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Virus Creators Sharing More Code
arpy writes "The Washington Times is carrying a report on a 5% increase in publicly available virus code in 2003 (based on a Symantec report). There are now about seven versions of MyDoom, and at least 14 each of Netsky and Beagle. Explains why my email account is overloaded with these little bastards. PC World is reporting changes in the countries that virus are originating from: Australia shot from 14th place to 5th over the last six months of 2003! The source of these stories seems to be the March 2004 Symantec Internet Security Threat Report." (This last requires registration to download.)
The folks whose machines are that vulnerable probably need a little "housekeeping" help...
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
Open Source software really is viral!
salute our new scr1pt k1dd13 overlords
msgbox("you have a virus")
Looks like we found at least one area where going the Open Source route is bad :-)
I plan to plan / Dutch course in The Hague
"Virus Creators Sharing More Code"
Does this mean Norton and McAfee are going to merge companies ?
Download Linux. It's one virus you'll be glad you caught.
I have been pwned because my
You must have lots of friends and or family. I suggest you get a lesser life form companion and lose all ties to other sentient beings. Especially dumb ones with computers.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
if this "virus writers sharing more code" has something to do with the recent windows source code leak.
I mean... if windows source is leaked and widespread, that's gotta be the ultimate virus source code spread in the latest years.
It's so obvious.. all we have to do is trick these virus writers into putting some SCO code into one of these viruses. They can put it between /** **/.. it doesn't matter. If they do that, SCO will pursue them to the ends of the earth!
Explains why my email account is overloaded with these little bastards.
Your account is overloaded because your mail server sucks. Don't you have a virus scan?
I don't get any virus emails at all. Hmm.
I think that open source viruses are the way to go. GPL them and apply modern ideas from software engineering. Well documented viruses would be handy, both for filtering and to aid future virus designers.
I first read the artile title as 'Virus Creators Sharing Morse Code' --- As a ham radio operator, I was appalled. First BPL, now this! :)
This must be a direct result of Mel Gibson's "The Passion Of The Christ". This holy movie has inspired a new culture of charity that is reaching down even to the virus writers, who so selflessly test the security of the world's computers so that we may all sleep more soundly, or... something.
*sniff* It gets me right here.
No, here. A little to the left. A little more.
Now scratch.
Aahhh....
--- Ban humanity.
...legitimate programmers continue to reinvent the wheel.
Pffft! Silly rabbit! You we're supposed to set it to puree.
>Since then I decided never to care about virus again and I've never seen any.
Must be some quantum thing.
>Any similar experiences among /.ers ?
My hard drive once crashed, and in the random noise I found a sequel to King Lear.
--- Ban humanity.
at it's best -- these things have been peer reviewed quite well by now :)
I have a message for you:
Screw you and the trojan horse you rode in on.
-
Gee, and I always heard that re-use is a good thing!
People can come up with statistics to prove anything. 7 percent of all people know that.
It's natural selection.
Those PC's that succumb and die from infections, leave only the strongest PC's to repopulate the earth. It's happened all throughout nature since time began. Consider this the "electronic black plague".
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
That's great news.
/usr/ports/virus/ directory with viruses that will run natively on my operating system.
Viruses is closed-source, proprietary software that only runs on Windows.
A lot of nice guys are trying all day long to send me ".pif" files so that I can have fun, but I keep clicking and clicking again, nothing happens on my OpenBSD box. It's so disappointing.
Thanks to these opensource virus, I will probably soon be able to enjoy a
Great, I will now be able to chat with friends "hey what ? You still don't have Baggle 8.3XP ? Haha sucker, I got it for 3 days !".
{{.sig}}
Maybe the virus writers are getting older, going to university and the lectures on software engineering and code reuse are hitting home??? :-)
Send out a virus that eats your name out of their address books, then emails itself to all their friends. Now no one ever emails me...
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
A lot /. readers are not familiar with Windows and may ask what "virus" means in computer science. So in order to better understand this article, here's a short presentation.
:
Virus are popular peer-to-peer sharing systems designed and optimized for Windows platforms.
Great features of these systems over other P2P systems
- It's free software, although the license is often missing.
- They are very well maintained. New versions are released almost every day.
- They are easy to use : no need for a GUI, no need for a CLI, everything is fully automated.
- Updates are also automatic.
- No need to tweak your firewall, popular viruses can work on port 25 using a SMTP-like protocol.
In order to join this community, you just have to run an installer called "outlook.exe". To improve your experience, the "internet explorer" add-on is also recommended.
And how handy, the installer and its add-on are part of the vanilla "Windows" installation CD set. No need to download anything and no registration is required. Very convenient.
Once the installer ("outlook.exe") has been started, an Evolution-like interface pops up. This is bloat, it can be safely ignored. Directly go to the "add contact" panel and fill in email addresses of friends you want to share executable with. Wait a few minutes (check the internet link is ok) et voila, viruses are automatically downloaded, installed and configured.
You know understand why this p2p system is so popular in the Windows world : easy to install, easy to use, and the operating system keeps a lot of unfixed security holes in order to avoid breaking backward-compatibility with older viruses.
{{.sig}}
virus.c 1:
// This Virus is Released Under the GPL
// If you violate the license, you will be infected
This signature was left intentionally blank.
Which means that certain marketing drones will run around in circles screaming "See! See! We told you so!"
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Yay! exports are up. I knew all the toadying to the US would pay off for us eventually.