DVD Porn Viruses Ravage US Soldiers' Computers

stevegee58 writes "Tom Ricks' Inbox in the Sunday Washington Post reported that bootleg DVDs purchased in Iraqi markets ('souks') are frequently infected with viruses. Iraqi soldiers were affected as well; electronic interaction between Iraqi and US soldiers frequently resulted in a corresponding exchange of viruses from these infected DVDs."

Comments

Support Our troops

[brewstate]

We need to send them virus free porn. Gentlemen time to dump your hard drives to DVD.

Re:Sexually Transmitted Disease

[phulegart]

Well, I'm not a pimply-faced anything. In fact, I work in the busiest computer repair shop near Camp Lejune (see Marine Boot Camp). I repair laptops (and desktops) all day long that belong to soldiers. I'm regularly cleaning Iraq out of the laptops, and I'm just talking dirt and grime. However, all of them... and I do mean all of them, come in infected with malware, spyware, and viruses. Not only your Smitfraud.C based infections (Smitfraud, virus heat, etc.) but porn dialers, porn redirects and browser hijacks... you name it.

As far as tolerance is concerned, I'm glad that all these marines appear to know absolutely nothing about keeping their machines clean. It keeps me in a paycheck. However, I don't have much tolerance for people who insist that this might be an overblown story. As far as the Parent comment about rape and pillaging... our armed forces have changed radically since the Vietnam days. You can't necessarily blame the guy for his comment though. If what I'm cleaning off these machines is any indication... even if our armed forces aren't raping and pillaging, they sure are thinking of it. Where they are going on the web to screw up their machines like they are points to that conclusion.

More than an inconvenience

[bughunter]

We build UAV systems for the US military. Widely used ones. Lately one of the branch's weapons labs has been coming to us and saying "we need a ground system that will operate any UAV or UGV. Why don't you use a computer?"

So the R&D chief goes on a rant (to me, in private): "We've tried sending PCs into deployment, and they come back filthy with 'family videos' and viruses. We try sealing up and enclosing the USB/FW ports and DVD slots, and they come back pried open. No computers."

Customer (to me, during requirements review): "The soldiers get issued WinXP notebooks anyhow. Utilize them."

So I was handed the task of managing the resolution to this showdown. My first thought was, "Porn is not my problem." Second thought, "Hell, give them some clean porn ferchrissakes." Third thought, "oh crap -- we can't certify our product if it is a) in the decision making loop for a certain class of UAV, and b) can run any old crapware, including family videos."

So it's not just a porn problem, but a problem with the inadequacy of the Windows OS itself. I know that this is potential flamebait moderation material, but it's a major thorn in our side: it's not a realtime OS, and even the embedded version of XP isn' real time. And it's susceptibility to viruses and hackers really makes it unsuitable for much more than family photos, letters to Jane, and facebook.

Solution: Give them what they want, on their dime, while spending R&D money to prototype what they need. (Sorry - can't describe it.) Then when the inadequacies become painfully apparent, offer them the alternative, ready for development testing.

Re:Sexually Transmitted Disease

[cp.tar]

In Yugoslavia there used to be something called ORA(s), which is an acronym I can't readily translate, but which included very large groups of young people doing some pretty hard jobs for a period of time, e.g. (rail)roadbuilding.
This is a form of service I can subscribe to and would actually like to see re-instated in Croatia. For one, if high-school kids today just picked up the trash arund their schools and rebuilt the demolished bus stops, they would be less prone to littering and demolishing them all over again. IMO, of course.