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

Trying to throw us off the trail, huh?

[spun]

Come on, Darl, you HIRED someone to write it, didn't you? An open source Reichstag fire, right?

Re:Trying to throw us off the trail, huh?

[Bruce Perens]

The Reichstag fire is what I thought of immediately, as well. And please don't bother me about Godwin.

Bruce

The plan

[eyegone]

Someone needs to do the following:

1. Turn the culprit in.
2. Collect SCO's reward.
3. Give the money to the OSDL SCO defense fund.

Now on the journalist-blacklist

[AEton]

Robyn Peterson, robyn_peterson@ziffdavis.com, is probably pretty safe to ignore at this point.

From eWeek's (heh) "Online Jubilation About MyDoom's SCO Attack" article:

Reactions on Slashdot, arguably the largest discussion board for technophiles, displayed a cathartic wave of pleasure, "Finally a worthwhile virus!" exclaims one poster. While another adds, "So, uh where can I download a copy?" (Robyn here included links to relevant /. comments)

While the person who gets paid to write this for a living (wtf?) ignores that the majority of the +4/5 comments that aren't rated "Funny" are

1) Reminding people that DDoSing is always stupid and silly
2) Anticipating this kind of silly article
and 3) yelling at people who post unsupported theories about SCO.

But hold on, Robyn has more to say:

Another Slashdot poster goes as far as saying, "SCO has used past denial of service attacks as 'the dog ate my homework' type of excuses in court." It went on to suggest that "SCO's next court date is in early February, maybe they haven't done all their homework this time," implying that SCO itself released the worm. (Robyn will report next month on the inability of SCO to find evidence because IBM is being a big meanie.)

I know it's an advertising publication, but some people read eWeek and expect some of the things in it to be true. Rather than mention the tangible allegations against SCO with regards to insider trading, lying to stockholders, and inconsistent policies, Robyn reports what he's paid to. And that's fine - a half-truth is not quite libel - but it's kind of disturbing to read.

Bad Robyn Peterson, robyn_peterson@ziffdavis.com. Bad.

Re:Oh c'mon...

[mOoZik]

SCO isn't really a "high profile" target. In fact, most people outside of the IT community don't know who or what SCO is. It takes someone with knowledge (obviously) and a state of mind. What is the current state of mind of the OSS/Linux community? Obviously, it is one of resentment and anger? Can you deny that? One only need glance at Slashdot's headlines to prove my point.

The author is a spammer, not an anti-SCO nut

[bigberk]

I think it means very little that the worm launches an attack against SCO. The primary purpose of this worm, like the Mimails that preceded it, is the wide-spread distribution of a zombie network for the purpose of propagating spam. You see, spammers hire programmers to do this coding for them (read up a bit on Mimail and spam) in order to help their spam biz. While the hired programmer was at it, he probably threw in the SCO bit for shits and giggles. Or maybe he's a younger programmer and just kind of immature. Either way, the spammers (the people commissioning the construction of the worm) don't care.

To me this sounds like the most likely scenario -- remember that spam and viruses are linked. The SCO thing is just throwing people off track.

Re:Fine Print:

[QuasiCoLtd]

Believe it or not this may not be far from the truth. If you noticed, the letter said Upon arrest and conviction . By the time the culprit moves through our wonderful justice system the IBM lawsuit will be over, and SCO will be gone.

All this is is a nice PR move by SCO so they look like heros trying to stamp out malicious hackers.

Re:The message from Bruce Perens

[shaitand]

I had missed the CNN article.

Here it is for anyone else who missed it:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/01/27/m ydoom .spread/index.html

Your right Bruce that is no laughing matter at all.
I hadn't dreamed anyone (other than SCO) would take
claims like this against the Linux Community seriously.

Re:two linux licenses

[Technician]

I already have two Linux licenses for a whole lot less money. Hit the bookstore. Lots of Linux manuals have a publishers edition of Red Hat and Caldera in them. Since SCO is renamed Caldera, there should be no way they can get you for using it. Be sure to read and follow the EULA.

I have a 2 publishers editions, one of 2.3 kernel and one 2.4 kernel. There should be no way they can demand more money for using it the way they sold it.

There may be a legal challange for having the Red hat copy that came with the book. I guess I'm going to have to hide it until the SCO case is over.

One copy makes a great SAMBA server and the other one is a great desktop web tool.