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Targeted Worm Hits Kazaa's Network
sh0rtie writes: "Kaspersky Labs and the BBC are reporting that the Fasttrack network that Kazaa uses has been hit by its first targeted worm virus dubbed 'Benjamin.' Is this a clever RIAA creation or that of a mischievous virus writer? I guess we will never know, but the result is that it seems to be bringing unsuspecting users machines to a crawl with full hard drives and clogging up the Fasttrack network with massive amounts of traffic bringing more headaches for ISPs and sysadmins worldwide."
Look at the kind of music these fellows put out. Now tell me anything they create is "clever".
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
the day the secret Kazaa/Brilliant network came to life is the day that this worm gets let loose.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
seeing as how everyone and their grandmother's dog-sitter read the post about Kazaa's involuntary spyware and then promptly deleted Kazaa from their system, I really don't see how this story should effect anyone..right? hmmm..on second thought..is it the kazaa NETWORK?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, go into business for themselves.
how big of a surprise is this? The whole idea behind kazaa is that you can get music that you don't own. This reminds me a lot of the warez sites out there. How many of us trust them?
You get what you pay for.
From the article...
In addition to eating up free disk space Benjamin takes additional actions: under the name of the infected computer's owner it opens an anonymous web site from which it displays advertising banners. This way Benjamin's creator profits by the resulting increase in advertising displays.
I might be wrong, but I'd think it'd be quite easy to find where the money from the advertising banners is going to. Quite simple to find the virus writer.
Of course, the recipient of the advertising revenue may not be the virus writer, but it's a good place to start.
Stupid people amuse me.
but the result is that it seems to be bringing unsuspecting users machines to a crawl with full hard drives and clogging up the Fasttrack network with massive amounts of traffic
What? Doesn't that happen every time a new cammed version of Spider-Man or AOTC's is released?
The worm is coming! It can smell the spice on your hard drive! Delete it, or it'll smash through it and destroy you!
You are not the customer.
Really, who wants to use such an advertisement ridden program anyway. Now it's infested with something more lethal. woohoo
*DrugCheese rants*
Some very scary research has been aimed at discovering just how fast a worm could infect the entire Internet. This is the so-called Warhol worm, so named because instead of getting 15 minutes of fame, it would only take 15 minutes to infect the entire internet. If some nut combines a Warhol worm with a Kazza worm, we are in deep trouble.
The way I understand the article, it replicates itself in someone's share directory and waits for other Kaaza users to download it. How is it executed on the remote user's computer then? Do they have to specifically run the virus program, or is there a security hole in the Kaaza client somewhere that automatically executes the virus?
.exe from a P2P network and runs it without at least scanning it, deservers what they get.
I'm assuming users that download this file must specifically execute it. If this is true, then IMHO any person who downloads an unknown
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
Is this a clever RIAA creation?
What an incredibly irresponsible statement. Don't go pointing fingers until you have some evidence.
The BBC reported this earlier today:1 998000/1998686.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_
I agree with the idea that the RIAA would definitely have motive when it came to a worm like this, or some random RIAA suporter. Good thing most intelligent people quit using Kazaa a long time ago, or for sure when they found out about the spyware.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
Doesn't necessarily point to the culprit. Just because the webserver is hitting/serving up whatever the ad of the hour is, doesn't mean the person getting the checks is the virus writer. How difficult would it be for instance, for a blackhat to write a virus, have it hit/serve a bazillion ads, but send the money to a certain John Ashcroft, who just happens to live in DC, with a job at the DOJ? Especially given the talents of a true blackhat, this wouldn't be difficult at all. Unfortunately, that's what these posts of "Follow the money trail" are doing... it's entirely possible the writer borked up bigtime, but more likely that someone's being made a stooge, and that the money is just a red herring.
I suspect that one of these choices is incorrect. Correct.
"In addition to eating up free disk space Benjamin takes additional actions: under the name of the infected computer's owner it opens an anonymous web site from which it displays advertising banners. This way Benjamin's creator profits by the resulting increase in advertising displays."
Wouldn't it make sense then that you could track the creators of the worm to whomever is collecting the payout of these banner ads or am I misunderstanding how its working?
Perhaps I am paranoid, perhaps I am an old fart, but I cannot see trusting any file I got from any of the P2P systems for precisely this reason.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Big whoop. P2P becomes the latest transport mechanism for viruses. It's not exploiting a hole in Kazaa, it's just sharing a folder with virus-infected executables labeled with intriguing names that are likely to be downloaded by Kazaa users.
If these users are then dumb enough to run an executable file they download from an unknown source, they will be infected.
Wow.
"And like that
awww this requiers that the user download and run it in order for it to infect the computer.
One of these days there is going to be a serious flash worm on that fasttrack network. All one would have to do is find a buffer overflow in the server portion of it. Each computer knows about several others as a function of the program so finding exploitable hosts should be as trivial as doing a netstat -a.
Okay, so... who's infected? any slashdotters get the
u rr entVersion\Run] . SC R"
:)
"Error:
Access error #03A:94574: Invalid pointer operation
File possibly corrupted."
message yet? If so, what did you do to clean up? Neither of the 2 articles gives a very good indication of that; I guess I'd start by deleting \windows\system32\explorer.scr and \windows\temp\Sys32, and removing these registry keys:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\C
"System-Service"="C:\\WINDOWS\\SYSTEM\\EXPLORER
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft] "syscod"="0065D7DB20008306B6A1"
Seems like that should keep it from spreading, but that won't prevent a reinfection. Oh well; at least there's a popup notice when you get infected. that's nice.
Looks like fasttrack users (kazaa, morpheus, AND grokster) are catching on... about 1/5 as many users on as usual for this time of day. And before you flame me as a pirate, I only trade Simpsons episodes which aren't available for sale yet
so this worm jumps onto your computer and puts ad software on it so you will have to wade through a million adds to read /. is this any different from kazaa already? o wait, you agreed to let kazaa do that when you clicked i agree after the eula.
meh
Yeah, who would want to use such a program?
Well, from what I can gather... two million, two hundred & twenty six thousand, five hundred and thirty six regular citizens of Earth, who want to access over a million gigabytes of pirate software, mp3s and porn. Duhh. Wake up.
loply.com
Whenever I think of what could be achieved by a virus using a P2P system, I am all the more astounded by the limited imaginations of these puny 13-year-old hackers.
How about using a million computers working in parallel to break an weak encryption and read some third world govenment's military email?
What about creating a secondary virus that uses known windows vulnerabilities and has a mathematically reasonable replication scheme to install itself on hundreds of millions more computers, and then use that to bring down the entire internet on a given day?
What about turning these people's P2P servers into a humungous free proxy network, defeating internet censorship attempts of evil totalitarian regimes (like China)?
Ever since the whole deal with Kazaa and spyware and using your computer for distibuted computing, I've uninstalled and left them for good. Come on...think about it. If a company does not have the "consumer's" best interests in mind, it will not be able to succeed. What are they going to do when there is a major security issue that opens up your private data to the world? "Ooops..who cares..not my fault..they aren't paying us"
Kazaa has turned into bad news waiting to happen.
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
Anyone know how this thing is spread and if Kazaa Lite can get it even with the Brilliant Digital stuff disabled?
According to the article, the worm sets up a web site for doing advertising, presumably porn. I'd think that that the sites being advertised would be a good place to start figuring out who's responsible.
It's an amusing idea to use a worm to carry a proft-generating payload, but it sounds like it'll leave a really big paper trail. The more advertisers you get, the bigger the trail.
"hey guys, I've got a great idea. let's make a virus that will expose ourselves to billions of dollars of liability, but will only shut down some minor piracy for a day or two, until anti-virus software makers have protection for it".
I submitted this story and it was rejected. Apparently Nintendo price cuts and the latest Star Wars box office figures are big news today, but not this.
Boo hoo for you, did you consider that maybe 13 other people submitted it before you, it's maybe 200 submissions down on the queue, and it might get posted later? Sorry your story got rejected and you don't get any karma, but please. Enough with the ragging on people because they talk about other stuff besides your pet topic.
I don't see the RIAA mentioned at all in that article. Perhaps your link is incorrect?
Seems pretty clear to me.. Its either the RIAA fighting back the only way they can, or a sympathizer..
Either way same result, people with nothing better to do, then mess with others.
And no i dont want to get into legality discussions.. its just a statment that people should mind their own damned business.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Large file-sharing networks like Kazaa have birthmarks in the shapes of bulls-eye's.
But if banner ads which will profit the creator of the virus are posted on every single infected computer... how hard would it be really to follow the money to find the author of the worm?
:)
Or was I the first one to read the article?
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Sorry your story got rejected and you don't get any karma, but please. Enough with the ragging on people because they talk about other stuff besides your pet topic.
/. editor who rejected the story, are not.
This is not the first time I (or people I know) have submitted matters of major general interest that have been ignored. I'm not a biologist or paleontologist, so it's not my "pet topic," but I'm smart enough to recognize that Gould was a genius and a major figure in the history of science.
Apparently you, like the nameless
i had this virus once, only i named it 'roommate'.
I remember the topic of Kazaa infection being brought up on Bugtraq Bugtraq months ago.
A great loss, not merely for his contributions to evolutionary theory (and whether you agree with him or not, he has undeniably raised crucial issues that have stimulated progress in the field), but for his contributions to scientific history, and showing that serious scientific writing does not need to be dull or stilted.
I agree, this deserves its own topic. But this thread is sort of about evolution, isn't it?
two million, two hundred & twenty six thousand, five hundred and thirty seven complete morons
kinda low from my recent headcount of sheeple out there
*DrugCheese rants*
Hit me the other day. Just noticed it last night, and I (think) I have it under control.
First, look out for small downloads, specifically anything with names such as "installer" or "downloader." I dont know how I got mine, but my brother's machine got hit after he tried to d/l the newest version of Britannica. Serves him right. When I went to see what he downloaded, I saw that it was a file around 700k.
Yes, it does spread over Kazaa lite.
Once it is installed, it proceeds to fill up your machine with approximately 700k files, usually in windows or winnt/temp/sys32. Thats where all mine were (Im running W2K).
However, dont go crazy yet. I downloaded the newest virus update for NAV (dated 5/17) and ran it. It picked all the downloads right up. Since they were all junk files that it had downloaded, I had it delete them all.
So far, so good. Havent had any recurrence since then (although this was last night, so I dont consider it enough time to truly test). Hopefully it really is this easy to clean up, but Im sure I will quickly find out.
Hope this helps.
...I dont know what happened to the hyperlink there - here is the link in text form:
7 /2 002-05-17/2002-05-23/1
http://online.securityfocus.com/archive/1/25462
And another try at a hyperlink.
"If you refer to this article, we'll give you $5 rebate off your next virus update purchase." added Zenkin with a smile.
As much as we need the anti-virus software, the anti-virus companies need the virus makers. Without a worm or a virus that makes CNN headlines every 6 months, people will forget to buy updates, patches etc etc. The public forgets quickly, and will not buy new products from the AV companies if they don't feel a threat.
Sure, the problem is real, but part of me can't shake the feeling that somewhere there is a anti-virus company executive ordering a new plasma HDTV when he sees this news. Or maybe it's just becase X-Files ended yesterday that I'm seeing conspiracies everywhere.
Oh, I can't help quoting you because everything that you said rings true
Yeah, I'm grinnin' ear to ear as well. While I don't think it was RIAA that created this, I found this part f*cking brilliant:
Congratulations on your free copy of photoshop (which is alright because you wouldn't have bought it), Windows XP (which is alright, because Microsoft is evil), the new Dave Matthews Band CD (which is alright, because the RIAA is evil), and that DivX of episode 2 (which is alright, because the MPAA is evil).
Couldn't have said it better. *applause*
The Free desktop that Just Works
Boo hoo for you, did you consider that maybe 13 other people submitted it before you, it's maybe 200 submissions down on the queue, and it might get posted later? Sorry your story got rejected and you don't get any karma, but please. Enough with the ragging on people because they talk about other stuff besides your pet topic.
I doubt the original poster cares about karma; he's complaining about the fact that the editors just have no apparent ability to pick stories anymore. Gould was a brilliant scientist whose passing should be major news. Instead we get an endless succession of stories about file sharing and wireless networks. Interspersed, ironically, with self-congratulatory stories about how brilliant, well-rounded, and scientifically literate geeks in general are.
grr. my Lameness Engine must be kicking in - i re-re-reread your post, and you obviously don't think that RIAA made the worm either.
happypollylogies all around.
The Free desktop that Just Works
Yeah, because AIDS is a purely homosexual phenomenon. It doesn't spread like wildfire through unsafe heterosexual relations in Africa. It certainly doesn't affect heterosexual drug users, people who have had blood transfusions, ordinary everyday heterosexuals whose mate had an unwise affair. I'm sure a loving god smites innocent people to "cure" the world of men who love other men, while doing nothing to wife batterers, rapists, child molesters, and other creeps. This worm may be a well deserved plague on thieves, but don't compare it to a misbegotten theory that blames a real tragedy, AIDS, on its own innocent victims.
i guess it would be under a similar assumption that this worm could target other sharing software like AudioGalaxy, imesh, limewire, etc..
any word on the truth of this?
thelikesofwhich.com
I know the RIAA didn't write it, it was proabably some self-rightous bastard alot like yourself. How can you possibly defend a company that acts the way RIAA members do? Do you think they care about you? You think all these "thives" go away that their gonna lower prices, or create good content? HA! They are using file sharing as an exuse to pass legislation that gives them a future stranglehold on content creation. "oh, you want to distrubute a song you wrote and performed? Not without the RIAA watermark seal of approval!" Stop defending companys whose soul goal is to make your computer into a nutered VCR, incapable of doing anything without the xxAA's express writen consent.
Hmm, uses your drive space and bandwidth, pops up ads, modifies your system configuration without your permission...
Looks to me like the only difference between this trojan and the programs it comes in is that one has a EULA.
Time for virus writers to wise up and disclaim liability with an incomprehensible clickthrough like all the other writers of malicious code...
--
Benjamin Coates
A real worm would do something like pretend to be an update and get the host to download an infected version of the client.
Hmm, sounds Familiar doesn't it ...
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results" - Winston Churchill
If the original poster actualy cared about his Karma, do you honestly think he would have posted under his account instead of anonymously?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Yes, it is major news. That's why it's on the front page of CNN, Boston.com, etc. I do not need Slashdot to cover stories that I'll hear about anyway. I come to Slashdot to get more interesting, off-the-beaten-path stories, or sometimes interesting commentary on hugely important news (not just the passing of someone famous).
Making the Slashdot front page does not mean that the Kazaa worm is more important that SJG. It's called perspective.
Yes this is true but ALOT of end users dont know any better or arent smart enough not to or just dont care. I know they always say all the time not to do it but I still have end users trying to open virus e-mails (the virus *.exe is gone) and the dept director downloading mp3's to his machine. He stopped after that article I sent him on the internal mp3 server costing the company tons of monies. Like it matters anyways rebuilding workstations is fun.....
Vote early. Vote often. Vote CowboyNeal.
And then go here to read the story with out signing up:
http://www.majcher.com/nytview.html
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Readers are reminded of this /. discussion of the matter from April 7.
Regarding networks, it should be clear by now that if you build it they will come. Virii, that is. When are people going to figure that one out? Worse, the hosts in this case probably didn't even know they were vulnerable. Another technological trap, sprung. Really makes me look forward to the day when the networks are more homogenious than they already are.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
All the worm does (or all that is known) is that it opens the benjamin.xww.de web site to display an advertisement. I would guess (and love ;) that it would do more...although I wonder how much money the writer is making...
Orange
Evolution is just more Yankee bullshit. Ever since reconstruction, the Yankees have been destroying the truth.
Yet another reason to hate Steinbrenner....um, uh, oh nevermind...
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
This seems to rely heavily on the user to be able to spread itself around. At first glance when I read the story, it seemed that maybe the virus was just running rampant on the network, but on reading the actual article, I find that someone actually has to run the virus.
Do people not understand that they are downloading files from essentially untrusted sources and should be checking these files anyways? Especially programs.
The social engineering aspect of this virus is what really leads to its spreading, not any inherent flaw in the design of the network. As usual, humans are the weakest link here.
An opt-in virus. Heh.
I did a search for some Linux .iso's and rpm's on Gnutella and didn't find much. When I downloaded them from ftp sites it took days. So I have put
a bunch of rpm's and iso's Gnutella. I'll see if there are any hits. This seems like a good (non-illegal) use of P2P.
So this virus doesn't affect you if you use KazzaLite, right? And you also use less bandwidth. ?And you use less processor time, so everything else runs faster?
Looks like Kazza's going to get a whole lot less popular as the malware-enabled version goes..
Just filter out all files under 1 meg... it worked for me since I guess it only shows up when searching for software...
And what will you do when the code for the virus is recompiled to run in *NIX? No OS is perfectly secure, the fact that *NIX based OSes and Mac OS was not hit is just an indication of the limited programing skills and/or time of the creator.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Don't you mean Stephen King?
Yes this is true but ALOT of end users dont know any better or arent smart enough not to or just dont care.
If you mean "A LOT," you are correct. (I don't know what "ALOT" is, though... is it anything like "ALITTLE?")
I know they always say all the time not to do it but I still have end users trying to open virus e-mails
Then if you maintain that network you need to setup a filter to delete executable attachments from incoming/outgoing email!
"And like that
I'm afraid it's not that easy, CmdrTaco. Firstly, you are assuming that the money is going to someone associated with the virus writer. However, from what I understand, there are three types of people who write viruses:
But let us assume that the money is going to the author of Benjamin for a moment. There is also unfortunately the issue of money laundering, offshore accounts, vapor operations, and rerouting of transfers that can make finding out where the money goes all but impossible if someone is clever enough to do it.
Assuming that someone is keeping the money for themselves, there are a variety of ways that it could be done. As referenced by Carl Sifakis...
Method 1 Typical Drug Dealer Method
Method 2 The Loanback Method
Method 3 The Money Broker Shuffle Problem
Mr A is Columbian drug lord. He has a million dollars sitting in New York badly in need of deodorization. Mr B is a legitimate Columbian businessman who wants to buy a million dollars worth of U.S. computers but his government wants 21 cents for every dollar he buys with his pesos.
Solution: They hire a money broker who for a nominal fee will solve the problem.
Method 4 The Omnibus Account Method
Swiss banks (and others I'm sure) maintain what is known as "omnibus accounts" at American brokerage houses. This make it easy for mafiosi to purchase American blue chip stock anonymously. Naturally, if they make a profit they pay no capital gains taxes on it because there are no records in the U.S. tying them to the stock purchases and the Swiss banks are bound by their laws not to reveal the names of their investors. This enables them not only to make money but to manipulate the market by buying large blocks of stock through the banks and then exercising their proxies, enabling them to determine who will be on the board of directors and who will be C.E.O.
In Short, if this person has half a brain, then just "seeing where the checks are going" will not reveal the culprit.
The Libra Eagles may soar, but a weasel never gets sucked into a jet engine.
Hehehe, if you hit the page that the virus opens to get the author more page impressions (http://benjamin.xww.de/), you get:
:)
"
Domain aufgrund von massiven Beschwerden gesperrt.
Domain closed due to massive abuse.
"
Now I wonder if it was closed because someone wrote a virus, or because the virus worked so well he went over his bandwidth allocation!
I never used Kazaa... but I (used to) highly recommend KazaaLite. All of the functionality, none of the spyware. Oh well, back to my from-source LimeWire v1.6b.
AHHHHHHH! I'm burning with goodness again!
- Reakk, Sluggy Freelance
about your drug dealer method : I remember
a video game arcade opening next to my school.
Since it was 1994, having not seen this in 10
years, we were very excited and promptly went there. There was a staff of three to five
people, one MK2 machine, two pinballs hardly
playable (one leg shorter than the other)...
and that's all. Last time I drove by : it
was still there, when major arcades (with one
70 years old employee) close their doors long ago.
Obvious money-laundering business to me
(it is very hard to check the actual number
of coins going through the machines).
Same thing for a videoclub next to my university...which lasted about three weeks !
Maybe they were not as careful, or did
not bribe the correct people.
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
OK, so how and where does the virus open these websites? And what can an infected user do about them?
Atleast under *NIX one has permitions and optional quotas. Both help greatly in keeping crap from infecting a system or causing DoS situations. As an example I'm running a news retreival program under the account news. If someone managed to exploit it they would only be able to fill up partition /data2. That is because that is the only place that the news user is allowd to create or modify files. I even have news locked out of using the main /tmp directory. If it dosen't need access something I disabled it via access control lists. I also have throttles on the maximum percentage of memory and CPU allowed.
Actually, it affects KazaaLite users, too. Remember, the only difference is that the spyware has been removed. Any security loopholes present in one are bound to be present in the other...
I'm afraid it's not that easy, CmdrTaco.
FWIW, the person you responded too wasn't CmdrTaco.
Give him points for being clever though.
-Bill
SlashSig Karma: Excellent (mostly affected by moderatio
does this also apply to the kazaaLITE? *quickly shuts down a program*-- it wasn't kazaalite! i swear!!
I have a Kazaa clone that uses the Kazaa network w/o using the crappy Kazaa Software.Unfortunately, it's for windows only :(
Go to http://cguru.cjb.net. It's called MyKazaa
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
I am shocked it's taken someone this long to do this. All it takes it for someone to drop a file called something like CrackedPhotoshop7Installer.exe which removes every file on your hard drive into their Kazaa folder to cause "mass hysteria , dogs and cats sleeping together".
The lesson: never, ever download something executable off of a public P2P network like Kazaa, Gnutella, etc.
I'd not read about the Warhol Worm before: that's one hell of a bunch truly evil ideas!!
If I had mod points today, you'd get +1 from me coz that's the most fascinating article on any kind of worm (theoretical or otherwise) that I've ever read (heers for the link!)
..what next? A Lord Vader Worm?
1) Only political statements make the front page of any major mainstream publication. News, Ads, and everything else takes a back seat.
2) Do you think when the Pope dies that it will make the front page on Slashdot? There are a whole heap more catholics than evolutionists in the world. Probably even on Slashdot.
3) The Kazaa worm affects alot of people, and actually is relevant to the FUTURE. To top it all off, it's even "tech" or "computer" news, which is what slashdot is mostly about.
4) Obituaries don't belong on the front page. See #1.
Today was the first time in weeks I hadn't left my work computer on overnight downloading the latest and greatest 80's MP3s and Star Trek Enterprise AVIs. Tonight it is powered down. Such timing!
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
* pointing at all the half-wit, Windoze using, Kazaamazoo users
HA HA!
* pointing at script kiddie who was too stupid to put a TTL on his worm and therefore, max'd out the bandwidth on his site (along with drawing a whole bunch of attention to himself)
HA HA!
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
Yes, it's illegal to download Photoshop, but NO, I wouldn't have paid hundreds for it, and I don't require it, I just want to have it.
I don't require a Viper RT/10, but I just want to have one, so I stole mine.
So, unless you don't EVER speed EVEN A LITTLE bit over the limit, don't preach to us about NEVER downloading ANY copyrighted material.
I never do. So, kindly eat a dick.
People who attempt to justify their theft in any way are fucktards.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
If the infected files/directories won't delete restart and delete them in safe mode.
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
Pay to the order of : Hilary Rosen.
Benjamin is written in Borland Delphi and is approximately 216 Kb in size.
Bah, virus writers these days.... in my day that virus would have been written in carefully hand-tooled assembly, it would have been polymorphic and it would have been no larger than 5KB. Uphill both ways, etc. etc..... [mutter grumble grumble]
deus does not exist but if he does
"Some wery scawy weseawch has been aimed at discobewing just how fast a worm could infect the entiwe Intewnet"
Riiiiiiiiight. You never speed. Never have. MmmHmm.
People who lie about breaking the law in any way are fucktards.
As I said, I buy plenty of software. If you could buy your Kia every 5 years and test drive a Viper now and then without diminishing it's value, I don't think you've hurt anyone.
Also, steal viper=someone else loses it; steal photoshop when you would not have bought it=more publicity for photoshop, nobody has lost it.
Please don't download warez. You'll slow MY download.
You cumfelch.
I had that problem, too, so I had to give my roommate's account on my computer a disk quota. . .
What I really don't get was the way he would download piles of shit that he didn't even like, like boy bands.
Given the dodgy tactics KaZaA used to grab market share from Morpheus (by shutting them out of the network) and how pissed off Morpheus was at them for doing that, I'm surprised no one has fingered them as a possible source of the worm. It's not a destructive worm: it just discourages people from using KaZaA. Now, who would *that* kind of worm benefit?
I have never gone above the speed limit in my life -- go suck three cocks.
How is stealing one product different from stealing any other, simply because that product comes on a CD-Rom?
It is deluded thieving slashdroids (with shitty high UIDs) like you that are ruining the Internet. Please eat a bullet.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Theoreticaly the same could done in a closed source system. While I see your point that there are more blockages to be avoided if you were to create a sucessful *NIX virus, that does not mean that it is any less threatening to a system. Even if it could only fill up /data2, it's still using HD resources, leading to fragmentation, longer seek times and reduced system performance. All in all a nusence rather than a serious problem, but a problem no less.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
What if some of the Al-Qaida members work for Microsoft. We'll never learn what are the bombs they have planted in the code.
Kazaa, as previously discussed, comes bundled with a piece of adware called "Projector", from Brilliant Digital Entertainment. Projector not only accepts ads from some specified server, it sets up a peer to peer network and passes them to other Projector clients. It can also distribute updates to itself in a peer to peer fashion. That's its normal operation. So as delivered, it's basically a worm, one that installs a backdoor in user's systems and sets up a whole network to exploit that backdoor for commercial purposes.
The idea is that it allows Brilliant Digital, which is a tiny company in L.A. that used to produce hip-hop videos, to distribute vast numbers of ads without having a giant server farm. The Projector steals resources from the client machines to push ads around. It's peer-to-peer spam.
This opens up a huge backdoor into millions of systems. All that's necessary to exploit it is to figure out how to insert new content into the peer to peer system. Worse, because this is a push-type system, an attack can spread very fast. It doesn't require any user intervention. It's an ideal environment for distributing an attack, because it has everything an attacker wants. Built-in!
And now, somebody's used it.
As I said previously, if you have any responsibility for computers that do anything important, get Brilliant's software off them now!
"Benjamin" is the name of a Biblical character that was part of a large family of 12. He was the only one that stood up for his youngest brother, preventing his other brothers from stoning him to death due to jealousy.
:)
:)
I'm not sure what relation this has to the RIAA and such, but I'm sure you can derive parallels.
Oh, and it's my first name. Good choice!
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
kind of offtopic, but:
I hear about obscure band.. say "Refused"...
I DL a few mp3's
I go buy CD...
They just made money because I stole the songs....
Now multiply this by how many bands I've found and tried by mp3, multiplied again by how many albums I bought by each...
Damn, they made a lot of cash off my my theft, didn't they?
http://wsulug.org
>I don't require a Viper RT/10, but I just want to have one, so I stole mine.
Interesting how you confuse piracy with larceny.
When you pirate a movie, or music you deprive no one of that movie or music; whereas when you commit GTA you deprive someone of their vehicle.
Since a replicator is to matter as a CD-Burner is to data, would you still consider it theft if you replicated a Viper RT/10 using your own equipment and materials?
If so I would humbly suggest you are a tiny minority of people, and that's the reason why both the dictionary and the law disagree with you.
My search turns up nothing for "theft", "steal", or "larceny" in the Berne Convention. Methinks you are just plain confused on the issue. Hope this clears it up for you!
>So, kindly eat a dick.
Not that I'd want to; But its pretty hard when its shoved so far up your ass.
>People who attempt to justify their theft in any way are fucktards.
Agreed, to a certain degree (Les Miserables come to mind as a particular exemption). That's why Copyright Violation is a violation of copyright law, not (AFAIK) theft.
Or at least that wasn't the intention of the people who created our modern day copyright system.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Dry-cleaners are a good money laundering method (no pun intended!!!). Some years ago, around here, someone started a chain of $1 dry-cleaners. Within weeks he was firebombed into oblivion.
You forgot OTC derivatives. Very good way of laundering lots of money!
>I have never gone above the speed limit in my life -- go suck three cocks.
Have you ever jaywalked?
Have you ever timeshifted programming (such as NFL broadcasts) that specifically limit your right to do so?
Have you forgotten to count your change and noticed that you're a penny richer at the end of the day?
Have you ever broken something borrowed from a friend and told them you'd lost it?
Have you ever written on your desk at school?
Have you ever paid a bill a day late and not included late fees in the hopes that the company won't notice?
Have you ever been infected by a virus?
Do you drive your bike without a helmet?
Do you walk your dogs without a leash?
If not, have you ever forgotten to poop-n-scoop?
Have you ever scratched a rental DVD or creased a rental tape without telling the manager?
Or, are you Mother Theresa?
Now go rim an asshole. Just cause you don't drive doesn't mean you've never broken the law.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Anyone else notice the cover of the latest issue of 2600 has a crying Benjamin Franklin bill? :)
You are only popular on the Internet.
WinMX 3.1 was just released a few days ago and it definitely seems to be everything it was hyped as being and more. It's got the many of the features of eDonkey without the bugs and shitty interface. It's also missing the spyware, ad banners and other crap that seems to plague every other p2p network.
Reading this story was the nail in the coffin for Fastrack, AFAIC. I was going to stick around a while until the new WinMX got it's legs, but forget about that now.
Hi Jonathan, I made this post using lynx.
-- Look to the Rose that blows about us--"Lo, Laughing," she says, "into the World I blow..."
I'm just wondering where they are going to steal anti virus software from.
I'll bet at least some of them try P2P as a source...
Right, it's that easy to go undetected. As you leave the country with th $1m cash, you will be required to fill out a declaration form stating you are taking that much currency out of the country - caught. If you don't, that much currency is difficult to conceal and as likely as not will be detected - caught again. When you wire the $100,000, the receiving bank in the U.S. will file a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR - required under U.S. banking law), and your transfer will be flagged in the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) databases at the Department of Treasury - caught. From there, the feds will find every piece of open-source (and closed source) data available about you . . .
As if a shell corporation in the Caymans will make everyone look the other way. And paying taxes on it - good lord, what better way to tell the feds "look at me, question my income" You still haven't established a cover for the original income.
And so on and so on and so on. The feds never catch the smart ones.
It's an executable that the user must RUN to get infected. It then spreads itself via Kazaa and tricking other users into downloading it.
:P
Don't download executables over P2P and you won't get infected. Seems a damn_smart thing to do anyway doesn't it? These people getting hit with it are likely also the same guys who spread e-mail viruses by running attachments.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I patched this hole on all my boxes a long time ago. It's really easy too. I have to warn you, though, the patch is really quite large. About a CD's worth. There are also different versions depending on what your needs are. Go here to download the fix now. Have fun, and happy computing!
Nathan's blog
Or, are you Mother Theresa?
Yes. I am without sin, and I am casting stones.
Duck, motherfucker.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Perhaps the virus writer has a bone to pick with the companies that are being advertised, or the brokers.
... but much easier to get away with, I suspect.
Making company X pay however many thousands of dollars in banner views is just as valid a motive as trying to collect that same money yourself
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
The actual contents of the post was point out that a kill-all solution is applied to a group that some concider to be bad, like christian claims of homosexuality and aids.
Guess I added a dimension too much. I'm sorry.