Slashdot Mirror
The Psychology of Virus Writers
securitas writes "BBC Technology reports on the psychology of virus writers and the work of security researcher Sarah Gordon, who has been studying this area for 20 years. ''The stereotype that virus writers are all young teenage boys with no social life, hiding in their basement is not accurate,' she said. In contrast, she said, most virus creators are typical for their age, are on good terms with friends and family and are often contributors to their local community.' The story is an interesting contrast to a previous BBC report about why people write viruses."
Do virus writers really go to virus conventions? I'd think you'd find people like Ms Gordon, undercover FBI, wannabe 133t teenagers, and maybe a couple former virus writers out of jail and trying to find admiration.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
"The stereotype that virus writers are all young teenage boys with no social life, hiding in their basement is not accurate" It is quite normal for teenage boys with no social life(something they have no control over) to hide in their basement. I believe it was Linus Torvalds who said that we could alll breathe easier if all these poor people could just get some dates. (someone will probably redirect this to the NYT magazine interview)
10 Bits= $.25
100 Bits= $.50
110 Bits= $.75
1000 Bits= 1 byte
For your average email virus, slap on a SMTP engine, a searcher to grab email addresses, and a semi-interesting email so people will run the program, and bam, you're got yourself an email virus, preying upon people's stupidity.
/. lawyers and people who play one: virus writing is illegal, I know, but is writing a trojan illegal? And if it is, how do you define a trojan?
On the other hand, things that attack vulnerabilities such as buffer overruns, etc are harder because you actually have to do some research.
A question for
Not to push your idea too far, but perhaps virus writing and slashdotting are somewhat related.
No, I'm not trolling...
Virus writers get a lot of attention and feedback regarding their work. They usually believe they are exposing some weakness or highlighting some security risk. They see their actions on the news and the internet.
Slashdot posting gives some similar stimuli. By posting an excellent message, the author receives moderation and more people start discussing the idea. Likewise, most slashdotters are posting to expose an idea or highlight something they think somebody else might appreciate.
Both activities give certain rewards. Just like trolling is a cheap (immoral?) way of getting good slashdot stimuli such as responses and emotion... virus writing is a cheap (immoral?) way of getting "rewarded" for programming.
I think the worship of Rand (Atlas Shrugged) is stupid... however, it serve to remind us that people do certain things for rewards--slashdot or virus writing included.
Davak
Please get over this. I know that there are "white hat" "hackers" out there who want the meaning of hacker to be something different, but you lost that battle a LONG time ago. Ask anyone on the street these days, and they'll tell you a hacker is someone who maliciously breaks into people's computers. You can't change that, just come up with a different name to call yourself or live with the reaction most people will have when you tell them you are a hacker.