SCO Offers $250K Bounty for MyDoom Author's Arrest

Performer Guy writes "This SCO press release indicates that they are offering a $250,000 reward for information leading to the arrest & conviction of the MyDoom DDoS worm authors. Let's hope they catch them. Not merely because MyDoom is one of the most mindless attacks on our internet infrastructure in memory, but also when they pay up it'll be less cash for SCO's litigation engine." Thanks to Tin Foil Hat and prostoalex for pointing out links at ComputerWorld and CNET, too. Related to this: stealth.c writes "Bruce Perens has written a letter to the Open Source community, discouraging us from cheering on the MyDOOM virus, as it would falsely implicate the FOSS communities and almost certainly cause the success of the virus writer's mission of discrediting these movements. This letter is also posted on NewsForge and on Groklaw." Unfortunately, with columns like this one blaming the worm on "some ticked-off Linux fan", it needs to be said.

Comments

I know this is meant to be funny but.

[DarkHelmet]

$125,000 for what will amount to most likely 4 years in jail?

Plus, also the likelyhood that whoever did this will be publicly revered and hated (not liked) by the Open Source community, and blacklisted from getting a programming job anywhere else in the world, most likely for life?

Also, there's the chance of being treated like Mitnick, and charged as a "terrorist." All for the sum of just under $32,000 a year.

No thanks. If I were the worm writer, I'd hope to God that the virus can't be traced back to me. Either that, or I'd move to Iran or North Korea.

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[Kenja]

"Let me be the first to set up an 'anti-bounty' that will pay $300000 to anyone who can name the Doom virus creator but promises not to tell SCO. I'll be setting up a pay pal account shortly to start receiving donations to this fund."

And then you can go to jail for obstruction of justice. Paying people to not turn in evidance of a crime is a federal offence.

As has been pointed out . . .

[Bagheera]

When this first cropped up a number of people pointed out that the DDoS against SCO is probably just a red herring to hide the worm's real intent - to act as a backdoor into countless windows systems for the virus writer's real purpose. Given the last analysis I read on it, that purpose seems likely to be to leave Zombie Emil Gateways for spammers to use.

While it couldn't happen to a "nicer" company, it seems very likely this virus wasn't written by a "Pissed off Linux advocate" or even a "Rabid SCO hater." The DDoS is probably just incidental to the real payload, serving to deflect suspicion from the culprit.

Yet another Bottom Feeding spammer . . .

Re:Dear Bruce Perens

[El Cubano]

Shut the fuck up It's kind of obvious that this is a doing of a Linux user, so please stop writing your pointless letters, no one cares. Heed my advice, and once and for all Shut the fuck up

Seeing as Bruce is considered to be one of the leaders/spokesmen of the Free/Open Source Software Community, he has a responsibility to speak out on issues such as this. Since so many people, organizations, and companies pay heed to what he says, his silence would be considered tacit approval by some.

Additionally, this single worm has the potential to do more harm to the Free/Open Source Software Community than all of SCO's shenanigans combined. evereyone really needs to speak out against this.

DDoS == Slashdot

[SirNAOF]

They don't want to get DDoSed on the 1st, so they decide to give out a huge reward.

I bet they didn't think about the number of people (not just from Slashdot, but everywhere) that were going to DDoS them just by reading their press release...

Yet another showing of intelligence from SCO.

Re:The message from Bruce Perens

[Bruce Perens]

I don't see anything to cheer about in the CNN article calling the virus a Linux War Weapon.

Bruce

Re:Now on the journalist-blacklist

[Fnkmaster]

Apparently she didn't understand the "Funny" mod. Almost all of those "jubilant" posts were obvious jokes. I think the majority of Slashdotters probably agree more-or-less with Perens, and certainly quite a few posts pretty much stated as much.

Sure, most of us aren't going to cry for SCO when they get DOSed, given that they have repeatedly threatened many of our livelihoods with lawsuits against our employers, and attempts to destroy the community we've built and undermine the legitimacy of the licenses we choose as individuals to use for our software. But most of us realize that the damage these DOS attacks do to the infrastructure and reliability of the Internet is more potentially damaging to our careers and livelihood in the long term than any childish glee you could get from watching a crappy company's website go down.

And I think it's pretty obvious that the SCO DDOS is probably just a cover for using compromised hosts as spam zombies.

One thing that doesn't jibe ...

[dzym]

According to the Symantec Security Response site, MyDoom, or Novarg.A's DDoS payload isn't supposed to trigger until February 1st, at which point it runs until February 12th.

So how is it that SCO is supposedly already feeling the effects of the DDoS from the virus?