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70% Of 2004 Virus Activity Down To One Man
arpy writes "According to a report produced by anti-virus software provider Sophos, 70% of anti-virus activity in the first half of this year can be blamed on Sven Jaschan, an 18-year-old German who wrote the Netsky and Sasser worms. According to the report, "Sasser claimed the top spot of the virus chart, in spite of the raging battle between the widespread Netsky and Bagle worms." The Register has a good summary of the report."
No that has been a phatbot infection.
This poor guy may have been arrested for the development of Netsky/Sasser but according to several IT-Newspapers in germany he was not the only one who was developing them. There were some backings and partners who may have made him their scapegoat although these are mainly rumors.
This guy has also been blamed for phatbot although that one was developed by a different person meanwhile arrested (which at some time in the past had made contact to the Netsky Author)
Jeff
How on earth must one believe that a worm works (or think that one's readers believe that a worm works) in order for them make such a statement?
I suspect a lot of people think they all get sent directly by the person who wrote them, and that they are somehow under his control.
But to be honest, I don't think most pepole actually think about how computer programs work at all. They just do.
It's like when I wrote a chess playing program as an exercise. I showed it off to a friend, and then said I wasn't entirely happy with the way it played. The response: "How can you not be happy? Isn't it playing like you do?"
Err... no... I didn't just copy my brain directly into the computer, actually.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." -- Charles Babbage (1791-1871)
Sindri Traustason.