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Melissa suspect arrested
Stone Table writes
"MSNBC reports that the FBI arrested a suspect believed to have authored the Melissa virus "
This is definitely a tricky one: course, its a windows email
virus, so it doesn't affect most of us, but he was tracked
using the MS GUID. Justice? Big Brother? I'm not sure
which.
Sure, they'd arrest all of you. So? You were going to plead not guilty after posting your intentions here? Maybe they don't have the jail space for all of you. So they'll have to settle for probation, community service (you like picking up trash, right?), and some gi-normous fine with your wages garnished until you die. You get to be part of a batch justice process. A large joint trial for you and your hundred closest, with a template sentence. Followed by the next group, and the next, in lots as big as the courtroom will hold. And it'll still be a felony conviction, so no voting, no guns, good luck getting a job to pay that whopping fine. Your terms of probation will probably include the old-standby "no using a computer" for the next three years, good luck staying current and marketable. And I'm sure your probation officer will be a caring, understanding, people-person, who won't declare you in violation for quitting that miserable job you got right after your conviction when your old gig tossed you. You did know that probabtion officers get to control your life right up until the absolute last day of your time? You'll miss those friends, but associating with anyone else who got nailed at the same time is a violation of your probation.
If tons of folks are convicted, you won't all get to hit the speaker circuit. No big advance cash from the book. No TV time to espouse your cause. No "hey, I *wrote* this cool thing." Nope, you'll just be some copycat anarchist wannbe with delusions of adequacy.
Yup, yup, sign me up.
That's not even sheep behavior, you've moved on to lemming. Congrats.
-reemul
who actually prefers that the criminally silly declare themselves in such a way, it makes them easier to spot
You're just jealous 'cuz the voices talk to *me*
Granted, I'm not a lawyer, in fact I really know next to nothing about law of any kind. But I do seem to remember something about 'expectation of pricacy.' It would seem to me that anybody who is tracked because they used Microsoft products did not realize that by using MS products they were having an electronic tattoo placed on their forearm, and thusly any information that was gathered by using the MS-forearm-tattoo would be inadmissable in a court of law. I could be completely off-base, but I sure hope not.
Another reason this really scares me is suddenly the whole idea of this MS-forearm-tattoo will all of a sudden become more palatable to the general public. When you tell them that they are being tracked by a for-profit corporation the first thing they'll think is "Yeah, but it's only used to catch bad guys."
Computers have already infiltrated our lives to an intimate level, and I find it disheartening that there seems to be both a general disregard and sullen apathy when it comes to dealing with the ramifications of this infiltration. This is doubly disturbing when you realize that everyone also agrees that this is just the tip of the iceberg.
I guess it's time to run off to a deserted island with the Professor, Skipper, and Mary Ann. Who knows, maybe I could get Linux running on one of the Professor's coconut-computers . . .
Sean
RFC2119
Sorry I've gotta disagree with you big time here. Your malice and anger are displaced. Why? Personally I have more respect for the virus author than for anyone who fell for it. Too many people are becoming too relient on technology they don't understand.
At least the author understood the system well enough to exploit it.
The lusers who actually let the virus run free on their system by allowing software to run macros automatically on incoming e-mail messages are the ones I blame. Them and a culture that tries to get us to accept more technology into our life without understanding it.
Don't get me wrong. Viruses Piss me off big time. But having been around computers since the mid eighties and for a good part of that time being too involved in "fringe activities" (Shall we say?) I have never lost any data to a virus.
Sure I've lost some time getting rid of it but at least I leared my lesson and looked at my computing habits.
Protecting yourself from computer viruses isn't all that much harder than locking your car doors when you get out. Of course I know a college grad who got upset when someone stole his car stereo even though he parked it with the windows open and doors unlocked.
--- Juggle juggle@hitesman.com
I'm a sysadmin. In the end, people like me get stuck with cleaning up the mess whenever any over-hormoned cracker decides to crack/write virii/pingbomb/etc. a machine/network. I can certainly sympathize with alot of the people calling for lynching this guy. Though I don't think that's the right answer.
And, while I can certainly appreciate the skills that go into writing virii, that doesn't mean we should in any way encourage this sort of "skill". That includes the sort of nudge, nudge, wink, wink> comments I've seen here. Yeah, Charles Manson was one of the most skillfull and persuasive leaders of the 70s, but I don't want anymore of that type around, either.
Microsoft (and others) deserve to get nailed with a "defective product" suit one of these days for shipping shoddy products. That day will come (sooner, I hope, than later). But encouraging vandals (and let's not kid ourselves, that's what crackers and virus-writers are) isn't the solution.
An analogy, if I may:
In my neighboorhood, 9 of the ten houses are built by XYZ, and come with 10 door locks (of which 5 are broken, and the other 5 are very hard to turn). 1 house (built by ABC) has 3 locks, all easily set. One day, a burgler walks down my street, wiggling the door to each house. If he can open the door, he walks in, re-arranges the furniture, and smashes a few things. If he can't open the door, he goes to the next one. So, guess what! 3 houses get sacked, and they were all made by XYZ. Now, do I complain to the police that XYZ should be held responsible for smashing my furniture? No! I help catch the burgler, send him to jail, and then file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau about the shoddy work that XYZ does (maybe even a civil suit).
Virii-writers are pond scum. If you are smart enough to find a bug/exploit in a program, TELL CERT! That's what they're there for. Sure, the responsible company might not fix it fast. But that doesn't make it right to go smashing other people's property. If the software company isn't responsive to security demands, well, vote with your feet (and dollars). Don't buy from them.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
Call me pervert, but I actually enjoyed reading all those reports about Melissa spreading and knoking out mail systems ;)
Seriously, I think this is kinda Microsofts fault. It is a fact of life, that if something can be missused, it will. And what measures does Microsoft take to prevent the missuse of Word and Excel macros? None. Of course, technically it isn't their fault, but I think it's clear that MS should fix the HUGE security holes in Office and Windows.
Everyone believes its a law of nature that all software is susceptible to viruses like this. Even word processor documents! Why is it so impossible to explain to people that the outrage is MS-Word, not the Melissa virus!
As with all virii that expose a security flaw, I hold no grudge against the author of the Melissa virus. But, I think that while Microsoft somewhat to blame, in this instance, this should also be a warning to Unix comunity. This isn't just an email virus. It also plays social-engineering tricks on you. This virus comes from a known email address.
If a friend sent me a PERL script and said it was amusing, it's very possible that I'd run it. I would hopefully look at the source first; and wouldn't run it as root. But, what if I felt lazy that day.
If we aren't lazy this isn't a huge problem. Many of us would be wary of a binary, and know enough about programming to examine source code. What will our community look like next year? The Linux community is expanding quickly. We've got project s like KDE and GNOME trying to make things more user-friendly. The hacker-quotient is, and will continue, to drop rapidly.
In this instance, User-Friendly is what caused the propogation of this bug. User-Friendly is what makes it possible for some virii to spread. Either by having automated startup routines that a user rarely sees, or doesn't know about (Mellisa would auto-run through an init file), or automated features that make you lazy. The 'user-friendly' thing for an email client to do is to make attachments automatically run, or make them easy to run.
As we, as a community, become more user friendly; as we attract more hands-off users, I feel that we will be opening up possibilties for this kind of virus to sneak into our ranks. I can't really think of anyway to prevent this kind of program from propogating, aside from awareness. But, as we increase automation we seem to also decrease awareness.
It was handy once, and will be handy to catch abject imbeciles, but the MS GUID (and the Pentium III digital serial number) won't be of any help to catching the moderately intelligent criminals. They'll skate around it somehow (I can think of two ways right now) and we'll still pay the viral price.
My mother-in-law, a woman in her 50s who's firmly turned-on to the digital age but remains innocent of all but the most basic knowledge regarding computer security issues, is an easy target for these virii. She's still a digital toddler; she trusts all the digital adults out there and doesn't know that some of the misguided ones are out to hurt her. She's got some top-flight viral protection on her machine, but that only helps for the known virii.
In the end, it comes down to education. As much as I hate it, I get to shatter her innocent enjoyment of computing and show her a bit of the darker side; she'll be wiser for it, I know, but watching her take such joy in the medium that I've grown inured to was quite pleasurable to me -- like hearing a five-year-old laugh at a silly joke you heard ages ago and chuckling to yourself, knowing how much more pleasure is ahead.
Thanks, VicodinES, for dragging her into your world.