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US Leads the World In Malware Creation
PetManimal writes "Symantec says that China, Russia, and the other developing countries usually blamed for the increasing amount of malware are not the biggest culprits. The security software company released a report (PDF) claiming that the US leads the world in a number of malware categories, ranging from the 'amount of malicious activity originating from their networks' to 'underground economy servers.' Preston Gralla says the US lead should come as no surprise, considering the capitalist way of life and the high level of technical knowledge. He also suggests that the some of the 'criminals' may actually be Internet entrepreneurs who crossed over to the dark side: 'It's an inevitable result of a thriving free market and tech expertise. An underground economy often mirrors the legal, above-ground one. Scratch a criminal, and sometimes you find a misguided entrepreneur, looking to get rich a little too quick.'"
During the depths of the IT recession, there were rumbles of out-of-work programmers talking about joining the "dark side" out of frustration. Perhaps many did.
Table-ized A.I.
Uh. I believe the difference would be the mal part. Update - as annoying as it is - is not malicious.
It becomes criminal when it phones home with all of your pertinent keystrokes name, email, credit card + secret number, account #s, social, DOB, passwords, etc which are then sold on the black market. Where have you been?
I assume you're thinking adware which is in rare cases only annoying, most cases privacy invading, and many cases illegal anyway.
Does that make the pot wrong?
You mad
I would guess that those numbers correspond to the number of users combined with the number of users who have no idea what computer security means.
How many people buy a computer without knowing how to use one safely? How many of those people buy a computer and run around on the internet as administrator?
Anytime you have a large number of users who do not understand or care to secure their computers, you will have higher numbers of those users who have been owned.
Today's show is brought to you by the number 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0: 25
So shut up or leave are the only options? One isn't alowed to criticise what one sees as a problem in a country one loves, perhaps in hope it will get rectified once enough people point it out? I find your attitude rather similar to that of many hard-line communists. Besides, we are talking about malware created in the US, not targeted to the US.
AccountKiller
Heh. While I find your comment amusing I must point out it's not the /.er's fault that China and Russia are considered developing countries. Blame human geographers for that. Russia and China are considered Developing by those groups. Personally I think it's just silly, who are we (people in general, not the US) to determine what style of life is better than another, but hey, that's how it is.
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
... and operating systems, and encryption, and VoIP, and browsers, and tax preparation, and CRM, and video games, and instant message clients, and illustration/graphic design, and pretty much any other string which you can append "software" to. That we lead in malware is not a heck of a lot of suprise. We also probably are neck and neck with Japan for producing cars used by bank robbers in getaways.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Ah yes, the 'Engineers are always moral' argument. Please remind me, what programmers were assigned to the Manhatten Project, the Cruise Missile project, and who designed Napalm?
Oh yeah... that's right, they were mostly Engineers. Spare us the high-and-mighty talk. Just becuase there's an old Freemason-like order with fancy rings involved doesn't mean engineers are some kind of uber-moral fraternity.
No offense to the good-hearted engineers out there reading this.. I just don't like the uppity attitude of some 'engineers' who think that computing science, along with every other realm of human endeavour other than those blessed by the local Engineering faculty, are something akin to making cute little blocks with playdough.
Parent: get off your high horse. Lots of people, no matter their vocation, have to pay the bills, and some are just attracted to the darker side, no matter their training.
You truly are out of your fucking skull. The idea that an engineer has to take any such oath is suppurating bullshit of the highest water.
Like some engineer's going to take a bullet for me (your words, "at all costs", not mine).
Resume playing with yourself.
He also suggests that the some of the 'criminals' may actually be Internet entrepreneurs who crossed over to the dark side
And they're different from the kind that run companies to the ground, create loopholes to avoid domestic workers, and fake their deaths to void convictions? Somehow the differences aren't stacking up.
It's an inevitable result of a thriving free market and tech expertise.
Apparently the Midwest hasn't gotten the memo on that one, since the 2001 recession is still going, continued by 2003's wave of job theft. There are some things that Ivy League economists will never understand. Thriving and "free market" somehow just aren't mixing in places that get the idea of not treating businesses like $DEITY.
An underground economy often mirrors the legal, above-ground one. Scratch a criminal, and sometimes you find a misguided entrepreneur, looking to get rich a little too quick.'
Wasnt that covered in Enron, Worldcom, HP (Hurd and Fiorina), and about any organization that uses loopholes to offshore work? That seems to point to a "misguided entrepreneur" as being one that has some morals left in them, not someone who's gone criminal.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
It is not your title ie engineer or programmer that makes you ethical - it is your beliefs and integrity!
Good engineer != ethical engineer unless you specifically define good to equal ethical in which case you have committed your statement to a state of circular definitions, and then your argument is effectively useless
The same would hold true for your 'real engineer' argument.
As for the lineSince you were initially discussing ethics - ethics do not let you always hide behind anything. If you are trying to switch the venue to law - then a programmer and a software engineer are going to be to a similar legal standard of responsibility based upon their respective position, education level and experience. The title "engineer" or "programmer" would have no bearing legally.
I would say quite often in fact, but that's just my opinion. I think there is something in what serves as the basic moral code in American-style business, that makes it difficult to know where the line goes. Now don't take this as an attack on Americans or even America in general, but the kind of business ethics that is tought to American MBAs etc, is scarily devoid of what normal people would consider good moral.
I once read about a class situation at one university - I don't recall the exact circumstances, but perhaps somebody else recognises it. The professor asked the class 'You are in charge of marketing a new medicine, and you receive reports that this medicine may be dangerous. What is the right thing to do?' Most would say things like 'We have to hold back and find out whether this product is actually dangerous and perhaps stop selling it' - but the 'right' answer, according to the professor was 'You keep on selling as much as possible until the company is forced to stop. Your only concern should be the shareholders' profit'
This story, I think, tells just how twisted things can be. When young people are told that they have to commit moral and ethical suicide like this, how should they be able to see the fine line between being a creative entrpreneur and an outright criminal? If the size of the profit is what determines how 'right' or 'good' your actions are, then surely crime is perfectly justfied law abiding citizens are simply idiots, little better than cattle?
I think what separates the malware originating from North America, and the malware coming from the East is the purpose of the malware.
You're talking out of your ass.
Since when is criticism equal to hate?
...or so it seems.
Since September 11, 2001.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Did the author of this post even read the paper? The U.S. leads the world in Malicious Activity, this is very different from malware. Malicious Activity = phishing sites, attacks, command and control servers, bots, spam zombies and malicious code infections. The United States is the top country for the combination of all of these things. The paper does not state anywhere that the United States is the source of the most malware!