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Should Virus Distribution be Illegal?

Posted by michael on from the do-it-for-the-children dept.

mccormi writes "In a guest editorial on Newarchitect Sarah Gordon looks at whether posting malicious code should be allowed and what steps could be taken to stop it. What's worrisome though is that restrictions on malicious code doesn't take into account who it's malicious against and what truly defines malicious." Note that she's not talking about actually infecting computers, but merely making the code available for others to examine (and for some of them, no doubt, to try to spread in the wild).

4 of 405 comments (clear)

  1. Should Virus Distribution be illegal? by L-Wave · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Yes, unless its been GPL'd =)

    --
    I SURVIVED THE GREAT SLASHDOT BLACKOUT OF 2002!
  2. Got a virus last night by wishus · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I had to install Office on my computer at home last night, and I made a point to deselect Outlook. What do you know, it installed that damn virus anyway.

  3. Feelings in Haiku Form... by MonkeyBot · · Score: 2, Offtopic

    Microsoft smiling...
    Lawyers call products "viral",
    Court can't get source code.

  4. Re:yay! by josh+crawley · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    They already have. And watcha doing at 0 ? I thought Michael bitchslapped you at perm -1 . Anyways, You're always +5 in my selections.

    You're a "troll" that I like to read. Great negative/denotative stuff that idiot moderators love to mod down, but are factual.