Slashdot Mirror
Blackworm Dud Highlights Virus Naming Mess
An anonymous reader writes "Washingtonpost.com is running a story that looks at the total mess that the anti-virus companies made in naming the latest overhyped virus threat. According to the article, 'Blackworm' or the 'Kama Sutra worm' was the first major test of a new U.S.-government funded initiative to introduce some sanity into the virus-naming business. From the article: 'For most of [the antivirus vendors], this is like Esperanto: You can speak it if you want to, but everyone else is going to carry on babbling in their own native tongue, so it doesn't really matter.'"
They got most of the article right, but it isn't Total Mess + Government = ???. It's Total Mess = Government. I guess that's all the article really needed to say.
Honestly, most of us use just one anti-virus application. They're all pretty much equal on what viruses they detect, and the entire Kama Sutra situation called for one simple procedure: "There's a virus possibly hitting Friday, so make sure you update your anti-virus." There really isn't much need to name the virus the same across all AV apps or even countries or any of that, just warn people, use the name you think is decent, and get them to update their AV files.