ZOTOB Not Quite as Bad as Expected?

GuitarNeophyte writes "Although the worm hasn't been in the wild for very long, ZOTOB and its variants have already propagated on the internet. Many people have been giving reports that it poses risks of infection to almost all Windows Operating systems, but accorning to this article, the claims are a tad overzealous. FTA, 'The worm only spreads to systems running on Windows 2000, XP and Server 2003, and even then, the possibility of the worm affecting Windows XP and Server 2003 are minimal.' "

Comments

Re:Flaw was patched days before the outbreak.

[Trigun]

Patch caused errors in 3rd party software. Not enough lead time to do proper regression testing. News at 11, if they get their computers fixed.

"Turkey Virus"

[alexhs]

> Any links to validate this "Turkey Virus"?

I've found that...

> isn't the CRT physically designed to spread the electron beams evenly as to display a picture?

No, it isn't a TV set. The VGA cable is really controlling the electron beam. Well, it was... now there is some embedded electronic to do some adjustments and avoid to damage the tube (for example, using too high refresh rates).

Try xvidtune under X,
check the modeline doc in linux/Documentation/fb,
read that link.

(Now assuming you've read the last link and understand porch times)
Your VGA cable basically sends five signals : red green and blue controlling the energy of the three beams, and two sync signals controlling "next line" and "next screen". Usually porch times are constant, so you're drawing in a rectangle somewhere.
Changing horizontal porch times will move the image to the left or right, or modify the image width.
Changing vertical porch times will move the image to the top or bottom, or modify the image height.
Constantly changing porch times result in waving effects (as reported in the first link).