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Anti-US Hacker Takes Credit For Worm

Posted by timothy on from the sociopath-with-a-heart-of-gold dept.

angry tapir writes "Credit for the "Here You Have" worm (recently discussed on Slashdot), has been taken by a hacker known as 'Iraq Resistance' who says the worm was designed, in part, as a propaganda tool. He said he had not expected the worm to spread as broadly as it had, and noted that he could have done much more damage to victims. 'I could smash all those infected but I wouldn't,' said the hacker. 'I hope all people understand that I am not negative person!' In other parts of the message, he was critical of the US war in Iraq. For a brief period early the worm accounted for about 10 percent of the spam on the Internet."

31 of 221 comments (clear)

  1. Luddite victims. by jonescb · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can understand his message, but unfortunately this sort of things always backfires. I'm not sure how he thinks a virus is going to convince the super patriotic Luddites who support the war that their beliefs are totally wrong.

    1. Re:Luddite victims. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Backfire suggests unintended consequences.

      On the contrary, it's been proven that a tiny poke in the Achilles world trade centre, causes the land of the free to implode in a counterproductive, authoritarian cluster fuck.

      It has a certain beauty to it. Much like a slow motion train crash.

    2. Re:Luddite victims. by Moryath · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If China wants to try to kill anonymous access, that's all the more reason our laws should say no logging, no tracking, EVER.

      And fuck the MafiAA and the fascists, who are the only ones who think differently.

      As for traditional media channels - let's face it, they failed us a long time ago. The simpering, fawning "yay Obama" types in 2008 were just the most blatant, but most of the world has seen that kind of behavior for years - chinese media, iranian media, russian pravda, BBC, and pretty much everything else.

    3. Re:Luddite victims. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If China wants to try to kill anonymous access, that's all the more reason our laws should say no logging, no tracking, EVER.

      That's terrible logic. China has laws against murder, does that mean the USA should have laws requiring you to shoot everyone you see? There are rational arguments against logging and tracking online, we don't need irrational ones.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    4. Re:Luddite victims. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      On the contrary, it's been proven that a tiny poke in the Achilles world trade centre, causes the land of the free to implode in a counterproductive, authoritarian cluster fuck

      That may be true, but that wasn't what they wanted to have happen. They wanted the US to remove its armies from muslim lands . It resulted in even more American troops in Muslim lands.

    5. Re:Luddite victims. by ScrewMaster · · Score: 1, Insightful

      a tiny poke in the Achilles world trade centre

      I gather from your smug demeanor and spelling of "centre" that you're not American. Let me ask you something: if someone performed a similar act of mass-murder in your country ... would you consider it as inconsequential? Would it be a "tiny poke"?

      Whether you agree with the direction our government and law enforcement have taken in the years since 9/11 (and I, personally, do not) dismissing the deaths of so many people, of so many nationalities in such a cavalier fashion is decidedly uncivilized.

      Just remember this: 9/11 did little but slightly accelerate processes that have been at work in this country for far longer. I don't give Al Qaeda too much credit for the train wreck, and neither should you.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    6. Re:Luddite victims. by lwsimon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm an American, and I agree with GP.

      On a human scale, 9/11 was a tragedy of epic proportions. It is a day and an act that I will never forget or forgive, period. From the standpoint of a nation of 300 million people, it was a pinprick. The impact of the domestic policy enacted in the wake of 9/11 an order of magnitude larger than that of the work of 12 nutjobs.

      --
      Learn about Photography Basics.
    7. Re:Luddite victims. by ScrewMaster · · Score: 5, Insightful

      On a human scale, 9/11 was a tragedy of epic proportions. It is a day and an act that I will never forget or forgive, period.

      I agree.

      From the standpoint of a nation of 300 million people, it was a pinprick.

      I agree.

      The impact of the domestic policy enacted in the wake of 9/11 an order of magnitude larger than that of the work of 12 nutjobs.

      I agree, which is why I said, Whether you agree with the direction our government and law enforcement have taken in the years since 9/11 (and I, personally, do not) .

      However, I dislike it when anyone says that twenty-thousand-odd deaths are of little consequence, and the GP's tone was indicative that he felt so because they were Americans.

      More to the point, however, is that you (and many other people, I might add) have this idea that everything bad that's happened since 9/11, regarding overreaching government behavior, is a direct result of 9/11. It was not: 9/11 was an excuse, a rationale, that permitted the Federal Government (certain parts of it, anyway) to re-assume powers it had had taken away from it some time ago.

      Start with the Patriot Act: everything thinks that it just magically appeared in front of Congress right after 9/11. That's a huge document, however, and a lot of thought went into it. Those who put it in front of Congress had it ready, just waiting for the right situation to occur so they could ram it through. And they did. I'll leave it up to you conspiracy types to decide if 9/11 was allowed to happen for just that reason.

      Keep in mind that law enforcement, specifically the FBI, was just as abusive during the early stages of the Cold War as they are now. It got so bad that Congress had to step in and limit their power. And those limits were in place for decades for good reason until the Patriot Act stripped them away. Now we're right back where we were, only worse because they have a hell of a lot more technology at their beck-and-call than they did then.

      Terrorism actually offers much better justification than the Red Scare ever did. There's no overt enemy to point at and say, "there's the bad guy ... get him!" It's just this miasma of fear that can be used to get anything through Congress.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    8. Re:Luddite victims. by Falconhell · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They wanted US troops out of Saudi arabia, and they are out! Sounds like they got what they wanted.

  2. Profiteering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This guy is just another Spam king Profiteering. He is trying to spin a political message on top of the spam but that's about it.

  3. Not negative? by Alwin+Henseler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Two points:

    1. Writing malware has 0 effect at large, until it's put out into the wild. Once out, damage is done & cannot ever be undone. Yes it might help to increase OS security over time, yes it'll keep anti-virus companies in business, but it's always a net negative for society. Prevention & cleanup takes time. Time that will not be spent on more useful things.
    2. What that malware will do over time & for what other purposes it might be used, will have little (if anything) to do with your original intentions. It's a vehicle, and if it works, others (with a different agenda) will ride that vehicle too.
    1. Re:Not negative? by nedlohs · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not necessarily. Active malware tends to get the software producer to fix the bug faster. Hence less damaging malware now, might see the issue fixed before more damaging malware is released - that would be a net positive for society.

      Of course you can never know, all you know is the damage done by the malware that was released.

    2. Re:Not negative? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      That is still the broken window fallacy.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

      However, in this case you are adding in a 'crack' in the corner of the window and it may have caused some water damage in the future.

      So instead of buying a blob of caulk and putting it in the corner and replacing the window when he can. He needs to replace the whole window right now because some punk smashed it.

      Take example of the Sony PS3. Recently hacked to let people run linux again. Sony rushed out a patch to cover that hack. They could have used that manpower to be making a new feature. Instead it looks like from the outside (and someone who doesnt bother hacking his ps3) it was an 'all hands on deck' sort of feature push. Then all of the wasted time of millions of PS3s needing to be updated. Does that sound like 'harmless' hacking? No it caused a company to spend millions then millions more of peoples time and electricity. But by GOD my ps3 is more secure now!

    3. Re:Not negative? by nedlohs · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No it's not the broken window fallacy. Do you just post random crap in random places.

      If it is you'll be able to point to part which is about the economy being improved by the busy work of repairing the damage. But you can't because it wasn't there and because you are fucking retarded.

    4. Re:Not negative? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Awww did I say something you didnt like?

      Not necessarily. Active malware tends to get the software producer to fix the bug faster. Hence less damaging malware now, might see the issue fixed before more damaging malware is released - that would be a net positive for society.

      Of course you can never know, all you know is the damage done by the malware that was released.

      Sorry I didnt quote you.

      You suppose that by diverting attention from new thing being worked on right. So we can fix things that are now broken and being exploited is not wasting money?

      Some douche bag shows up and finds a hole in the system (and you can try and try and make the system better but you will never find them all). So now thousands of people and millions of dollars are spent fixing something *right now*. Instead of getting rolled up into proper testing and when the right people can look at it.

      Using my PS3 example show me how I am better off now? I spent 20-30 mins updating it at a cost to my time as I could not use the online functionality until I did so. SONY spent millions of dollars patching the hole. The fallacy part is that my time is better spent sitting around for an update. Also the millions that SONY spent is better spent on patching this.

      Putting it in 'broken window' terms and virus/Trojan terms it is like saying 'see now the guy is better off now he has double paned windows with glazing so he will now save money'. Maybe he was going to do that in the future maybe not. But see we got it done faster and the world is a better place. Which is almost exactly what you said. And like I said BROKEN WINDOW FALLACY

      But I 'just post random crap in random places'. What do I know I only majored in economics and fucking retarded...

      You sir are a troll.

  4. Re:"Anti-US" Hacker? by Chrisq · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Where do they get that? Plenty of Americans with functioning synapses say the same damn thing about the Iraq Clusterfuck, and Terry Jones *IS* a fucking troglodyte.

    You are absolutely correct. This is the same mentality as those who say that opposing the building of the Ground Zero Mosque is "anti-Islamic". You can dislike something supported by some members of a group without being "anti" that group.

  5. After the fact rationalization by antifoidulus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If his payload was something *OTHER* than spam I might be more inclined to believe him, but delivering spam to people usually also involves delivering money to his bank account. He is just looking for a nobler purpose to game some "cred" I guess, and opposing the Iraq war in the cracker community is 99% of the time a pretty safe bet.

    --
    Monstar L
  6. Re:Worm smash! by bsDaemon · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yeah, but then you lose your spam net. He may not be a "negative person," but his positive attitude creating 10% of all spam on the net over a period of time isn't exactly a charitable gesture. But then, I think spammers are worse than terrorists.

  7. Famous Last Words... by geekmux · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "He said he had not expected the worm to spread as broadly as it had..."

    Gee, we've never heard that one before...

    At one point it accounted for 10% of the world's spam, but "I'm not negative person!"

    Yeah, I guess he's right. There's a difference between a "negative" person and an idiot.

  8. Re:"Anti-US" Hacker? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    What is it if not anti-Islamic? Should churches and synagogues in the vicinity be torn down? New churches and synagogues banned in the vicinity?
    This is essentially a non-issue among most New Yorkers, the people who have an issue with this come from elsewhere, part of extremist Christian groups.

  9. Re:"Anti-US" Hacker? by internettoughguy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Where do they get that? Plenty of Americans with functioning synapses say the same damn thing about the Iraq Clusterfuck, and Terry Jones *IS* a fucking troglodyte.

    You are absolutely correct. This is the same mentality as those who say that opposing the building of the Ground Zero Mosque is "anti-Islamic". You can dislike something supported by some members of a group without being "anti" that group.

    No, It's more like saying that those who are opposed to Al-Qaeda are anti-Islamic. Those who are opposed to what amounts to little more than a Muslim YMCA, are most likely anti-Islamic.

  10. Re:Just another victim by KiltedKnight · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm always amazed at how so many people can so easily fall for something that was at best a third grade attempt. Several of my coworkers and I were unhappy, to say the least, because we all took one look at the email and said that a blind man should've been able to pick up on this. And then someone chimed in with probably what was the best comment about why this happened. He suggested that it's been many years since we've seen this kind of attack go this rampant so everyone's guard was let down such that they didn't believe these attacks happened any more.

    --
    OCO is Loco
  11. Re:"Anti-US" Hacker? by dave420 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's not a mosque, and it's not at ground zero. Anyone who says they can't build their community center on their own property is doing so because they don't like Islam. That's the only possible reason. Oh, or they really like the old coat factory and want it to stay the same - that would work, too.

  12. Re:"Anti-US" Hacker? by interkin3tic · · Score: 2, Insightful

    From TFA:

    SecureWorks Researcher Joe Stewart believes that Iraq Defense is a Libyan hacker who is trying to gain followers for a cyber jihad hacking group called Brigades of Tariq ibn Ziyad.

    It definitely sounds tenuous, my first thought was this was some bored kid in suburbia who accidentally caused some damage and was trying to throw off the trail. It sounds though like Robert McMillian of PC world is convinced. Stewart's article is a little more skeptical about that group being the actual perpetrator, but if it is...

    The goal of Tariq ibn Ziyad is "to penetrate U.S. agencies belonging to the U.S. Army," Iraq Resistance said, according to a Google translation of his post announcing the group.

    Even then, "anti-american" is arguably an overstatement. Anyway, there might be a little more than just "I don't think the US should be in Iraq."

  13. Re:"Anti-US" Hacker? by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And that the site was damaged in the attacks, making it part of ground zero

    Only by redefining the term "ground zero". Ground zero does not include any and all areas that has been damaged it only refers to the "point directly below an explosion". So no, it is not at "ground zero" at all.

  14. Re:"Anti-US" Hacker? by Custard+Horse · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think part of the problem is that the protesting is based around allowing a building 'for the terrorists' rather than recognising that islamic terrorists make up a tiny fraction of the Islamic community.

    Consider this with the fact that muslims were killed in the Twin Towers attack *and* that muslims were also part of the rescue services (plenty of whom lost their lives in the rescue effort) and the protest against the muslim support centre or mosque or whatever seems, well, bigoted.

    There was a women from the UK on BBC news on Saturday who lost her son in the attack and she said that you can't blame the Islamic community for the actions of fundamentalists and it is not acceptable to burn sacred texts (referring to the proposed book burning by the disillusioned, former (probably) worst hotel manager, Kentucky pastor nut-job). She then went on to say that she disagreed with the building of the Mosque near ground zero but gave no adequate reasoning. I put this down to her emotional involvement as it contradicts everything else she had said previously.

    With such 'logic' you may as well blame men for all war or pigs for tasting so good. How about blaming all Catholics for paedophilia? Some Catholic priests are kiddy-fiddlers therefore all Catholics are kiddy-fiddlers. Fair? I think not.

    If you are going to blame a whole religious community you may as well allow a tit-for-tat reaction - I propose allowing muslims to destroy a Christian Church - a good one, Catholic or at least one where they take their shit seriously - but not allow them to rebuild. Karma restored and everyone is equally happy or unhappy.

  15. Re:"Anti-US" Hacker? by Abcd1234 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Its interesting to compare the reaction of the Muslims supporting the mosque and community centre being build in the area damaged by the planes with the carmalite convent as auschwits, which was relocated.

    Except, of course, that's completely different. The convent wasn't relocated because some hate-filled "Catholics" ran the camp, but because the Jewish community felt it would distract from the suffering jews were subjected to. Oh, plus the convent was going to be built right on the periphery of the camp. Not a couple blocks away, but literally right there.

    'course, I also think that case was fucking ridiculous. But that's neither here nor there. The point is, it's a totally different situation.

    And yes I would oppose converting a building damaged by a christian anti-abortion bomber to a church, or the opening of an irish Catholic centre at the site of the Baltic exchange.

    Why? Religion didn't cause those acts. People did.

    No offense, but your position strikes me as both irrational and bigoted. Doubly so given the area is known for having a large muslim population (it was once nicknamed Little Syria, ffs), and that this facility is actually a couple blocks away from ground zero.

  16. Re:"Anti-US" Hacker? by Abcd1234 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And when pretty much 99.9999% of the people who oppose the Iraq war criticize it because "those durn Amerikkkan Neokkkon Fascist hicks are at it again"

    They do? Weird. Because I'm pretty sure most people opposed the Iraq war because, you know, it was justified with lies.

    But hey, what do I know, I'm not a total fucking idiot...

  17. "I'm not a negative person" by Tomsk70 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm not a burglar either - I was just breaking into your house and messing it up to show you how unsecure the locks are.

  18. Anti-war is not "Anti-US" by wealthychef · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just because the worm author makes statements agains the US war in Iraq and calls himself "Iraqi resistance" does not mean he is anti-US. I too am agains the war in Iraq. Is it possible to disagree with US foreign policy and not be accused of being a traitor? Yes, I know he crossed a line making a (fairly harmless) worm, but this guy sounds as much aligned with US interests as most beer-swilling, harley-riding, pit bull owning flag wavers.

    --
    Currently hooked on AMP
  19. Re:"Anti-US" Hacker? by Abcd1234 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It takes some serious balls and a bad attitude to make a decision like that when you know damn well THAT people are going to be upset and WHY

    Only if you assume people are bigoted assholes who can't differentiate between a religion and a bunch of extremist terrorists.

    Do you really think so little of people? If so, maybe that highlights the *real* problem, don't you think?

    And even if you say that once it's built it's just a house of worship that people use normally--who would move into a place like that knowing its location?

    Uh, maybe the many muslims who've lived, worked, and worshipped in the area for decades?

    If a Christian church was set up in a place a Christian had deliberately attacked, I would expect as a sign of decency that they would have some obvious, public way for attendees to offer prayers to those hurt, which would hopefully be permanent.

    People can pray for whatever the fuck they want to pray for. Why the fuck should any such facility be obligated to continuously apologize for the acts of a bunch of assholes, save that people are too stupid to understand that said assholes don't represent the entirety of said religion?

    But it doesn't matter, because all of this is missing the entire fucking point:

    These people bought and paid for a piece of *private property*. They are now building a *legal facility* on those grounds. Protest it all you want, but that is their right, and neither the people nor the government have any right to interfere. Don't like it? Change the constitution.