New Worm Chats with Users on AIM

goldseries writes "CNet is reporting that a new IM worm chats with users to get them to down load a file containing a virus. The virus replicates its self and sends its self out to user's buddy lists. The virus will reply 'lol no this is not a virus.' The virus hides users from seeing the messages sent out to members of their buddy list. Viruses are evolving; now they will even talk to you."

Comments

It's not the first small app that will talk to you

[AviLazar]

A.L.I.C.E.

This is a small app and she will talk with you - pretty well. So the fact these guys use something similar (it might even be this app) is no big surprise.

That's why I use Trillian..I still haven't figured out how come it won't let me download files, or even get pictures from other people or even do any kind of direct connect :D

Does this mean?

[BushCheney08]

Does this mean that September is almost over?

Re:lol no this is not a virus

[meringuoid]

my God, this one will be unstoppable.

Don't you just hate it when Insightful gets modded Funny?

I can picture it now. All these lusers whining about their toasted computers... 'But my buddy sent it to me! No, I know about viruses, so I asked if it was for real, and he said it wasn't a virus! It sounded just like him!'

How the hell is this going to be stopped? It's easy to beat the AOL Turing test, because these people use such a warped and simplified form of English that leaves out most of the quirks that give away the lack of any intelligence behind the text. Either we educate AOLusers - in English rather than in computer science - so that they use more complex language that machines can't readily mimic, or we shut down file transfers over IM.

Well, my house is safe!

[Tiberius_Fel]

My house is safe. We switched my teenaged sister to a Mac, and the number of viruses entering the house quickly dropped to zero. No matter how many times I said "Don't click on the link you get in IMs...". Problem solved!

Re:lol no this is not a virus

[The Amazing Fish Boy]

Also: if we used proper grammar and spelling, I think it would be easier to filter spam. I'm not involved with the spam problem so much, but it seems to me "words" like v14gr4 would cause problems. Meanwhile if we could detect "v14gr4" isn't a word in our dictionary, we might be able to flag the email as potential spam. Then if you were working on something where the project's code name was "v14gr4" or something, the word would appear underlined, you would click it and click "Add word to dictionary." I don't know if that's even the best way, but I think if everyone used proper spelling and grammer, computer comprehension (and filtering) would be able to improve. I might be wrong.

Re:lol no this is not a virus

[intangible]

How about, and here's a tough one: Microsoft unhide the @%$@#$%@ file extensions on everything by default. WTF is up with hiding them?

How many trojans are named "something.jpg.exe" or just have a picture icon, or html icon when it's truly an exe? What motard at MS thought hiding "the oh so complex" file extension was a good thing?

Seriously, this one has bugged me for years. Dumbing down computer interfaces beyond a certain point is just asking for trouble.

Re:lol no this is not a virus

[volsung]

I've seen more than one person suggest a filter which would junk messages which contain more than X% (say 2-5%) misspellings. This would not only eliminate all that foreign spam which you can't read anyway, but a great many "English" spams which contain all sorts of garbage to fool keyword filters. Of course, spammers will compensate by padding emails with 98% Shakespeare, so that advantage won't last long.

As a fringe benefit it will also filter out anyone who can't be bothered to spell most of their email correctly, which might be handy for those who receive crazy rants due to their online postings. :)

Re:The next generation

[maxwell demon]

Well, just wait until the AI gets more advanced. Then it will first sit silently on your computer for a while and watch your chatting behaviour. And then it will try to imitate you.

Re:The next generation

[maxwell demon]

No, you misunderstood. It would at first sit there and watch you, and then, after it has learned enough about your behaviour, it contacts your buddies and tries to look like you to them.
For example, it could catch typical phrases you use, as well as about what topic you chat with whom. That way, it could manage to not only chat from your account, but at the same type look so "typically you" that your buddies would more likely accept them as you, and therefore download the virus file (the stated contents of which would also be adapted, so if you typically chat with one of your buddies about programming, then it may e.g. claim to have found a great new code analysis tool, while to the other buddy you are talking about movies with, it would be e.g. a trailer to a new movie).