Author Makes Symbian Virus Code Available

Posted by Hemos on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @12:28AM from the learn-from-mistakes dept.

putko writes "The NY Times (registration required) has a story about a Brazilian software expert whose posted the code for his Bluetooth virus on his website. The article has a general anti-free-exchange-of-information tone to it. Security firms call him bad. Nokia is concerned. Here's his homepage (in Portuguese), so let's not unnecessarily DDoS him: The most irritating bit of all this is that the guy writes the thing, distributes it, gives it a name (eponymous) and then the stupid virus firms go and butcher it -- e.g. "Lasco.A". What's so wrong with "Velasco" already? The guy clearly wants it to be named after himself."

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I'm confused by bwalling · 2005-01-25 00:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

This posting seems rather sympathetic to this guy. Free exchange of information? Your credit cards are information - should I freely exchange those with everyone? So, not all information should be exchanged. Why should we be so nice to his website? He's not being so nice to our cell phones. And who cares what the name of the virus is? It's not like he discovered a new comet or something positive.

There's something to be said for being open and free, but there's also taking it too far.