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Fox News Ties 'Flame' Malware To Angry Birds

Posted by Soulskill on from the there's-bad-men-in-our-internets dept.

eldavojohn writes "The title of this hard-hitting piece of journalism reads 'Powerful 'Flame' cyberweapon tied to popular Angry Birds game,' and opens with, 'The most sophisticated and powerful cyberweapon uncovered to date was written in the LUA computer language, cyber security experts tell Fox News — the same one used to make the incredibly popular Angry Birds game.' The rest of the details that are actually pertinent to the story follow that important message. The graphic for this story? Perhaps a map of Iran, or the LUA logo, or maybe the stereotyped evil hacker in a ski mask? Nope, all Angry Birds. Describing LUA as 'Gamer Code,' Fox for some reason (popularity?) selects Angry Birds from an insanely long list in their article implying guilt-by-shared-development-language. I'm not sure if explaining machine language to them would alleviate the perceived problem or cause them to burn their desktops in the streets and launch a new crusade to protect the children."

18 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Next up... by jakimfett · · Score: 4, Funny

    It would make a crazy sort of sense, yes? If Angry Birds was actually malware...

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    Bits of code, random ramblings: jakimfett.com
    1. Re:Next up... by pushing-robot · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh, sure, if they just wanted to drop the name somewhere in the article as an example of how many popular games and applications use LUA, that would be one thing.

      But this is not that thing.

      The very title of the Fox article is the ever-so-fair-and-balanced:

      Powerful ‘Flame’ cyberweapon tied to popular Angry Birds game

      ...So I'm going to have to go with "Fox News is Stupid" on this one.

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      How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
    2. Re:Next up... by flyingsquid · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Here's the start of the actual article:

      "The most sophisticated and powerful cyberweapon uncovered to date was written in the LUA computer language, cyber security experts tell Fox News -- the same one used to make the incredibly popular Angry Birds game.

      LUA is favored by game programmers because it’s easy to use and easy to embed. Flame is described as enormously powerful and large, containing some 250,000 lines of code, making it far larger than other such cyberweapons. Yet it was built with gamer code, said Cedric Leighton, a retired Air Force Intelligence officer who now consults in the national security arena.

      “The people who developed the malware found an ingenious way to use a code not part and parcel of a hacker’s normal arsenal, and that made it harder to detect,” he told Fox News.

      It goes on like that. I hate to say anything nice about Fox News, but this is actually a well-written and informative piece of journalism. The problem is the title of the article, which is idiotic and sensationalistic. Given that the article itself is a decent piece of work and the title seems like it was written by someone who likes to stick crayons up their nose, my guess is that the writer did a careful job on the piece and their editor wanted a title that would get people's attention, and changed the title. Of course, given that we're all discussing the article now, a cynic could argue that this was the right call...

  2. Red birds by MooseTick · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now we know why those birds are red.They are obviously commies.

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    Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
    1. Re:Red birds by mwvdlee · · Score: 5, Funny

      If they're cybercommies, they're probably from cyberia.

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  3. SO related by Tsu-na-mi · · Score: 5, Funny

    So.. Flame is about as related to Angry Birds as Fox News is related to facts then?

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    I've built up so much character I have an alter-ego
    1. Re:SO related by Hatta · · Score: 5, Funny

      Fox News is written in the same language as the Unabomber Manifesto. Coincidence?

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      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    2. Re:SO related by jd · · Score: 5, Funny

      Maybe not - the language WAS invented by psychotic warrior tribes (the Angles and Saxons) and then added to by other psychotic warrior tribes (the Norse, the Danes and the Normans).

      Huh. Just thought. Maybe the Normans were psychotic out of confusion - none of them were actually CALLED Norman, they all had French names.

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      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    3. Re:SO related by Nerdfest · · Score: 4, Funny

      I link the Assembly language idea. Scaring all Fox news listeners away from any computer use would help solve a lot of problems.

  4. ffs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Lua is not an acronym. It is a WORD. It even strains on the lua.org website, that Lua is a word meaning moon in Portuguese, not an acronym.
    If it were an acronym it'd stand for "learn ur acronyms".

    1. Re:ffs by jd · · Score: 5, Funny

      Not only is it used by gamers and LaTeX (obviously a secret fetishist group), it's got a Foreign Name! That must surely be all the evidence Fox needs!

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      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  5. News Corp making a play for Rovio? by rk · · Score: 5, Funny

    Seriously, some people should be banned for life from writing tech stories. That's somewhat akin to saying the Queen of England is tied to a kidnapping because the ransom note was written in English.

    1. Re:News Corp making a play for Rovio? by almitydave · · Score: 4, Funny

      ... or "BMW 3-Series tied to Nazi death camps" ... or "Nuclear testing tied to Fukushima disaster" ... or "President Obama tied to Florida cannibal"

      It's almost like a game, find the most outrageous thing you can tie to the most popular innocent sounding thing, using the most superficial of reasons.

      "Killer Physics: Gyroscopic Effect Tied to All Motorcycle Fatalities!"

      I'm not even all that creative, I'm sure others can do better.

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    2. Re:News Corp making a play for Rovio? by mooingyak · · Score: 4, Funny

      "President Obama tied to Florida cannibal"

      Somehow I can't help but read this one literally.

      --
      William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
  6. Fox is related to Terrorism by whisper_jeff · · Score: 4, Funny

    This just in - Fox News is related to Terrorism in that both use the english language to communicate.

    See what I did there Fox? Yeah. We saw what you did there too.

  7. Re:please tell me it's generational by Mordok-DestroyerOfWo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I wish I could agree with that, but there are plenty of people in my age demographic (25-35) who get all of their talking-points from Fox News. I'm not sure why we eased up on the laws allowing Rupert Murdoch to own media in the U.S., but we pay for it every day in the form of continuing ignorance and whack-job propaganda/conspiracy theories.

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    "Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
  8. In other news by Georules · · Score: 4, Funny

    Fox News is commonly written in English, the same language used to write Twilight. This clearly ties them to sparkly vampires who are destroying our youth.

  9. Re:Angry Birds reference makes perfect sense ... by deniable · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, and the Unabomber's manifesto was written in English, the same language used by Shakespeare. Now the bard is also a terrorist. I'm surprised they didn't call Flame a Brazilian plot. They're behind this whole LUA thing.