Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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. oooh, bad code by jjeffries · · Score: 1, Redundant

    rm -rf /

    format c:\

    #!/usr/bin/perl
    unlink ;

    oooh, I posted harmful code... I'm scared!

  2. Ahh Sarah.. when you gunna get a real job? by QuantumG · · Score: 2, Redundant

    We've always been on friendly terms Sarah, except when you go spouting fascist crap like this. What does Symantic pay you for anyways? Researching "ethical implications of select technologies" sounds like "making up FUD and scare tactics" to me. How can the author of The Generic Virus Writer accuse anyone of "bad science". Pah-lease. You're a psychologist, your "discipline" invented bad science. When you condem virus writing and try to criminalize it like you constantly do you drive more and more kids to get into it -- call it the "coolness factor". Make it more illegal and it will become more dangerous. What the vx scene needs is compassion and guidance -- leadership if you will. When VLAD was on top we put forward positive responsible leadership. Unlike hacking, writing viruses is about investigating the weaknesses of both insecure and secure systems. What can you do in the bounds of a good security model that is still malicious? Can this help us build better security models? This is research, and maybe if you got out of your closed little commerical lab ("we make scanners!" Big deal) you might be able to see the whole picture.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
  3. What about bugs? by ledbetter · · Score: 2, Redundant

    If distributing dangerous code becomes illegal, what about bugs? Might it become illegal to release buggy software?? This could be a very interesting turn of events in light of the current situation of software licenses which basically absolve the authors of any and all responsibility for their code, whatsoever. Making viruses illegal could really have some interesting (and potentially dangerous) implications.

    Similarly what about academic exploit code? Might that become illegal as well?? Bottom line, code is way too close to speech to be restricted like this...

    --


    /. my blog, I dare ya
  4. No more Windows? by JaguarsRevenge · · Score: 0, Redundant

    So if they make distributing viruses illegal then Microsoft won't be able to distribute Windows 2000 and Windows XP anymore, right?

    Hmmm, ya know, it IS tempting...