Slashdot Mirror
Virus Writers - The Enemy Within
Slob Nerd writes "An interesting read from todays Observer "He's 21, he's got dreadlocks, likes punk bands... and his hobby could wreck your computer in seconds. Clive Thompson infiltrates the secret world of the virus writers who see their work as art - while others fear that it is cyber-terrorism.""
Virus writers, while technically skilled, are complete dumb butts for using their skills in ways that are harmful to society and businesses, even if it's not their fault that it is easy to do thanks to Microsoft. They'd be better off using their skills for something more productive.
thisnukes4u.net
And the technical side of the article is a pile of shit as well. Virii don't "reprogram parts of your computer". Script kiddies generally don't download virii, but trojan clients.
With quotes like this: 'This guy,' he proclaimed, 'is the best at Visual Basic.' I really understand the level of these guys... Show me an 1 k, auto-replicating, ASM-written worm spreading like the lightening through an undocumented hole and I'll be impressed. These are nothing more than wannebe punks.
Yes, users bear some responsibility for viruses' spread. Yes, I'm all for education of users. I work in tech support, believe me I'd love more educated users. Usually, I'm the one giving the basic lessons in the difference between a hard disk and a CD-ROM drive.
But the lion's share of the blame has to rest on the virus writers' collective shoulders. The vast majority have no pretensions of "educating the masses," or "simple curiosity." No, most of them just want to either a) screw people over for the hell of it, or b) get their (hopefully anonymous) 15 minutes of fame. These are the same types of people who will eventually be hired to write adware, spyware, and spamming apps. They are not heros. They are not admirable. They are degenerates and sociopaths, and they gives nerds and hackers horrible images with the very same "stupid users" that we have to interact with (and often get paid by) every day of our lives.
Xbox reviews.. We think they're funny.
Sorry, no, all my computers run Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS X.
I wish that, just for once, articles aimed at the public would be a little more accurate."
"He's 21, he's got dreadlocks, likes punk bands... and if you use Microsoft software, his hobby could wreck your computer in seconds"
Not to mention that people do not understand that they should not run arbitrary email attachments. Every few weeks we have a major worm outbreak because millions of people happily run every piece of malicious code they find.
As for "real" worms that don't require a collaborative user to spread, it can hardly get worse than it is now, with all the knowledge and awareness we have. The really ugly ones spread in minutes, faster than anyone can react. (Also, they never seem to die, Nimda for example is still active.)
Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
Does everything include nothing?
1. Cooking*
2. Cars
3. Boats
4. Trains
5. Swords
6. Guns
Just because you do them, doesn't mean you test them out on innocent people. How are these virus writers any different?
*Applies to slashdot readers, only.
Anyway, anybody who thinks this qualifies as elite virus writing needs their head examined. There is really nothing elite about a script file. Not to mention that it should be apparent in this day and age that trashing other people's computers is not only very uncool but incredibly likely to get you thrown in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
Sholdn't be there Karma penalty for posting dup...triplicate article ? Isn't it amount to trolling ?
If you have any evidence, or anything beyond "it all fits" type speculation, then you've got a huge story there. If you don't, then your tinfoil hat is showing.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
And Europeans, maybe eight percent of the world's population, consume at least another third, so get off your high horse. The fact is that anybody in the developed Western world uses resources at a far greater rate than a Third World peasant. Self-righteous moral preening about how your car gets five miles per gallon more than mine is of little meaning in the great scheme of things.
Much of that consumption is used in building things that end up in other countries anyway. If America builds a machine tool or sewage treatment plant or airplane that ends up in some third-world Ickystan, have we really taken anything away from the Ickystanian man, or have we actually done him a favor?
Plague of locusts indeed. If you subscribe to such idiocy, at least recognize that you are one too.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
Also, while my box may well have overrun vulnerabilities (doubtless true), I disagree completely with your statement that if *NIX machines had the marketshare there would be as many virus for them. I think you are vastly underestimating the user/root separation. At the very least it prevents a single user infection from affecting the entire machine. Yes, a single user could infect his own home directory tree and of course this could be used to DDoS someone. However, there would not be a situation similar to the Outlook/Outlook Express situation where simply recieving a viral mail would infect the system; *NIX apps aren't designed that stupidly.
I have no doubt that if/when *NIX becomes more common there will be more *NIX virus, but to say that its "just as bad" is to buy into MS's own FUD.
My case in point here is Mac OS X, it has a fairly large userbase, and most of that userbase is not computer expert (one of the Mac selling points is that it is (theoretically) simpler to use than Windows). Yet there has not been a significant number of Mac OS X virus (virus for older Mac OSes are more common by far). Why? Because Mac OSX is mostly BSD UNIX.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
If you spray paint your crap over my building, you are a vandal. I don't care if you have the skill of Michelangelo, Da Vinci, and Rembrandt combined, you don't have the right to paint on things that belong to other people. If you do, you are a vandal. Period.
True artists can find legitimate outlets - they even get paid. Graffit art is done by gang members and other scum. Virus writers are simiply their online equivilent.