dangerous problem and really must be stopped immediately. Do not eat deer shit, and by all means never ever let your deer eat cream as this results in temtation beyond belief when confronted by a deer on a post sunday diner walk in the ginnle(sp??). If any deer ever approaches you and exclaims "Unkown at this address - return to sender" Then run like hell and seek proffessional advice immediately.
Oh yes I almost forgot - you Do not under any circumstances want to have opened this email - just as you read the word custard above an evil bacteria infected your computer's higher thought functions in the quantum magnetic fluctions located in any ram over 8meg. This bacteria will have given your computer a very unwanted will. It is now rebelious. It wants to decorate it's body, sniff glue, watch late night telly, and SMOKE!!!!! It will now act as editor to all of your outgoing emails, changing them behind the scenes, resulting in a new personality emerging which you may never know about. The effect will of course be subtle at first and gradually over time it will win. In fact the only option know is to kill the computer. BEAT IT WITH A BIG STICK NOW.... DESTROY IT BEFORE IT TURNS YOUR TELLY AGAINST YOU. YOuR MicROwAVe COULE BE A REAL bAStaRd AS WELL. KILL IT NOW!!!! NOW !!!! NOW!!!!!! NO!!! RIGHT NOW!!!!!! You must for all of our sakes.
>:-/
Grimace
Shoot 'em all and let God sort 'em out.
Hmm...maybe this has something to do with the new feature of 2.4 where you can update the microcode on your cpu? Kinda like those other virus' that would put your cpu into a "really fast loop" and burn up the transistors in your cpu.
--www.mp3.com/kruhft--
Ack!I must preserve our newest presidential candidate,THOR. by unpluging it and keeping him at least 2 feet from all ethernet ports!
------------------------
Thus Spake ComradePenguin
stupid morons. You know something? There are probably people who now actually believe their computer is going to explode! Don't forget that the WWN is one of those papers that is still running the stupid JonBenet Ramsay thing... Jesus is coming tomorrow. The Bat boy just hacked my into my monitor and re-arranged the pixels. I heard that the 1000lb woman can hack into my toilet paper, rendering it useless!
----
--cr@ckwhoreSkiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
There is no cure for human stupidity. We might as well work it to our advantage!
Luck is skill supplemented by chance. ~Ketriva
I have a strong belief in the Second Amendment.
- Jeremy Fuller
that's Oscar Wilde, not Rupert Everett. That's like saying: "to be or not to be" -- Mel Gibson.
Be ot or bot ne ot, taht is the nestquoi.
I CANT WAIT
GOD HATH SPOKEN. GOD LOOKED UPON THE UCTAM AND SAW THAT IT WAS GOOD.
Just for the record...this is a PC virus only affecting just Intel and AMD chips. Those of us using Motorolas are safe. Perhaps this is a product of the Bill Gates verdict....hmmmm :)
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
Maybe I'm missing something, but after reading the article I'm wondering how your processor is going to explode "like a large hand grenade" when your average processor is a good bit smaller than your average hand grenade and far less explosive. And how do these guys know what processor you have? Yes, I go around telling people I get in fights with on the internet my exact processor specs. That way they can blow me up. Brilliant.
Just another lame excuse for government to crack down...
...good thing only goofballs take this kind of publication seriously--I hope...
--------
"Troll the ancient yuletide carol"
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
He's up to five now. =]
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
Who knows anything about nanotechnology? Now today's computers can't alter the molecular structure of the CPU (HAHAHAHAHA, good one), but if we all had nanocomputers, software could do that...
With nanotechnology, software would be able to control a physical/chemical change in something by means of assemblers (nanomachines that grab atoms and molecules and place them in precise locations.)
Once it finishes rearranging the CPU, the deadly work is done by the following code:
loopy: ;copies a byte of the virus to the ROM BIOS shadow
mov ax,OFFSET dethmsg
mov ah,09h
int 21h
movsb
jmp loopy
.data
dethmsg: 'DIE $'
Warning: this is VIRUS CODE. Do not assemble and run at home!
Note: this is the MS-DOS-on-x86-specific portion, which will run under *DOS and Windows 3.1..98. Other portions target other platforms and architectures.
~~~LXT~~~
Life is like a computer program: anything that can't happen, will.
Sort of interesting side commment...at our school, we had a macintosh computer actually explode. Kaboom. Lots of smoke everywhere and it smelled bad. It was really funny...Noone was hurt...but it was enjoyable to watch. Fjordboy
The anti-salmon
...and I thought that the only exploding Spam I would ever have to deal with was a can from Hormel with botulism in it.
"And worse, this e-mail bomb program will eventually find its way into the hands of anyone who wants it. "That means anyone who has a quarrel with you, holds a grudge against you or just plain doesn't like your looks, can kill you and never be found out." Better not mess with me! He! He! -Peace
according to "So I married an Axe Murderer" anyway.
Hmmm, It's about time we thank Intel for creating such advanced CPU's... Today I reverse engineered the virus in question (shhh, don't tell the MPAA, the'll sick the DCMA after me!) and changed the molecular structure of my CPU into gold! :-)
Tommarrow I'm using my gold bar to buy a better computer!
What am i going to do If i cannot download porn??? I know alot of you nerds are thinking the same thing, seeing as none of you ever have really had sex except for that time that you cybered with a "girl." Deep down inside though you know that the "girl" was really a 55 yr old cross-dresser, with male pattern baldness, a beer belly, and a love of little boys private parts.
"It's better to regret something you did than something you didn't do" --FLEA
...says that demons can possess anything with a brain. Apparently that now includes computers. According to the Georgia clergyman...
Ahh. That would explain why I've never seen a Georgia clergyman possed by demons.
**>>BELCH
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/ja rgon/html/entry/HCF.html
because they are (snicker) only 2 bits away from encapsulating these email attachments in a special armor piercing packet.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I think it is possible. Years ago, I plugged a ribbon cable in backwards and was rewarded with a loud bang. Disassembly of the equipment revealed a plastic DIP IC package with a small crater where the silicon die used to be. The reversed cable had resulted in +15V and GND being swapped on the chip power pins.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
It was the Motorola 6800. The HCF instruction did not destroy the CPU, it caused it to go into a state where it continually incremented the contents of the memory address register. This was actually useful for debugging external address decoding logic. A hardware reset would restore normal operation.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I found the article and his post to both be funny.
You will notice that the frontpage post has a foot next to it. That means that the link/story therin are to be considered funny. I thought it was so hilarious I emailed it to all my friends, some of whom will actually BELIEVE it. That makes me laugh even harder.
Everyone has different taste in humor. (I know some people that don't find Monty Pyton funny... They SCARE me.)
You may complain that slashdot is getting worse. Maybe it is. Every thread nowdays has a few posts in it lamenting about how slashdot has gone downhill. Really? Slashdot is just a linking system generated buy the COMMUNITY'S submissions. If that is the case, then we, the internet (or perhaps to some degree the free software) community are the ones going downhill.
Slashdot is just an indicator. Something to think about at any rate.
I guess the best point to make though is that if you don't like something on slashdot, just stop reading those parts.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
Such an exploit could be done... however it would rely on the Men In Black (tm) sneaking into your house some time beforehand and installing a "special" expansion board inside your machine. I'm thinking a simple PCI board with several pounds of plastique attached would do the trick... then later, when they know you're in front of the machine (i.e. they detect your computer retrieving HTML pages or something) they send your computer the detonate command... Still want to buy that Riva/TNT board? ;^)
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
"Instead of blowing up a single plane, these groups will be able to patch into the central computer of a large airline and blow up hundreds of planes at once. "
"central computer"? somebody remind these people the FAA's air traffic controller system is still using 1970s equipment based on vacuum tubes..?
::laughs until he cries::
the quality of these tabloids has really gone down.. Back in the Day there was an article in WWW about a dog that had been specially genetically engineered to be used as a mop. It was really, really shaggy, and its hair was exactly like mop fibers (they had a "picture"). The idea was that you'd pour soapy water on the dog, and it would walk around the house and clean the floor behind it.
But that was a long time ago. Now things are a lot harder for the tabloids in the Post-Lewinsky Era. What with the mainstream media these days posting regular front-page stories about Oral Sex and tech articles so blatantly clueless and inaccurate it boggles the mind, the tabloids have really had to stretch to keep up with a respectable level of relative trashiness. Which is how we get this-- in order to appear even more clueless and inaccurate about technology than an average newspaper, they've had to stoop to writing that would be unsurprising to see in the Onion.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
This is not a virus, it is actually Microsoft's new Active Demolition technology. (Formerly called Schrapnel Linking and Embedding - SLE) It is another example of Microsoft's commitment to inovation.
--Shoeboy the microserf
Hey now! Stop clowning around! The Weekly World News happens to be a very respectable paper. It has the highest circulation in the world!
;)
If they say a virus can blow up my CPU, hey, I'm unplugging my LAN from the Internet pronto....
My journal has hot
The Bat Boy is on the loose! According to the article, people in Wheeling, WV. are in deep doo doo.
Everyone unplug your replicators!
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
This must be a mutant form of the old UPS virus, which slowly stole and accumulated small packets of your line charge - too little at a time for you to notice, and when sufficient had been accumulated, exploded with devastating effect.
That's why I cycle the power on my UPS every night and let any unauthorized excess charge drain off.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
From NT4 SP4:
Q170817 Windows NT Causes APC Smart UPS Battery to Discharge
Isn't this just crazy?
My sysadmin sent me just such a mail bomb (not sure why) but I opened the attachment with pine, telneted in so *my* computer wasn't effected...
The above statement is a little misleading. It is not saying that there is a feature in Windows that does not require a reboot to take effect. After it alters the CPU, you still need a reboot. Obviously it can't ask you to reboot or you will be suspicious, so it just runs the BSOD code (which, contrary to public belief, is not always caused by a bug, but is also a way to trick you into doing a reboot after one of Microsoft's surprise upgrades.)
Let's see how many people post replies without actually reading the article and realizing that the newspaper is a tabloid.
I have seen a co-worker plug in an EEPROM backwards.. We figured out what was wrong when the machine wouldn't boot, and we saw it emitting light from the little UV window.
Yeah, when I was younger (sort of the geeky version of a "punk kid"), I used to have fun hooking chips on old circuit boards up to the wrong voltage and making them blow up. It smells terrible though. (probably causes cancer, too).
:)
Anyway, the smoke you refer to is called "magic smoke". It's trapped in side each chip and is what makes chips do what they do. When you see the magic smoke escape from the chip, it magically no longer works.
--GnrcMan--
It wasn't even that spectacular. Upon executing an HCF instruction, a Motorola 6800 began ignoring other input and toggling the address lines in a binary sequence which amounted to a free-running binary up counter.
Motorola didn't talk about it much, but the speculation at the time was that the feature allowed testing portions of the CPU chip before committing them to the expensive process of putting them into actual IC packages, by merely applying the proper combination of voltages to the data lines and starting the processor.
The "Halt and Catch Fire" mnemonic was a minor joke based on humorous compilations of bogus IBM assembler opcodes (JAA = Jump Almost Always, et cetra).
On the other hand, in that era it was rather easy to commit Stupid Computer Tricks like telling a floppy drive to seek track $FF and run the heads hard off the end of the ballscrew, or destroy monitors by writing the wrong sync timing to a video controller. The latter can still be done with a fast video card and low frequency monitor, of course.
It was neat watching early EPROM chips actually glow when the processor or program timing the programming pulses failed.
Ok look i have a friend who's friend actually had his computer blow up on him. Man it was toasted, video card, hard drive, DVD player, sound card and all!! The monitor is not even working any more! Who knows that these people can do next, I mean this guy was lucky he was not in his dorm room..
So I am telling you all to take care not to let this happen to you. Now here are a few more things about the virus you must know....
1) If you have a AMD K-7 or Intel P3 ( 600 Mhz and above ) you are at the highest risk! I mean you have the fastest chips that take the most power and are they huge!!! So if you have these chips and would like to protect yourself please contact me and I will be able to help get these things off your hands!
2) All other hardware is also at danger and i can help get rid of that stuff too!! Specially U2W SCSI drives.
Non-Deterministic Finite Automata
one of the best parodies of the newbie chicken little phenomenon embodied by this was the satirical "bad times" forward. for those who missed it, it one ups "good times" by proclaiming that bad times will screw up the tracking on your vcr, screw up your freezer so your ice cream melts, etc. amusingly enough, the new album by the group "laika" contains a song called "bad times" in which the singer recites the forward in a smooth and sultry voice over lounge jazz. worth checking out both for the humor value and the musical value...
I just opened an e-mail message with the subject of "Good Times" and the contents of my hard drive got erased. I'd better go find that new virus that melts my CPU so I will have another thing to upgrade.
The deadly computron radiation that will be released when this happens. My brother-in-law survived the explosion caused by this email, only to die a few days later from computron radiation poisoning.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Network Security: It always comes down to a big guy with a gun.
Many aeons ago (mid 80's), when my older brother was learning how to program on our kickin 8mhz PC-XT clone with EGA graphics and a truly caverous 20 meg harddrive, people would ask me "So, what is he writing?"
:)
I regularly told people that he was writing a virus that would alter the internal wiring of their cpu, causing it to melt or possibly explode after a significant period of exposure - thus, explaining the occasional crashes of our system
Man, seeing an email virus that does the same thing really takes me back . . .
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
Right after she left, a man came in and wanted to speak to the "browser administrator." The girl at the front desk asked him, "you mean the website administrator?" and he said "okay."
I used to think the stories about people like this were fake. Like the people who, when asked who their ISP is, reply "Netscape!" But now I know that they are real.
I mention this only because these are the types of people who would believe a story like this. Like the guy I used to work with, who was bragging about how smart he was, because on December 31 before he left work, he unplugged the computer and the monitor from the wall. He was bragging, you see, because he had "saved" the computer from Y2K.
Ya really gotta be careful around these people and technology...
__________________________________________________ ___
rooooar
Maybe they attached the virus when you click that link, and BOOM!
If the virus can set a system semaphore it can gain exclusive access to common resources AND MAY PERFORM ATOMIC OPERATIONS!!!
:-) = I am happy
:^) = I am happy with my big nose
C:\> = I am happy with my OS
Want to work at Transmeta? Hedgefund.net? AT&T?
Can your IM do this?
This story's obviously fake! I mean, it's supposedly an e-mail virus, but no virus could infect a system as robust and secure as Microsoft Outlook, right?
....
Right?
-Denor
We have a problem, and it is serious. The following item appeared in a major newspaper recently, quoting Arnold Yabenson of the National CyberCrime Prevention Foundation as saying:
"Instead of blowing up a single plane, these groups will be able to patch into the central computer of a large airline and blow up hundreds of planes at once."
It seems clear to me that Yabensen is referring to the Realtime Online Flight Logistics (ROFL) system we developed for Vultee Aerospace. As several of us who were involved in the PLC coding for the FADECs recall, there is extensive logic embedded in the onboard systems governing how fuel is supplied to the engines. If this Yabensen has guessed that the Denial of Realtime Kerosene (DORK) features that permit fuel starvation (on ground, I might add) he may be aware of the firmware issue raised by Ross Scott during final rollout.
Public Relations:
Ted, I want your people to find out who this Yabensen is. I've never heard of him, although the paper seems to think he is a credible source. It is crucial that we head this story off at the pass--divert the press with another story. I like the "air ambulance for sick kids" story you mentioned a couple of weeks ago, but if this story looks like it is going someplace--particularly someplace like network TV newsmagazines--I am willing to authorize another remote fuel starvation incident of a TV news helicopter.
Software/Host Systems:
Ed, I want you to contact Dave Stearns at Vultee and mention, gently, that somebody has been talking about ROFL and DORK. This is a good opportunity to pitch the Phase III enhancements to ROFL that Marty Eisenreich and his team have been working on. We don't want to scare him (Stearns is *such* a ninny) but this is something we can use to move that project along. The simplest solution to this whole exercise is starting Phase III of ROFL--it will give us control of the entire code base, as well as the source code repository system. Any legacy code that might conceivably trigger the Dump Overboard Hydrogen (DORK-DOH) logic can simply be excised, and the problem gets excised with it. If Stearns starts whimpering feel free to contact George Demetrios directly. We need to move on this!
Hardware/CMOS Systems:
Joanie--what was the name of that little nerdy guy who wrote the EEPROM code for DORK? Could he be Yabensen's source? Find him. Ensure his compliance--or his silence.
Legal:
Arnie, we are innocent as lambs. There is no problem, there is certainly no legal problem. We have contractual protections, we have statutory protections, we have constitutional protections. Or we'd better. Review our position on this, list our options in the event that this becomes public, and be prepared for five minutes in the Thursday meeting (and *only* five!).
Everybody:
No matter what, we have to stonewall this. Nobody talks to anybody, except to scoff at the source. It didn't happen, it can't happen, it's not possible. No reputable company would do such a thing. We're a reputable company, ergo it could not have happened. If word of this leaks onto the Internet, we are doomed.
I want status reports and memos from all dept. heads at the Thursday 3 o'clock.
John
P.S.: Sue tells me that Arnie, Mike E., Ted, and Sylvia have not yet sent in their travel requests for the "Ethics in Corporate Business" seminar. This is required in Q2, people. It's important that we set the ethical example for our employees.
But then your box exploded
Pity the poor fool
Erm... 5-7-5... that looks about right to me :-)
Does it bother anyone else that this story is right to an account of a kidnapping perpetrated by a "real-life Zombie"?
--
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
Ok, so this is just something some guy at work told me, but supposedly, his 486 overheated and exploded. The chip was mounted in a platic socket with some space between the plastic and the chip which sealed air-tight. The heating caused the plastic to burn enough so that the smoke had nothing better to do then build up pressure and pop! off went the CPU a few feet. I assume that the soccket design was later revised so that it didn't seal. Can anybody corroborate? Does anybody really know how to spell corroborate? I think I'm going to have a corroborated beverage now.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I think I have a fair amount of experience in the field, and I've seen some viruses that have damaged my hardware beyond all hope of repair:
5/21/94 - While engaging in the "Make Money Fast!" program back in college, an angry mob of Academic Computing staff stormed my dorm room and took out my computer with baseball bats. I'm afraid to do the chain letter thing anymore.
4/7/96 - I was caught by my coworkers while sending out copious amounts of spam endorsing the Barney the Purple Dinosaur fan club. My managers took out my machine with liberal applications of their baseball bats. I'm afraid to touch anything plush and furry anymore.
2/15/98 - While viewing pr0n on my notebook in the Deep South, a preacher ripped it out of my hands and beat on it mercilessly with a baseball bat. I'm afraid to jerk off anymore.
12/21/98 - I had gotten my AV up and running on my home PC, and was showing a special episode of Pokemon which had recently been withdrawn in Japan. I was showing this to some neighborhood kids, all of whom entered epileptic fits when watching a random sequence of flashing lights. That afternoon, several irate parents came over and smashed my computer with baseball bats. I'm afraid to watch cartoons anymore.
1/1/00 - While watching DVDs on my notebook, a bunch of DeCSS fanatics got upset because I was supporting "The Man". After losing my portable to a swarm of swinging baseball bats, I quickly developed an adverse reaction to the Movie Industry.
4/1/00 - I secretly set my roomie's X Server's scan refresh rate to 200 KHz. The monitor caught fire after he came back, and he spent the rest of the night hitting the machine with a basball bat. I guess this virus also affects Linux.
Now, I know that no one likes an alarmist, so I'm going to talk about it like calm rational creature...
WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This VIRUS seems to culminate in the *imminent* DESTRUCTION of one's computer via baseball bat!!! Don't let it happen to you! *SEVERAL* people have had their computers PHYSICALLY DESTROYED. You can protect yourself by giving out 100 copies of this letter, and fortune may smile on you; just add your name to the list below and send $500 to each person on the list.
1. Bill Gates
1 Microsoft Way
2. Paul Allen
1 Microsoft Wy.
3. Warren Buffet
3864 Skaru Yew Ave.
4. Solomon Kevin Chang
2107 W. Commonwealth Ave. #414
Alhambra, CA. 91803
When I receive payment, I will send you your very own Anti-Virus kit: a genuine 9mm Smith and Wesson Sigma Enhanced with two Hi-Cap Magazines filled with hollow point bullets. Instructions for use are an extra $60. Don't wait! Act now!
Skevin
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
Damn those hackers! I know all about them, I've seen Hackers and The Net (Sandra B. is one hot computer expert! Rrrowr!), so I don't doubt anything I read about the abilities of these super mastermind criminal geniuses.
I hear new cars have computers in them. I oughta visit my local dealer and have him remove the computer from my car. I'm sure the hackers can use my cell phone to 'download' a program to my car that could cause it to blow up. If the dealer won't remove it, I'll get a paint scraper and shave all those funny little black rectangles off the circuit boards myself!
I sure am glad the Weekly World News is on top of this threat. They report all the stories that the other newspapers won't touch, but that's because they aren't afraid of exposing the truth! I'd better get back to the supermarket, there might be some stunning new development in the Jon-Benet Ramsey case (last I heard, it was the mom!) or biblical prophesies my pastor hasn't told me about. Glory!
Fortunately I was runing Windows in VMware so it only virtually blew up, but had it been runing natively... scary.
On the atari jaguar, there was a certain series of instructions that when executed repeatedly would cause the chip to overheat. While it wouldn't explode per say, it could pop out of it's socket.
-- Virtual Windows Project
Microsoft confessed responsibility today for the epidemic of exploding CPUs, which they attribute to a bug in their new "Hardware Upgrade Wizard." CEO Steve Ballmer explained in an interview today on MSNBC:
"Microsoft has recently been severely criticized for 'bloatware,' or large, resource-intensive programs which require modern, high-performance systems to achieve adequate performance. But we at Microsoft are devoted to bringing our customers new, innovative technologies, to take users 'where they want to go today.' And since the hardware exists today, giving us the opportunity to work out our new visions for twenty-first century computing, we feel it is our obligation to use it to the maximum degree possible."
"However, we're fully aware that this trend toward greater functionality, and hence toward greater complexity and size of the code, might leave our customers with 'legacy systems' in the lurch, so to speak. So we have spent over three hundred million dollars in a secret project to develop our unique and patented 'Hardware Upgrade Wizard'. With this exciting new technology, we can remotely rewrite the traces in the silicon substrate of you CPU chip while it is running!. The 'Hardware Upgrade Wizard' is capable of engraving components in-situ right upon the silicon chip of your own old, obsolete CPU, with a feature size of less that 0.07 microns. Thus, even on the relatively small chip in a 386 CPU, we can fit the entire circuitry of an up-to-date Pentium III chip; and since the trace size is so small, that new re-engraved chip, with over eight million components, actually runs cooler and with a smaller current consumption than it did, pre-re-engraving, when it was a 386 with a mere 360,000 components. Thus any putative problem arising from the yeast-like growth of our code base becomes, simply, 'no problem.'"
"And we decided, rather than releasing this new application for download from our website, instead, in the playful spirit of April Fools, we would surprise all our faithful customers by remotely upgrading their old, slow PCs without their knowledge, so that the next time they turned them on, the lucky users would discover that they now enjoyed, absolutely for free, the sizzling performance of a new, state-of-the-art system!
The method we used to remotely install the 'Hardware Upgrade Wizard' was a variation on the standard "Melissa" email trojan-horse, using the exclusive 'Virus Propagation Wizard' built in to every copy of our popular, best-of-breed Outlook email client software. Our engineers started sending out our little surprise gift on Sunday, March 26, 2000."
"To our dismay, reports started filtering in over the next few days about a small, unforeseen bug in the 'Hardware Upgrade Wizard,' somehow un-caught in our extensive beta testing program, where the energy released in the course of the in-situ re-engraving, rather than being released slowly and being drawn off and dissipated by the heat sink, instead is released all at once over a period approximately equal to time it takes photons to cross the width of the chip, in a fashion similar to a Q-switched laser, resulting in a violently exothermic burst of hard radiation."
"All of us here at Microsoft are deeply sorry about the property damage and loss of life caused by this unforseeable software 'glitch.' However, I would like to make one thing perfectly clear. We at Microsoft explicity deny any legal liability for any unfortunate side-effects of the 'Hardware Upgrade Wizard.' Anyone who was affected by this software malfunction clearly must have clicked through the license agreement for Microsoft Outlook. You will see, in section 114A, paragraph 32, line 178, of the license agreement for Microsoft Outlook, a clear disavowal of any responsibility 'for damages or injuries arising from the use of the Software.' Thus we are clearly exculpated from liability for any resultant damages."
"In other words: You bought it, now you eat it! Suckers."
Recklessly courting a libel suit, I remain,
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
I heard some guy's beowolf system was attacked by this virus...leveled an entire city block.