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Profile of the Mind of a Virus Writer

Posted by timothy on from the read-on-empty-stomach dept.

zdburke writes "Clive Thompson, writing for the NY Times, has profiled several young computer virus writers around the world. A young Austrian wrote a Batch Trojan Generator which has simple options for constructing your next virus: fomat drive C? Overwrite every file? It's very well written by an author who clearly knows his stuff."

3 of 310 comments (clear)

  1. at the same time... by tuxette · · Score: 4, Interesting
    ...better IT education from an early age is needed. The author of the article writes "[s]cript kiddies often have only a dim idea of how the code works and little concern for how a digital plague can rage out of control." It looks like we need to do a better job (than the seemingly non-existant now) in teaching children why they shouldn't cut and paste "strange code" and what the consequences are of doing such a thing. It is not enough to say "don't do it."

    --
    People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
  2. VB? WTF?! by fudgefactor7 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Visual Basic is a computer language popular among malware authors for its simplicity; Philet0ast3r has used it to create several of the two dozen viruses he's written.

    Jeez...VB? Real virus hax0rz work in assembly, it's smaller, neater, and faster. These guys are a bunch of script kiddie punks. No wonder they were hip to being interviewed, they had no talent and wanted a name for themselves.

    Perhaps we should kill them.

  3. Re:Stiffer punishment by IWantMoreSpamPlease · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What's worse is, that under certain circumstances, premeditated murder carries a *maximum* penalty of 2 years in jail (basically for environmental crimes. I studied several cases in detail)

    Food for thought.

    --
    So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.