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Security Researcher Chases Virus Maker Off the Net
An anonymous reader writes "There is a great writeup over on CNET covering the pursuit of a virus writer who created a fake Grand Theft Auto game, crippling PCs by causing them to endlessly reboot. Despite the police apparently not being very interested, a security researcher pursued his man anyway, culminating in a teary eyed 'I'm leaving the internet' post from the virus writer himself. Awesome stuff, and one in the eye for the bad guys (for once)."
Who believes that for a second?
Is this really a computer virus? Malware sure, virus, no. It's like that program that would show you the drink holder (I think coke, sorry can't find a link) and open your cdrom drive. Only this adds a reg entry or puts something in the startup folder that and does a ExitWindowsEx call.
I guess that's all it takes to be "l33t" these days...
Mr. Universe: "They can't stop the signal, Mal. They can never stop the signal."
This isnt a virus, first off. It was a lame trojan. Like all others, cut-n-pasted by some 13 year old script kiddie, I mean just read the story and tell me it could be any other way.
So some blowhard self-important jackass "security researcher" harassed a little kid and made him cry.
What a fucking loser.
The REAL virus writers/blackhats, the ones infiltrating multi-billion dollar corps, are working for the russian mob.
Go after them, I double dog dare you.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
From the articles linked, it appears to be nothing more than a GameMaker "game" which adds registry entries which cause shutdown.exe and logoff.exe to be called when you log in.
In fact, if this was considered malware... perhaps marginally, although it has no serious effects... it isn't a virus because it doesn't replicate itself and spread. The guy who wrote it is obviously a wannabe hacker... you know, the kind who use pre-built tools without a clue how they work. Except this guy couldn't even find tools so he used a game creation system. Lame.
I just can't believe the person will 'leave' the internet. His virus-maker persona might completely die off, but the same guy will still be out there, developing similar identities later.
Do you really think giving him a virus that could infect innocent people he might come into contact with would really be a punishment that fits the crime?
I'm not apposed to death, life in prison, a small but brutal beating by everyone effected, a lawsuit from everyone ever infected for the downtime, expense and aggravation their virus cause And then making them work at something that pays enough to keep him alive while at the same time paying everyone he infected. I don't know how you could do something that fits the crime to someone like this unless you punish him for everyone effected.
I have a hard time believing that any "security researcher" would keep calling the application in question a "virus".
It sounds to me like the story is about *two* wannabes, not just one.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
This story reads basically that some over zealous security researcher chased an incompetent malware script kiddie around for an app that compromised maybe 50 people. As far as accomplishment goes, this ranks up there with shooting fish in a barrel and apparently proves he can do Google searches.
I'm glad that there is a minimum damage level before law enforcement gets involved because this would be a tremendous waste of tax payer dollars to go after and then, given how totally out of whack the laws are in regards to this kind of thing because of Luddite terror of people with technical ability, we'd probably have to end up paying this moron's housing for five years and create another person with a criminal record who cannot get employed and thus gets even more benefits at our expense.
And at the end of the day, it proves nothing. From a technical standpoint, someone could easily create an false identity like this, even the sign off part. The whole investigation trail is based off string comparisons. Whether it is "John" in Philadelphia or a really smart dog in Detroit, who knows?
Yawn. The problem with society today is that they classify "mild inconvenience" as "harm". No-one got killed. Anyone who lost money should have known better than to install random games from the Internet on their work machine.
It's a prank. Not a terribly amusing one, but they can't all be gold.
How we know is more important than what we know.
No, you're the idiot.
If you think kids, or anyone, should be jailed for causing a couple of idiots to lose a few hours work or have to pay to have someone fix their computer after doing something stupid.
Your society is fucked up not because people tolerate crime.. it's fucked up because you've made everything a crime, and you've made even a minor infraction of the law a black mark that follows people for the rest of their lives.
How we know is more important than what we know.