Has Mass-Mailed Malware Peaked?

Ant writes "Broadband Reports posted a CRN article about researcher saying mass-mailed worms have reached their peak. Six years ago, on March 26, 1999, Melissa, the first virus that spread by mailing copies of itself to e-mail addresses it found on infected machines, swept the Internet. Today, the researcher who led authorities to the hacker who wrote Melissa, says that mass-mailed worms have reached their peak."

Comments

Fear Is the Mind Killer

[Doc Ruby]

They don't need any more encouragement. That's not the limiting factor on their productivity. While I don't believe this article, which is entirely based on the idea that worms will decline now that the spoofing upon which they depend is addressed by some new tech for sender authentication, I also know we can't live in fear. The other way to react, in that fear cage, is to be afraid to say that worms are increasing, because that will make them more attractive: be on the side that's winning. No, you can't get paralyzed by fear of the truth - the truth is essential in addressing the problem, and anyone interested must freely discuss it, if we're to use our superiority in numbers to win.

This attitude goes to the heart of today's problems. Fear of terrorists, fear of criminals, fear of government, fear of people different from us, fear of big changes in the world economy, energy, politics. All of them have people who say we should just keep quiet, lest we make it worse by making it more "popular". We must talk about the realities, so we can confront them, resolve them. Otherwise, the fear has won, and we are defeated.

Infowar

[Doc Ruby]

The people using that fear *are* the terrorists. The people who planebomb buildings are *saboteurs*, a specific (and often shortlived) kind of terrorist. Without the media fear, it's just sabotage. It becomes terrorism when the event is spread through the media - electronic, word of mouth, or otherwise. Terrorism is infowar, and "we" are our own worst enemy. The only remedy is knowledge - the antidote to any kind of fear, which is incubated in ignorance, and spawns anger and violence.