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Trojan Deletes Your Porn, Music & Warez
E. Vigilant writes "The new Trojan/Erazor-A has an interesting twist. In addition to deleting or disabling various security products and competing malware, it deletes any porn, warez and music in your P2P directories. While some opine that this trojan might have good intentions, remarkably few things infect the text files this trojan also deletes. No one yet knows who wrote this or why."
From TFA: Well, that's a remarkably stupid assumption.
What's more likely?
- or -
Let's analyze who benefits from each scenario:
I pick avarice over sloppily executed altruism any day. I find it intriguing that this alternate explanation apparently didn't even occur to PC World.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
What they fail to mention is that people who use P2P networks often want those files that they've collected. So this virus is destroying something they want.
I mean, who installs eMule or Bit Torrent and then wishes that one day someone would come and save them from the files they've downloaded? The very idea is ludicrous.
I use Bit Torrent. If a virus were to come and delete everything I've gotten from it (trailors, WoW patches, an odd assortment of legal videos and mp3s, etc), I don't know about you, but I would be right pissed. This isn't protection and it doesn't seem to discriminate from virile files and good files so it's pure and utter destruction.
The only thing "beneficial" is seen from the eyes of the RIAA or MPAA.
You "don't think" this was written with good intentions? A virus comes onto your machine, disables security & starts to delete files in directories with a certain naming convention. What more to do you need to say, "holy hell, I've got a freaking virus!"?
My work here is dung.
You can not touch my porn ! You slimey insensitive bastards !
is this the first shot on a new frontier in the war for morality?
i saw the baby, and the baby looked at me
Finally a threat that will make the average joe start to take computer security seriously! I look forward to a safe internet for everyone (I mean as soon as a few botnet node owner's loose their porn, peole will actually clean up their boxes!)
On a more serious note, quoting the pcworld article:WTF? How could anyone think that it's to attempt to protect users when it doesn't delete executables from p2p folders? (for an interesting overview of real "white hat worms" see this vnunet article and the slashdot discussion on the blaster removal worm)
This worm is clearly to scare people away from p2p - not protect them from other p2p malware.
What's the bet that one of the companies that make oodles of money from content are behind this?
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
I use linux!
All I know is that this is a very important problem we have to fix!! Destroying our financial records and stealing our identity is one thing. But touch a geek's pr0n collection ------- this means WAR!
They're just trying to bridge the gap and establish a "me too" appeal to non-Christians, so they created a trojan virus to show that you can write malicious code if it does "good" things like deleting porn and illegally acquired software. While I applaud their attempt to reach out to the hardcore geek culture, I think the Christian computer world is best left to video games like the Left Behind RTS. I propose a new bracelet WWJC: What Would Jesus Code?
Nis
Of course it would delete your porn! Trojan wants you to go out and have real sex.
Join Tor today!
I feel a great disturbance in the Force... As if a millions Slashdot posters all cried out in anguish...
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
What about the third scenario ?
3) Virus writers stage this to make it look like the RIAA, MPAA, ect, are "pulling a Sony" in an attempt to pull a classic "Throw a rock at the bee hive the ranger is standing next to so BooBoo can grab the pic-a-nic basket".
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Oh crap, I better move my Quicken data files out of my Kazaa downloads directory ...
I don't care about the author's intentions. What happens on my computer is MY business. Nobody elses.
On the other hand, if they find and try him, in what way is that different to many DRM implementations?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This thing could delete the Internet
As for the Who and the Why. I blame the RI/MP Ass's. of America.
... and make a new commercial!
...]
[old guy is coughing, wheezing,
[young guy] On a mac, you don't have to worry about losing your pr0n and warez!
[young asian chic to young guys right seductively takes leg and wraps it around young guys waist]
[cut to pic of imac]
Think of the children!
Erh... no, doesn't work too well in that context.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Christian virus? Why not call it a right-wing virus, a "family friendly" virus, a RIAA/DMCA virus, a "muslim" virus, a "white hat" virus, or a whole slew of other groups that might find illegal software, illegal music, or pornography offensive?
:P
Or could it just be someone writing a trojan who wants to hit his own particular enemies, or buddies, where it hurts?
At least think before you post, you insensitive clod of a troll.
So why not just say it deletes everything in your P2P directories?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Sony!
Storage Space Mysteriously Triples on File Servers around the World.
Phishing trojans have been out and about for quite some time now. And they're responsible for QUITE some damage.
Did it result in any change of the average Joe's security awareness. I mean, hey, it's not just some porn or movies you downloaded, it's your MONEY that's at stake!
And? Nada.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Without the pain of personal loss, lusers will not be so inclined to tighten up their system. So what if I'm part of a botnet? I'm not using the machine overnight anyway...
Happy LARTing,
FatPhil
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
How's that different from any other virus out there? If you get pwn'd, you will most likely have to reformat all hard drives and lose all data anyway. True, an anti-virus might heal the problem when it occurs, but I wouldn't count on it. Just protect yourself with a good firewall and a good antivirus.
First they came for my credit card data, since I did not have Visa, I said nothing.
Then they came phishing for my bank account info, since I did not have a bank account, I said nothing.
Then they came for my porn...
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
The reson it does so is more likely to be simply to stop you downloading, a copy XXXX of an anti-virus program for free to remove the virus.
But on the other hand, this is not necessarily a bad thing for the rest of us. Most of the people who would be come infected by this - and consequently lose all of their P2P data - are probably Joe User types who don't know any better. So, this might -- I stress might -- actually be a benefit in even minimal ways:
I list the above points with a bit of sarcasm, of course, because I doubt that this will really have any impact on the above. But I don't doubt that the last item will come into play very often, which could actually be better for the rest of us overall.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
The Windows Trojan/Erazer-A Trojan looks at default folders for downloading MP3, AVI, MPEG, WMV, Gif, Zip graphic and video files, and wipes anything it finds with these extensions in the target locations.
(...)
"The Erazer Trojan is a vigilante worthy of a Charles Bronson movie, taking the law into its own hands. However, it's perfectly possible for the Trojan to aim poorly and wipe out innocent files too," commented Graham Cluley of Sophos.
Aiming poorly? Yeah, if carpet bombing a country to hit a dart board is what you mean by aiming poorly...
Nyhetsankaret.com -- det bÃsta av Sveriges Nyhetssido
The only "real" news is that it deletes the content of P2P folders (ok, not really "new" either but at least far from usual).
... well, cui bono?
That a trojan kills other trojans is hardly news. About a year ago two groups actually led a battle where one group tried to stab the other group's trojans (and vice versa) with their updates. Some trojans also use the names other trojans use to ensure those trojans can't install after they're already in. Makes detecting them correctly (i.e. as a different beast, not a new version) not really easier.
Almost every trojan today has some anti-anti-trojan functions. Killing Kaspersky, McAfee and Norton AV is more or less a standard feature of most current Trojans, so I wouldn't really call that news either.
The only outstanding feature that's hardly common is the deletion of incoming P2P objects. Which makes one wonder who
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
How soon before we see a proof-of-concept version of this virus on the Mac that requires you have a local account and type in an admin password?
-- Boycott Shell
I see an option 3 here.
3) A strike against the MPAA, RIAA and any other "law abiding" corporation (who manages to be capable of CREATING those very laws) by targeting the computers that seed the incomplete, misnamed and intentionally infected files and the files on computers that have downloaded from them by users stupid enough to download things under 1kb.
Any smart P2P user changes the default directories to customize their own bitspace so it's easier for the person using the software to find what they've downloaded, not to mention archive on another device or media those files they truly wish to retain.
Do note that I did say *smart*.
"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." -Thom
How wonderful would it be if this worm was actually traced back to origins in the RIAA?
remarkably few things infect the text files this trojan also deletes.
Ehmm... What?
home
If it makes it so that is not longer a fad or fashion to pirate media, and stops the lusers from bringing down the heat of the RIAA and MPAA (face it, piracy, especially of the digital variety, has been around forever, it only became a problem when it was a household name). If you're dumb enough to be on BearShare or eMule or whatever other P2Ps are still running (i gave up keeping track) you're probably not smart enough to run decent A/V software and keep it updated, with a few exceptions of course. Maybe the RIAA did so it...i don't particularly care. I hate to see people lose their 'stuff' but we've all been there, its part of it. eventually you learn to use alternative OSes as your file servers and do as good of a job backing up as you can :)
Hmm... the RIAA?
Yea, like the RIAA and the MPAA are going to release a virus on the public, which could cost them billions, look how well that turned out for Sony...
In actuality it was probably just some stupid kid who, and probably rightfully so, thought the only thing of any value to anyone on their computers are either text files, or have downloaded from some p2p or similar site.
Honestly if you were looking to cause the most damage to anyones computer, it would be to strike at their heart, their downloaded music.
My theory is that this was made by someone who WANTS people to think that the RIAA made it, so that even more people will turn against them and take some heat off of P2P.
Gosh, I have plenty of MP3, AVI, MPEG, WMV, Gif, Zip graphic and video files ... that aren't porn, illegal music & warez.
Why then, I must ask, do you store them in the default download directory of many popular P2P apps?
If you do not, then they will NOT be deleted.
So it's not as malevolent as something that could bring down servers or delete crucial Excel files, just piss off a lot of ordinary Internet users. Who's going to complain on CNN: "I lost hundreds of hours become this guy deleted my carefully organized pron collection."
The first thing I thought was that it was well intentioned - in the long run.
The general public have demonstrated time and time again that they really don't care about security. They'll put up with their computer slowing down and crashing, they'll put up with random popup ads, they'll put up with their computer being used to spam people...
Removing virus vectors doesn't solve the problem in the long run. Ultimately, only education will do that. This is a form of education, a lesson that will actually sink in.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Call me cynical, but add:
4) Write a trojan to wipe out what people apparently consider to be important so that they are more aware of virus scanners.
Hmmm... would the various anti-virus companies do something like this to advertise the need for their products on people who lose gigs and gigs of files to a trojan? Nahhh....
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
Damn... if i get this virus my HD will be completly washout...
I would guess that the majority of Slashdot readers know what a virus scanner is. And I have no doubt that they're going out to upgrade their virus definition file at this moment. :)
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
I felt a great disturbance from the Net, as if millions of gigs of porn suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly deleted.
OMG! Its the RIAA taking it into their own hands!
Bryan
I think this is simply someone who doesn't like P2P. Maybe they use newsgroups or have connections to warez sites -- from their perspective, P2P is looked down upon as a bunch of lamers. They expect their buddies won't fall for some stupid shit like this, so they figure why not create something that destroys all their P2P media? Piss off a bunch of lamers by destroying their P2P crap.
"No one likes working in a hamster wheel, and your shop smells of cedar shavings from here." - TaleSpinner
DO NOT WANT!
Occam's razor anyone?
If big boobed women work at Hooters do one legged women work at IHOP?
Next : RIAA fleet to plunder coastal towns whose citizens are known to indulgue in p2p.
... You wont be escaping ... Its coming ... Its RIAA ...
... The RIAA Strikes Back !!!
Planned : RIAA prison camps full of former p2p people to be used as slave labor in music industry.
You wont be hiding
Coming to a theatre near you this summer
Official site : www.riaastrikesbackwithfear.com
Read radical news here
Every Window user trying to restore their precious porn collection at the same time could bring the internet to a screeching halt.
This is the last straw!!!! We have had it with you evil hax0rs!!!!!! Something must be done!!!!! THE PEOPLE WHO WROTE THIS SHOULD BE PUT TO DEATH!!!!
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
These people have gone too far. If I get infected by this I'm going straight to the FBI, this is too serious to joke about.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
I think the chance that this is a distraction is much greater than any other motive suggested. It is very unlikely that someone whose moral compass is so broken that they spend their time writing viruses is that upset about other law breakers. I suspect that the author has huge amounts of stolen software and music. More likely this is just a nasty, vicious little perp who is thinking of a way to do something nasty and vicious. Maybe they think that this type of attack is less likely to be taken seriously by the authorities (wrong) or less likely to lead to criminal complaints (right, but there will be enough complaints). Another strong possibility is that the criminals calculate that creating security paranoia is useful for their business and this is a way to increase concern. They will probably follow up with a marketting campaign selling hijacked copies of anti-virus software. Regardless of what immediate damage is caused every trojan has to be treated as if it was intended to be used for phishing.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
should be a better name for this malware. From TFA:
"The Windows Trojan/Erazer-A Trojan looks at default folders for downloading MP3, AVI, MPEG, WMV, Gif, Zip graphic and video files, and wipes anything it finds with these extensions in the target locations."
A real beneficial Trojan would apply all the latest Windows service packs, delete all other malware, Sony and other Phony rootkits etc.
Why DO WE NEVER EVER HEAR of any Trojan that simply formats the hard disk? Intriguing, to say the least.
-
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
... it's best to make sure you have your porn, music and warez all burned to DVD!!
Meh.
It doesn't erase pr0n, it just paints a pair of good eggs and an enormous pennis.
Obviously the photos are not exciting anymore.
Yea, like the RIAA and the MPAA are going to release a virus on the public, which could cost them billions, look how well that turned out for Sony...
They already asked congress to make that legal a couple of years ago. I don't know if they got what they wanted, but how can they argue that they didn't do it, when they already showed that they are willing to do it?
How that turned out for Sony? They did what any regular virus writer would have gotten several years in jail for, and had to recall a couple of CDs... If the RIAA didn't already get the law to make it legal, they'll at most get a small fine, smaller than the bills they send out to teenagers who get caught downloading. But more likely, nothing is going to happen at all.
If this virus were to wipe out most peoples HDs, they would realize that a 20Gig HD is sufficient to handle their programs and non-media related data. Porn, music and warez is what drives harddrive sales!
Meh.
neeegerooooo
I fowarded the story to my boss,
Five min later he ask me for a full back-up of his PC
I wonder why.....
The Windows Trojan/Erazer-A Trojan looks at default folders for downloading MP3, AVI, MPEG, WMV, Gif, Zip graphic and video files, and wipes anything it finds with these extensions in the target locations.
The assumption is that because the Trojan is only deleting certain file types in specific download directories used by P2P programs -- one of the main sources of inadvertent malware infection -- it is attempting to protect those it manages to infect.
Can somebody buy these people a clue? This is malevolent; it is making its way onto your friendly neighborhood computer and deleting files, any files with those extensions, not just porn. In my book, this is a bad thing!!!
It's bad enough there's a set of people out there with programming skills and ill intent, without lauding them in any way, shape, or form. Do we have to encourage these people? Don't they do enough damage already? Track the person who wrote this down and haull their ass into court and let them pay restitution for all the files they destroyed. Do that with every virus writer/hacker who decides your PC is their playground and maybe, just maybe, the word will go out that doing this is a BAD IDEA! Rant over. Move along, nothing to see here.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Protection * Download virus identity (IDE) file
No, for real protection download a Linux distro
davecb5620@gmail.com
The article on the Sophos website actually puts things as they are.
The PC World rehash just (deliberately?) misinterprets it.
Let's have a wee comparison:
Sophos: - "The Erazer Trojan targets internet users it believes are involved in piracy, but fails to discriminate between the true criminals and those who may have MP3 music files or home movies that they have created themselves. Malware is not the way to fight internet piracy."
PC World: - "A "vigilante" Trojan, that attempts to protect infected PCs from the effects of malware caught while using peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, has been discovered."
Now how they came up with that from the Sophos article is beyond my understanding.
Greetings, all.
I just wanted to offer my new backup service for all who of you who fear this trojan. Just contact me so we can arrange transfers. Please do not be wary of my generosity, for helping is its own reward.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently they've been offline since last friday.
AllofMp3 Shutdown.
The IFPI has denied responsibility.
Seriously though. I wonder whats up with them?
look how well that turned out for Sony...
So what exactly happened to Sony - some bad press, that I only saw on the tv news once. Has anybody stopped buying sony gear? Has their share price dropped? Are they in court? No, no, no... so nothing has actually happened to Sony over this. Sure, we may hate them here and a few over places on the net, but most people don't care enough. I hated them before because of Atrac and their crappy software.
Never attest to malice what can be adequately attributed to stupidity.
In this case I think it's stupidity to create a virus that deletes the files it would be most likely to be able to propogate itself through.
Maybe some little hacker kiddie got caught wanking it by his mom and she deleted all his pr0n so he's on a "if I can't have it nobody can" rampage.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
If it only deleted .exe .bat .com etc etc then I could understand the logic BUT deleting media files does not protect anyone.
They almost touch on the simplest explenation. Vigilante. Believe it or not but there are some individuals who feel they have a need to stop others from downloading via p2p.
They would be intrested in deleting any media files you downloaded via p2p. They would not be protecting you but making your (in their eyes illegal) activity worthless. So that explains why they delete harmless files.
It also explains why they try to disable security programs, yet another punishment. That way you are far more at risk from using P2P by being infected. The logic being that pirates do not deserve to be safe.
Vigilante seeking to punish p2p users. Not the RIAA and not some guardian angel. The RIAA would have to have some extremly bad lawyers to have allowed this and a guardian angel would only destroy files wich put you at risk and not disable security software.
Vigilantes have done stuff like this before. It falls in the same field as those "jezus loves you" posts in porn usenet groups. Or so I been told. Not that I would know anything about that offcourse.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
What information is is stealing? Could it perhaps be passing data to the RIAA/MPAA?
Would beat the heck out of the painful process of obtaining warrants.
It's just freeing up bandwidth and shutting out other trojans before they get on the system. If it is more successfull than other trojans the authors will continue development along these lines. Most likely this will really get more people to do full installs more often. It will indirectly get rid of lots of old trojans that would be too hard to code for individually.
the more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the pipe
You know it seems so senseless and absent minded to create a virus/trojan like this.
Most people would want be exploiting the whole "remote" aspect of the whole virus/trojan concept and try and gain access to peoples porn / warez / music would one stop to think?
Plus how does it know if its Warez, sheet, it could be perfectly legitimate software its deleting? What does it do scan for the licence number, contact adobe and check to see if its authentic, if not, go and run the removal application?
I see option 4: the trojan is protecting itself by reducing the nmber of possible virus/trojan alerts you might get and by reducing your bandwidth use by eliminating sharing the P2P files.
Any small time time interested party, who doesn't like being small time. e.g. an unscrupulous mp3 download site trying to make a buck selling files it probably doesn't really have the rights to anyway, doesn't like the fact that its putative clients can still simply use Kazza/Morpheus/BT and would like to see a migration of folks from these options to their easy, low cost download service.
beside the big boys using a mercinary, this is the most likely sinario in view.
Because you can - or because you should?
Maybe it was Orrin Hatch...
On the other hand nothing beats OS-X for porn. The capability to have audio volume per program rather then a global volume level makes it very easy to set the porn volume low and the mp3 volume high to hide your activity.
When you see someone buy an Mac Mini you know what they are going to be using it for. The perverts.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I can't be the only person who, upon reading this, thought "what the hell have Sony done now?"
Young guy downloads VLC http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
-- Boycott Shell
customize their own bitspace
That up-your-own-arse babble a PHB would be proud of and a nick of 'phyrebyrd' made me instantly peg you as thirteen years old. If you want to be considered as somebody with maturity, I suggest a nick change and using language that doesn't make you sound like computers give you a hard-on.
Or better yet, Mplayer http://mplayerosx.sourceforge.net/
-- Boycott Shell
No one yet knows who wrote this or why."
Sony BMG installed hacker tools onto peoples machines. They even conned them into doing it saying they need to login as an admin to play a CD.
They installed a hacker tool designed to comprimise a machines security, disrupte anti-virus systems by hiding ALL virus, malware or spyware that requested to be hidden, and comprimised system stabillity. And they had it dial home aswell.
How much more of a step is it to go from that to an actual virus. They got fined 7 dollars for that offence, what do they have to loose? they may get fined upto 20 dollars, wow.
Plus hasn't the RIAA wanted a change in the law to allow them to hack into poeples computers to check for and delete copyrighted items? Maybe the got tired of waiting for a change in the law and thought they would do it illegally as no-one would suspect them or care about it. And seems the perpitrator has not been caught they may be right as whoever it is has got away with it so far.
Oh and this doesn't such much highlight the need for AV as it shows AV is to slow to block it, but it does show the need for:
Also another very important point is distributing a file is not always legal. Infact it is a human right.
The european cnvention on human rights states: If I record my ideas or information in a file, do I not then have the right to distribute it how I want, for instance P2P?
The trojan deletes the most "desirable" files in a P2P share directory and then posts copies of itself in that same share directory...masquerading as the same kinds of "desirable" files it just eliminated.
Think of it as elbowing the competition off the track to increase the likelihood copies of itself will be picked for downloading.
It certainly squares with what most of us understand as the motivation of VXers: disseminate their work as far as possible, for either ego gratification or "ownership" of botnets, spyware takings, etc.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Deep Freeze and it's competitor products are looking better and better.
If only there were an open source version!
My Tech Posts on Twitter
That is so true. I can't count the amount of people I've met that have weatherbug or whatever on their computer and I explain to them that it has spyware, then I remove it and the spyware. Then a day or so later, they're like, "WTF? You deleted weatherbug" and I find they've reinstalled it. People just don't care, and I don't expect to ever understand why.
~ So sayeth the wise Alaundo
In related news, dictionary.com has suffered the slashdot effect after a massive spike in searches for the definitions of "avarice" and "altruism".
*The sound of a dozen guns firing in a split second*.
Me: what a stupid way to die.
Random slashdotter: do you think he meant that " THE PEOPLE WHO WROTE THIS TROJAN SHOULD BE PUT TO DEATH!!!!"
Me: Who cares, we got dupe posters to shoot and it looks like it is going to be an allnighter.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
pfft. nowhere near as cool as w32/hoots-a. (http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/51637)
Gosh, I have plenty of MP3, AVI, MPEG, WMV, Gif, Zip graphic and video files ... that aren't porn, illegal music & warez.
Cor... Now I don't feel so anachronistic for storing all my porn pics in PICT and PCX.
P.S., If anyone wants some red hot VISCII art, PM me.
bad press, cd recall, and class action lawsuits.
and that was for a rootkit on a purchased cd.
just imagine what would happen to the RIAA if they let out a trojan to the masses.
I bet the people wouldn't rest until they were bankrupt.
So I was thinking to myself, why would the RIAA or MPAA delete all those files? Well, one possible reason for that would be to start a clean log of files downloaded from a p2p program. Say one year down the line the RIAA calls for another round of lawsuits. By subpoenaing (sp?) joe blow's computer based off his IP address, and "finding out" that the virus hit him on May 16th, they can determine that he's shared x number of songs x number of times. Maybe the virus starts a clean slate so that it can be sure how many times you've downloaded stuff.
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
"I can only conclude that people at PC World ain't got a clue about PC's. Since when can .avi .mp3 etc etc contain virusses or malware?"
You can stick a virus in a jpeg, so I don't see why you couldn't stick one in an avi, etc. Of course, I'm not the worlds leading virus expert...
Though I do agree with the rest of your post. I was wondering why they were calling it a "vigilante" virus at all. I thought I was going a little crazy untill I read my thoughts here in the posts.
~ So sayeth the wise Alaundo
Um, maybe it's just me, but I'd call disabling antivirus impairing the computer's operation. Yeah, sure, it's not installing a spam zombie client, but it is unlocking the door for someone who will...
Or, maybe not...
Similar to the upcoming US election results
They're probably not dumb enough to leave a blindingly obvious money-/paper-trail from the author of the trojan to any high ranking execs of theirs.
Once again, this is Windows only.
Damn! Obviously, Linux isn't ready for the home user.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
I tend not to believe in altruism, but I think there's also a much simpler explanation for a virus that deletes porn, warez, and other illegally downloaded material.
It's Jesus.
Yes, the savior finally has a CS degree and he's using it to wipe out eSin (R)(TM). Look out, the iRapture (R)(TM) is coming soon!
YUO CANNOT AFFORD.
You know, "virus in an AVI" is something I remember hearing alot of in the Windows 3.1 days but had all but disappeared since. Ironically, it seems to be inversely proportional to the likelihood of it actually being true. Remember what a pain in the ass it was to manually install a driver or just get a program to view it's particular file type at all?
Now we have stuff like WMF, ActiveX, Flash, etc mixing code and data, executing either at will, along with autorun for CDs and a fuller and fuller startup tray in Windows. It's ridiculous, because we have more less educated users at the same time that more is being automated and interlinked to the point where it really is dangerous and harder to recover from misplaced trust.
maybe the person who wrote the trojan, wrote it to be an asshole with no other intentions in mind; besides to be annoying. Many people who are infected with trojans/other tyes of virus' are not that internet/computer savy. When they engage in illeagle file trading they typically use p2p networks such as lime wire, where it is much easier to download malware and what not. Lets face it, the most popular types of files to download are pretty much porn and music. So theres no better way to piss a ton of people off other than deleting what they value most on their computers. Just my thought.
First off, I don't mean any offense to any loyal slashdotters such as yourselves. But I have to point this out. Isn't it JUST like /. to jump to a bunch of ridiculous conclusions about factual evidence? (i'm referring to all the option #1,2,3,4,5... crap up top, among other comments). Come on, people. Someone tells me that a virus deletes P2P directory data contents, and all you can say is "OMG! it's robin hood stopping malware!"
COME ON! It deletes your content. You spend time downloading music, porn, all sorts of files illegally, and the writer of this virus is all "Ha hahahah! Gotcha!"
The simplest explanation...
Computer Technician SensorCAT Research Foundation
I'm waiting for a reverse version of the virus that includes a PTP client that silently stocks your computer's HD with music and videos. "It wasn't me, officer, I can prove that my computer has a virus!"
bad press
Went away already.
cd recall
So they could remove the rootkit. However, their key software is still on their disks.
and class action lawsuits
Oh yeah, those are going great...
Bullish Machine Tzar
eTelemetry is more fun!
Not even that:
5) Trojan not only sentient, but self-sustainable and conventionally biased. Will take over the world.
Proof of Intelligent Design? You be the judge.
Defining Statistics and Social Research
Since when can .avi .mp3 etc etc contain virusses or malware?
Since the people making the media players haven't figured out how to properly code. It is definetly possible to get infected or compromized via a media file. Look at the whole Microsoft image rendering problem a few months ago. One look at a specially crafted image on a website and you're compromized.
Bullish Machine Tzar
Hm. I just downloaded Equilibrium, the soundtrack to Bored of the Rings, and a group of four thousand ebooks, and they're all missing. Do I have a virus? I must have misplaced the files.
OR
Hm. All my files are intact and my computer's running okay, and I'm not getting any alerts from my virus scanner. Do I have a virus?
Recall that this virus, like many, disables antivirus software.
Option 5: Delete all competing content from the p2p directories so the upload bandwidth is fully available to the virus and it does not have to share the upload bandthwith with other content (like p0rn).
It is called evolution theory, this virus kills of the weaker content to spread itself.
Note that is also stops process like "gator". this virus allows no competition.
Since when would this make the RIAA forget about it? They'll probably sue anyone *thinking* about downloading files.
Unless it also displays a dialog box stating that, "The Lord has decided that thou hast broken the following commandments: Thou Shalt Not Steal and Thou Shalt Not Have Naughty Thoughts. Your files have been deleted according to the rights granted to us by God as his Holy Warriors, and your screen saver is now made of publicity stills from The Passion of the Christ. Go with God."
:)
Then, maybe so...
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
Everyone here is assigning their own personal bias to the virus writer's motives.
My bias tells me that the simplest explanation for writing is it often the case. Since it deletes specific files, we can assume that's the intended outcome - to delete files.
Just because McAfee benefits from people losing files doesn't mean they commissioned it.
Just because MP3s might be lost doesn't mean the RIAA commissioned it.
What we do know is the virus writer is a prick [or pricks], who wanted to delete files. Everything else is just speculation.
Maybe the space aliens wrote it to test our virus defence capability before disabling our Internet?
Oh You POS
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
... Ugh, I mean, won't someone think of the children.
It was a joint project of the computer science department at Liberty University ( http://www.liberty.edu/ ).
I stand corrected.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
>> The assumption is that because the Trojan is only deleting certain file types in specific download directories used by P2P programs -- one of the main sources of inadvertent malware infection -- it is attempting to protect those it manages to infect.
> Well, that's a remarkably stupid assumption.
Are you kidding? It seems completely obvious to me that the person who wrote this Trojan had only good intentions. It's only trying to delete your downloaded files because some of those files might contain malware.
And you'll realize just how altruistic the programmer is once you also realize that some of those files could (potentially) be 'N Sync songs. Truly this man is doing us all a good turn.
reinstalled it. People just don't care, and I don't expect to ever understand why
People assume that anything that happens on their computer is visible in the GUI. Therefore if weatherbug doesn't pop up a requester saying "I'm spying on you now, please type something interesting", naive people will assume it's not doing that.
I suspect this misapprehension will change only through hard experience.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Why would people listen to that?
6) profit!!
MilkMiruku
I just checked both the McAfee and Symantec "security centers" and neither has this trojan listed as a current threat.
Wonder why that is????
Robot Chicken, the claymation creation from Seth Green and Matthew Senreich (who?), did this last week in 2x06.
I think I took some liberties with the quoting as I don't have the episode in front of me (work and all that jazz...), but you get the idea. Go watch the episode...
Ah yes. The classic "smarter than the average user", or "Yogi" gambit. This technique has also been co-opted by the republican party and updated to the "look - terrists!" move.
ALL MY PRONZ IS GONEZ!
No, I don't really talk like that. Heh heh, and I also back up all my pron to a protable HD.
Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to conviction
Damn you Pat Robertson!!!
Or it was written by someone just to be an Ass. Never underestimate how malicious some people can be on their own with the cover of anonimity.
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
"The Windows Trojan/Erazer-A Trojan looks at default folders for downloading MP3, AVI, MPEG, WMV, Gif, Zip graphic and video files, and wipes anything it finds with these extensions in the target locations."
Since I'm not storing any of the RAR, OGG and PNG files that I've downloaded in the default [P2P Name] folder, Since I've got BACKUPS and since I can dual-boot in Linux mode, well actually I do not feel that much concerned. "Nothing to see here citizen, move along."
This also emphasizes why all P2P users should quarantine their P2P software inside a virtual machine. VMWare's recently renamed VMWare Server" product is free and is a perfect way to isolate your P2P software from the rest of your machine. I actually employ this method myself. Much of the documentation I download is infected and this method prevents that infection from getting back to the host server. Plus it's quite easy to rollback changes to a time before the infection and start over.
It is also called the "RIAA/MPAA trojan".
Yup. And I wrote a polite, yet firmly worded letter to Sony North America explaining why, too. Sure, I'm a drop in the bucket, but if you have enough drops..... The media dropped this one like a hot potato(e), 'cause I don't think the average consumer really gives a shit.
(and no, I'm not just a home consumer. My lab does some A/V work as well, and had a great fondness for Sony monitors up until a few months ago...)
Chris Knight is my hero.
There is no way Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell would ever risk their own secret porn stash. The parent is clearly a troll.
While some opine that this trojan might have good intentions, remarkably few things infect the text files this trojan also deletes.
I've attempted to read that sentence about a dozen times, and I have no clue what the writer's trying to say.
Comment of the year
What I think is interesting is the fact that everyone is argueing over whether or not it's okay to delete the "cheaters" files...good or bad intentions a virus is wrong, it's like genocide on a software level, how sad. :(
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. ~Albert Einstein
anyone remember that clip from robot chicken a couple weeks back about the virrus that was deleting porn from the internet?
Maybe you could make the message more helpful, provide advice and free software, or whatever.
My original point was that it would be absurd to treat this as some sort of "cruel to be kind" virus when it is genuinely causing damage/loss.
It would be analogous to the police breaking into your house, trashing it, stealing your plasma TV and leaving a note saying "next time buy better locks" as a way of crime prevention.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Given how easy it is to download new porn, I doubt the lesson is very effective.
...unfriendly thing to do, especially given the prevalent moral double standards.
Now, sending a list of those files to the victims adressbook, _that_ would be a really effective call for security.
Of course, it would also be rather
Actually, the police doing that wouldn't surprise me at all. They'd be assholes to do it, but nowadays it wouldn't be a surprise.
For about 80% of the windows users out there, this sounds pretty fatal. It'd have to delete their entire OS as well as any apps above notepad, so that hurts pretty bad. I guess there's now an economic argument as to why open source OSes are safer.
"My heart is in the work." - Andrew Carnegie
> First off, this article is pure bullshit spin. They mention several points about a virus and the whole time they attempt to spin it the reader as a "good intentions" virus--even comparing it to Charles Bronson. The Slashdot title reads "Trojan Deletes Your Porn, Music & Warez" but it doesnt, if you RTFA:
Hi. Just FYI, I wrote the article submitted to Slashdot precisely to correct this idiotic story (Slashdot should hopefully get picked up by Google, etc. and thus be more available to those who will read this). I think the writer over there was trying to find an angle on it and couldn't get past "P2P == bad, viruses == bad" so they fell back on one of the "content" industry talking points (and I use the word "content" loosely).
To anyone who has a functioning brain, the fact that it deletes your files, installs a keylogger, and disables security products (as well as a few incidental bits of competing malware) is more than enough to realize that it has only malicious intentions.
If the trojan author is at all clueful, it's looking in the registry and/or in .ini files to find out where the P2P directories are. Thus changing dirs won't help. Also, I don't change default dirs unless they are ordinarily located in the program directory, which is stupid; they should be in the Profile\My Documents directory (on windows systems.) Why would I, if the defaults are good?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
deletes porn and music??
.....
sounds like the mpaa or riaa might have something to do with tis
back in the day we didnt have no old school
Hi, I wrote this Slashdot submission:
> remarkably few things infect the text files this trojan also deletes.
It's there to counter the assertion in TFA that this trojan is a "good" thing because it deletes files that might infect you. In other words, it's there to point out that this trojan is completely malicious--something obvious to all Slashdotters, but which seems to have eluded the writer of TFA.
"Affected operating systems - Windows" wake me if i infects something I use such as OS X or Linux
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
All mine is labelled "Nice college girls" and such.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
You use a terminal. Connected to a mainframe. Running lynx.
The 80s are back! Let's do it right!
Man, you really need that seminar!
It's more likely some guy who has already gone through the social aspects of who people would try to pin this on and is now having a field day watching us trying to figure it out. People who write viruses are social misfits who get a sick sort of high from releasing havoc on unsuspecting users. This guy is getting a double shot of joy juice by watching the media chase its tail trying to figure out who would have a motive for something like this.
She wouldn't open her mouth to talk.
Weatherbug is what I call "functional spyware" in that it does provide a real function in addition to it's spying functions. Most spyware now fits this profile, but the original spyware, Gator, did not.
When removing functional spyware you must attempt to provide a replacement application that can do the same function. The user in your scenario can't be bothered to go to a website to get the weather, so you might want to try finding another weather tray tool. I don't know of any off the top of my head but there have to be several out there.
Furthermore, Weatherbug is a special case as they've managed to grow into a legitimate brand. The weather promo here on ABC in DC is the "Weatherbug Network". For the average user, something like that really legitimizes the software, whether it's deserved or not.
People just don't care, and I don't expect to ever understand why.
It doesn't sound like you're trying to understand. From what I can tell (2 mins on google), Weatherbug modified their program and it is no longer spyware.
I suspect this misapprehension will change only through hard experience.
Most average users couldn't care less about privacy, and a lot of them take it for granted that their every move is being watched, online and off. And really, there is almost nothing that the average user stands to lose from being spied on, outside of credit card and bank fraud, which were real threats that most people ignored before computers too. Hell, I worked at a restaurant that printed your entire credit card number on the slip that you sign and leave on the table, and only one person complained in the entire time I worked there.
You're right that average users don't understand that just because they can't see it happening doesn't mean it isn't. As a corollary to this, they wouldn't understand that their credit cards have been maxed out at a shoe shop in Buenos Aires because they accidentally installed a program by clicking the wrong thing to close a popup. Instead, they'll probably assume that Amazon was hacked, or that someone found their bank statement in the trash, etc. since something like that was in the news awhile ago.
it deletes any porn, warez and music in your P2P directories.
Ok...that does it! It is one thing to steal my bank account information and credit cards, but when you go after my Pr0n, you have crossed the line buddy!
Never let programmers watch robot chicken. I think in the last episode there was a sketch about a virus that deleted pr0n not only in user's computers but everywhere. The sketch ended with George W Bush begging an anonymous villan to give back the porn.
I guess someone took that idea seriously and implemented it.
It's pretty obvious that John Dunn does not care about people who create their own media or use P2P to share content that others want you to share. He tries to push it off onto Sophos by quoting them about Charles Bronson movies, where the hero is a murderer. He even leaves in, "...it's perfectly possible for the Trojan to aim poorly and wipe out innocent files too," but Dunn the only thing he worries about, while droning on about "benefits", is "security" being turned off and the next versions that might wipe out something else. If you are using P2P, Dunn does not like you and does not mind if someone wipes out your music, movies and photoalbum. It seems beyond Dunn that people outside the big three music publishers might make and share music, photo albums and movies that other find interesting. By his authoritative opinion, we are all consumers or pirates of pornography. Anything that gets in the way of big dumb companies making money, like alternate entertainment distribution systems, competition or viruses deleting M$ Word.docs, is EVIL and the people who use them must be grubby little masturbators.
Porn? Dunn does not use the word. Sophos consider the name "goporn.exe" which is left in the users directory "tempting." The masturbator and warez insults are entirely the trojan author's. Neither Sophos nor Dunn point out how insulting it would be to find porn or warez in what used to be a directory of baby pictures, movies and music. Such an omission is tacit approval. He can't even imagine such a thing.
Get this Dunn: there are no benefits to malware. If someone is on your computer eating your bandwith and doing things you did not ask for, they are fucking you. What I share has nothing to do with .DOC, porn or cracked software. I do use P2P, http and sftp and I don't want you or anyone else wiping that out.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Actually, sticking a virus in an avi or even an mp3 is easy, it is getting the virus to actually execute that is the problem. Remember wrapster, which would take arbitrary files and turn them into a 100% valid mp3 so that other files could be shared over napster? The problem is that barring buffer overruns or some other exploit, the media player will most likely play either static or silence, not run the virus code.
I too have doubts. but i'm betting on a simple explaination.
Basically, the more virii and trojans a computer has, the less effective it is for the purpose of any single virus writer*. if a zombie computer crashes repeatedly because of some other unstable virus, its not too useful. likewise if the zombie is supposed to DOS some target, but its hosts file redirects the attack, well, its humorous, but not useful.
since other virii are often distributed by porn, music, and warez, it makes sense to remove all of these. This helps prevent the user from installing other virii.
I would not be suprised if future versions were not more refined, possibly corrupting some of these files instead of deleting them. deleted files would signal a virus is present after all.
*assuming the purpose was to hijack the computer and use it.
..which makes you connect to P2P again/more often to download "da stuff" again i.e. helping the trojan spread, by increasing online time and P2P time. OR makes you go out and play. tsts. evil geniuses can be beneficial sometimes, when they miss something :)
In 'Cyberstorm' earlier this year, a nasty virus did the rounds at or around the same time as the government exercise was allegedly being held. That particular 'wild' virus just so happened to not infect .mil and .gov domains - who would have thought of that? That was a first, and at the same time as a government exercise - did I say fish, or was that 'E'?
The government claimed that the exercise was held on some mythical private-exact-copy-of-the-web, however, the evidence of the time did not point that way - just don't ask anyone exposed to the 'Karma Sutra Worm'...
As well as normal users, businesses and special PC's (as in the sort used in hospitals) could not cope with the network overload. At the time nobody was putting two and two together, and the Department of Homeland Security were not put under scrutiny.
Given the form of The Department of Homeland Security (the people with the 2.5Tb RAM-drives for everyone's primary keys...) and the class of individual attracted to its ranks, one has to ask if they alone have the means, the motive and the opportunity to pull off such a stunt as the new fangled virus. Usually they gloat, so expect a few words about how well they have done wiping out tonnes of data direct from the hard-drives of tens of thousands of terrorist-training-camp grade al-qaeda operatives, from all over the globe in the mainstream media anytime soon.
With Cyberstorm, A/V vendors, operating system vendors, network equipment manufacturers and others that should know better, overstepped a line that they were not forced to, and took part in 'cyber-theater exercises' that were down-right rotten, costing lots of people lots of time and effort that could have been better directed elsewhere.
This new virus might be the same as the Cyber-storm malweaponry, with SECGEN Rumsfeld watching how the citizenry respond. Do you warn everyone in your mailbox that you could have emailed them a deadly virus? Do you write to the likes of Slashdot with help for others? I don't know, but SECGEN Rumsfeld will.
With Cyberstorm there was also 'Full Spectrum Dominance' propaganda/public diplomacy in the media as well as in blogs. This gave an operational capability to control a word-of-mouth internet campaign, whether that be word of crisis, political disaster, whatever.
'Cyberstorm' came with psychological payload - 'the sky is falling in' and the guys on the exercise were testing their abilities to control and contain a new 'digital Pearl Harbour'. The D.H.S. are suspiciously quiet when it comes to the 'real' threats, has anyone checked if any more government 'cyber' exercises are scheduled?
I didn't RTFA, but what if the Trojan just checks the bitpath for downloads in your P2P settings. Then it would know to delete the stuff in the user-defined directories vs the defaults.
Same reason I do, I suppose. Limewire, for instance, defaults to a directory that is automatically shared. I may download files, but that doesn't necessarily mean I WANT to immediately share what I just downloaded.
For that reason, I have a download directory (removed from the share path) and then a different share directory, that way what I download isn't automatically shared.
Not everyone does this... Most folks don't. But I like to make sure the files I share are the genuine article before I let someone else download it. No sense in spreading unverified files if I can take the initiative to validate their quality and authenticity first.
"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." -Thom
Dude, people didn't even listen when the blaster worm came out with its bug that would give a 60 second warning before shutting down the computer. We tried to explain to them what was going on, why they needed an AV suite, why they needed to run Windows Update, and why they shouldn't click on popups and stuff, and they ignored it. I was still removing blaster occasionally from people's computers 2 years after Microsoft released the patch. There were people who would ask what all the fuss was about, to whom I would explain, including about how the virus made your computer shut down for no reason, and a week later they would call me up asking if I could figure out why their computer shut down at 2 PM every day. My words went in one ear and out the other. There were people who's systems I reformatted to get rid of blaster, set Windows update to automatic, and installed AVG. Sure enough, give 'em just two or three weeks and they either downloaded an infected file or opened up an unprotected network share (something else I told them not to do).
A message saying "You been haxored, grow a brain" would just get a "Whatever, my computer still works moron" response (or better yet, "but the Norton scan came up clean..."). If shutting down while a student was typing a paper due the next day (and hadn't saved yet) didn't inspire a little bit of sensibility, I seriously doubt deleting a few music files will. Especially since most users definitely seem to be shifting away from P2P in favor of legal music sources, and probably wouldn't have much targeted by this trojan.
Crusading against pornography and file-sharing seems far more likely.
Also examines ".doc" files. If the occurence of terms found in legal documents is moderately high, about 1% of the sentences in the middle of paragraphs are deleted. Randomly, 20% of the occurences of the word "not" are deleted.
OH, I just thought of the first thing that came to my head that I knew had spyware. Had being the key word it seems. I was actually referring to a few people I knew back when it had spyware, just as an example. I still know these people and they still have the same attitude, so my point still stands if my example does not.
~ So sayeth the wise Alaundo
wouldn't the next logical step be a worm that downloads a whole bunch of warez and porn for you? not only that, but GOOD warez & pron? i'll infect my machines straightaway.
So virus scanner's now check for pron and generate a potential virus alert if none is found. Dont think so but would be interesting thought.
:D
TRANSLATION into article terms: Many office users are infected already as every PC we checked had no pron whatsoever, which is clearly a sign of the virus at work.
Overall it add's to the saying you get what you pay for. That and virus's are actualy avoidable with the right approach to computers., but show me a boring persion with an STD and I'll have to rethink things
--
There are YES men(1) and there are NO men(0). But computers still manage to count the ones unsure(?) using binary; And we want to have AI!
--
Last time I scanned my system for porn, all that was detected was LaTex (which isn't porn). I hope it doesn't delete tex files or I know a lot of people who will get frustrated.
Yeh, but the Anti-Troj could be:
"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord"
It's better to come in peace then go in pieces...
(Adjust spelling to suit your circumstances).
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
It can tell porn from other images? It can't describe them, but it knows it when it sees it.
You know, on Robot Chicken, this was all just a joke...
Give us our porn back..!
Proverbs 21:19
The trojan is written and funded by the RIAA. Everybody say thanks.
I agree with this... third might be some antivirus company afraid of loosing some money with upcoming Vista and M$ antivirus program :)
Pixel image editor - http://www.kanzelsberger.com
You never appreciate your girlfriend, or for most here the possibility of having one, until your happy convienent pr0n movie box fails.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
"The user in your scenario can't be bothered to go to a website to get the weather, so you might want to try finding another weather tray tool. I don't know of any off the top of my head but there have to be several out there."
Weather Watcher comes in a freeware version and an ad-supported version. Neither contains actual spyware.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
>> I am still stuck in the past where pure data files were considered safe. Silly me.
.txt files, which really *ought* to be safe, pretty much proves them to be malicious.
From the last line of the Slashdot submission:
> remarkably few things infect the text files this trojan also deletes.
So while all of the others may well have overflows or other exploits associated with them, the fact that they delete
No, seriously (yes I'd free up a lot of wasted pr0n-space), I'd like to take a look at it. Surely someone must've put it on a web page. (And no, it can't be illegal to do so, at least not in a non-paranoid western shit country like mine).
The real crime would be not backing up something as important as your graduate thesis.
Imagine a trojan that removes other trojans and various
spyware programs then removes itself. And tells you to have
a nice day.
-Wow that would be nice.
delete my p2p porn stash?
aint going to happen. Ive made the directory sticky
I find it intriguing that this alternate explanation apparently didn't even occur to PC World.
Because it got bumped in favor of the "Bigfoot wrote it with the grassy hill gunmen to prove once and for all that the Loch Ness monster has been pwned" theory.
Which, as would have it, is exponentially less assinine than the concept that the MPAA put this into the wild.
(all smart @$$ness aside, come on: "some punk script kiddie thought it would impress his punk peers" is not a sound enough hypothesis to be ranked above the MPAA Black Hat theory???)
... but I believe even Windows runs on UNIX time by now, which began on January 1, 1970. It's simply impossible to set your clock to 1900, or even 1969. Yes, UNIX missed the Summer of Love... :'(
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
lusers will never tighten up their systems unless it becomes illegal to be part of a botnet.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Damn Mormons are on the loose again.
DO NOT WANT!
I can easily see some computer-illiterate Luddite at a *AA member organization looking at what happened with Sony and deciding to tell somebody with half a clue to look for a "security consultant" to write an anti-P2P virus.
Did this happen that way? I don't know, but these companies have both motive, opportunity, and for practical purposes, near-immunity from prosecution; if they get caught, they can always go to the Congresscritters they 0wN and buy a law to make their misconduct legal.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Sounds like a cheap cut-down version of the Lamer Exterminator for the PC.
http://outcampaign.org/
and they also said you can't get a virus or other malware from looking at a picture.