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Foot and Mouth Virus and Outlook

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the hehe dept.

Alright, maybe it's the media saturation of "foot and mouth" disease/virus which seems quite similar to the LOVEBUG frenzy, or maybe it's just the bio major in me - but "the report" from the CDC concerning Outlook Express and foot-and-mouth made me spew coffee out of my nose.

6 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I'll bite. by GypC · · Score: 4

    It's quick and highly contagious. Some bacterial infections can be very dangerous because of those characteristics... bacteria are much more robust and eager destroyers of body tissue than viruses, if less insidious. Victims of bacterial meningitis sometimes go to sleep with what they think is just a headache and wake up dead. Victims of flesh-eating bacteria sometimes have limbs amputated to save them from an uncurable spreading necrosis.

    Underestimate the mighty bacteria at your peril.

  2. I'll bite. by mindstrm · · Score: 4

    Foot & Mouth (Hoof & Mouth n N. America I believe) is not Anthrax.

    F&M is viral, Anthrax is bacterial.

    F&M is not dangerous to humans. Anthrax is.

  3. Actually there is a serious side by hey · · Score: 5
    One of the main causes so of Foot and Mouth diseases is the monoculture that is agriculture in industrialized countries. In other words, there is hardly any variety in the crop or animals raised. Viruses don't often infect more than one species (I know Foot and Mouth does) so the more species you have the safer you are.

    The same with Operating Systems. The dominance of Microsoft and in particular their insecure mail client causes more trouble that it would otherwise if there was a variety out the.

    Reducing the number of species/platforms, which is which what markets forces do is actually not good economic sense.

  4. They're slaughtering my e-mail! by tenzig_112 · · Score: 5
    British inspectors came out, inspected my messages and said that "although you don't have the virus- you may very soon have it."

    So, they piled up all my mail in an enormous pile, waited several weeks to allow a horrible stentch to issue forth, and then burned it.

    What has the world come to?

  5. Outlook to carry Foot-in-Mouth virus by corvi42 · · Score: 5

    Although it is true that the bovine Foot-and-Mouth disease is not spread via Microsoft Outlook, a close relative to this same virus, the Foot-in-Mouth virus is spread quite rapidly via Outlook.

    The Foot-in-Mouth virus is a particularly embarrassing one, which scans all the email you have sent and received with a particular contact, getting a good sense of your relationship with that person. It then sends a series of emails in your name to that contact saying many things you would be very embarrassed about later.

    The effects of this virus are very similar to those produced by the psychological condition "Typing while drunk", and researchers are working very hard to examine whether any causal link exists between the this virus, its bovin cousin and alcohol-induced computer use.

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    There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
  6. Ironic by TrollFeeder · · Score: 4
    Ironic that you would post a story making fun of Outlook when there is now a major internet worm, dubbed the Lion worm, spreading through Linux machines by exploiting a security hole in BIND. The Lion worm is similar to the Ramen worm. However, this worm is significantly more dangerous and should be taken very seriously. It infects Linux machines running the BIND DNS server. It is known to infect bind version(s) 8.2, 8.2-P1, 8.2.1, 8.2.2-Px, and all 8.2.3-betas. The specific vulnerability used by the worm to exploit machines is the TSIG vulnerability that was reported on January 29, 2001. The Lion worm spreads via an application called "randb". Randb scans random class B networks probing TCP port 53. Once it hits a system, it checks to see if it is vulnerable. If so, Lion exploits the system using an exploit called "name". It then installs the t0rn rootkit. Once Lion has compromised a system, it: - - Sends the contents of /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, as well as some network settings to an address in the china.com domain. - - Deletes /etc/hosts.deny, eliminating the host-based perimeter protection afforded by tcp wrappers. - - Installs backdoor root shells on ports 60008/tcp and 33567/tcp (via inetd, see /etc/inetd.conf) - - Installs a trojaned version of ssh that listens on 33568/tcp - - Kills Syslogd , so the logging on the system can't be trusted - - Installs a trojaned version of login - - Looks for a hashed password in /etc/ttyhash - - /usr/sbin/nscd (the optional Name Service Caching daemon) is overwritten with a trojaned version of ssh. The t0rn rootkit replaces several binaries on the system in order to stealth itself. Here are the binaries that it replaces: du, find, ifconfig, in.telnetd, in.fingerd, login, ls, mjy, netstat, ps, pstree, top - - "Mjy" is a utility for cleaning out log entries, and is placed in /bin and /usr/man/man1/man1/lib/.lib/. - - in.telnetd is also placed in these directories; its use is not known at this time. - - A setuid shell is placed in /usr/man/man1/man1/lib/.lib/.x

    --
    "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"

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    --
    "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
    -George Carlin