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All We Want Is Whatever's On Your Machine
kubla2000 writes: "A breathless story about how the best defense against [fill in the blank: piracy, virii, hacking] is a good offense at CNet. What struck me most though is that in the midst of the rant from Timothy Mullen (no stranger to hacking the hack as this story from computerworld magazine shows, was a throw-away line justifying the RIAA and MPAA's appeal to Congress to make it legal to do this! It seems the bandwagons have started rolling. Who's next to jump on?"
At the web hosting company I work for, we still get complaints from clients insisting that our mail server must have a virus because people keep sending them mail complaining of Klez attacks from their email addresses. Even explaining to them that their mail account is on a Linux server that can't be infected by Klez doesn't do any good with some of 'em... ;)
;)
The idea of using worms or exploits to fix holes in systems you don't own, now...I think it's a bad one. The intent might be benign, but the results would likely be ugly. A worm that alters a system enough to close a security hole (even using an "official" patch or hotfix) could do some serious unintentional damage to a machine. Bugs in the worm itself, unusual system configurations, obscure software conflicts...the potential for completely breaking the target system is pretty high.
Besides which, I don't believe anyone has the right to invade a system they don't own for any reason, benign or otherwise. I am all for convincing the owners of infected machines to clean them up, but there are ways to do this without cracking their systems. Complain to their ISP, their CEO, or someone else who can pull the plug on them until the problem is fixed, if you like. It may not work in all cases, but it can't hurt, and if it doesn't work..well, that's life on the Internet.
DennyK