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Virus Hold Computer Files 'Hostage' for $200
dwayner79 sent in a story about a new virus making the rounds- this one is unique because it locks your files and then demands a $200 ransom to get them back. It seems to me that this might leave some sort of tracable money trail. They don't have much information on any particular transmission mechanism, they just talk about web pages giving it up.
...Until I see a photograph of my files with today's paper.
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
Virus writers need to eat too!
-r
IF it takes spyware hostage
Would the Lindberg Law apply to kidnapped files as well?
Madre de Dios! Es El Pollo Diablo! -- Captain Blondebeard
Do they accept PayPal?
"Anything tastes good if you deep fry it."
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.
...
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH GNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. It appears to have infected CmdrTaco and now the news is being held hostage!!!!!!!!??!?!?!!!!
1) Infect news site and hold "stories" hostage
2) Hold a slashpoll to see if anyone noticed
3)
4) PROFIT!
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
so I figure the virus author could deduct the money from my account, himself.
What happened?
Did they Install windows?
was the email address bgates@microsoft.com?
tee-hee
G
"...In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true..."
I had a virus like that once, it was called M$.W!nd0ws.ME. It was horrible, once it infected your computer, it would display this wretched blue screen filled with hieroglyphics and demanded that you hit some arcane character sequence.
This one was a little different than the virus talked about in the story. You had to already drop $99 bucks for it and then it STILL crashed your PC.
IGB: More fun than eating oatmeal!
Perhaps they're still beta-testing the virus?
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
SOmeone wrote: "this one is unique because it locks your files and then demands a $200 ransom to get them back." Unique? sounds like a description of anti-virus software to me.
Gee, I wonder how he figured that out....
that Microsoft is adding to the next version of Office?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Hmmm, is Microsoft testing their Longhorn upgrade incentive plan? Send in your money and get your license key, we've already downloaded and installed it for you. :-)
Then again I still had Freecell and Minesweeper so it wasn't all bad ....which until today are the best software available for the Windows platform
www.lemonodor.com A mostly Lisp weblog
(or discover it through brute force if they dare wait that long)
McAfee runs on an awful lot of enterprise networks, and tons of home users. I wonder how long brute forcing a key through distributed computing would really take. I wonder if McAfee is already using cycles for nefarious reasons. How long until McAfee becomes self aware!
I need more tinfoil
Never confuse volume with power.
This has been out for years, it's called Windows XP Activation.
The Technomancer
"Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active."-
This happened to me so I called Mel Gibson because he has a proven history of resolving these demands without paying the ransom. Worked out great in the end, my files were freed without me paying the $200 ransom. I did have to pay Mel $10 million for his time though which was a bit of a bummer.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
virus that replaces all .jpg files found with goatse, tubgirl and lemonparty.
Thanks for giving 'em the idea. Next time I go to look at pr0.. I mean my pictures, I'm going to be in fear of opening any of them.. *grumble*
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
I knew what goatse was.
!
I knew what tubgirl was.
Never heard of lemonparty before.
Now I know.
Allow me to be the first to say:
AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
What the programmer needs to do is to buy a speed boat and have the victim drop the bag from a bridge into the boat and then flee and stage his own death with an explosion.
I've seen it in the movies.
The trick is to do that without spending more than $200.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
If you dont send the money with in two weeks they start sending the files back, bit by bit.
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
This is what happened when I installed windows 98... it crashed and a dialog box appeared and demanded that I upgrade to windows XP in order to save my files from digital heaven.
Windows XP Pro.
No, that's pretty much the original meaning.
My Photography - http://ian-x.com
The Deathlings (comic) - http://thedeathlings.com
What happens if after I pay the money, my files do not want to come back ?
A simple command to fix this? try
"restore backup"
'restore' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
.
Then...
"Nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure"...
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
The author's name is 14608decf3c24b62a64015d411a862a640e5c1.
Course, you'll have to read the book to figure out how to decode it.
I need more tinfoil
There's a family in CA that would prolly be willing to make you a great deal on some tin foil, only slightly used. How big's your house?
I'm sorry, but we don't negotiate with terrorists. The files knew the danger when they took the job.
C:\>format c:
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Wow - it's like "Hackers"... only ten years after the idea even made the mainstream. And much more low-rent. And without the cool graphics and computer-generated voice. And with less supertankers. And without Angelina Jolie with her nips out.
How lame is that?
(And that's leaving aside the huge number of social and technical ways this scam could be improved...)
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
Oh, wait a minute, never mind...
I forgot we were talking about viruses.
Unless you found some very fast new way of factoring primes, that'd take a very long time to crack
I have. The factors of a prime, are the prime, and 1.
(And I know what you meant. I just couldn't resist)
Assuming you have no backups, that could really be a problem. Everyone does keep backups, right?
Twoeasy steps:
(1) Get this virus into the DMCA-supporters computers.
(2) When they are screaming that all their data is encrypted, kindly inform them that you could create a crack for it and get all their data back, but unfortunately you would run afoul of the DMCA reverse-engineering laws and therefore cannot help them.
Yes. Irony is *NOT* dead!!
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
And what if something has no gender and is an "it", you insensitive clod?
Clearly, to avoid offending anyone, we all must start saying "s/h/it".
Some kind soul should write a virus that holds your files hostage until Firefox is installed and is set as the default browser. Hint, hint...
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
'restore' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
You are entering the command at the wrong interface. That's not a command you use at a command prompt. It's a verbal command for your IT underling.
Do you Gentoo!?
I got infected by that virus once. It printed this:
I hold files kidnap: "GPL.TXT" is one
To buy decoder mail: n781567@yahoo.com
with subject: PGPcoder 000000000032
Oh, darn...