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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.
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.
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.
remarkably few things infect the text files this trojan also deletes.
Ehmm... What?
home
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.
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
Even simpler:
4) Write a trojan to wipe out what people apparently consider to be important just because the trojan writer is a prick.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
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.
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
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...
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.
Huh? That doesn't make any sense, even in the way you're trying to use it.
If I copy your file, you have a copy, I have a copy. Nobody has lost anything. Therefore, it can't possibly be called stealing by most people's definitions.
If I copy your file and then delete the original, then I have it and you don't, that I think we can all agree, is stealing. Likewise, if it's on physical media which only one of us can possess at a time, and I take the physical media, then it's also stealing.
If I delete something without taking a copy, then it's not stealing, it's just vandalism or destruction of your stuff.
You are mis-stating the argument you're trying to make fun of (the "it's not physical so therefore not stealing") and so your parody falls flat. The fact that data isn't physical isn't the important part, it's the fact that nobody loses their copy in a typical "pirate" transaction. That's what differentiates it from "theft" in the minds of many people.
Personally, I think that unauthorized copying is not theft, but might meet the qualifications for wrongful conversion of property, if you take a wide enough definition of 'property.' (So as not to limit it to real property and chattels, but include the value of data as well.) See this page. Normally it applies only to physical goods. At any rate, there are existing sections of law which are more appropriately applied to the reduction-in-value that occurs when data is unlawfully copied than theft and larceny.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."