<OT> I can't resist

[Walter Dnes]

On Thu, Feb 26, 2004 at 02:30:26PM -0500, Fraser Campbell wrote

> On the day that a worm is released to destroy systems rather than
> to just annoy, what will be their spin?  Any bets on the placement
> of blame?  Here are my top choices:
> 
> - the open source people did it
> - the security community is to blame
> - Bin Laden did it
> - I did it (since after all I suggested it here!)

  Actually, I beat you to it.  I've gotten annoyed enough that I
suggested in NANAE (news.admin.net-abuse.email) that governments
commisssion a virus/worm that drops a DOS executable, and reboots into
DOS, then loads itself into memory, low-level mis-formats the hard drive
and flashes garbage into the BIOS for good measure.

  If people have their systems protected properly, this virus wouldn't
hurt them.  If it works on them, then they were vulnerable.  Better to
lose one computer, rather than...

  a) have it spam for illegal stuff on behalf of organized crime, and
     (see http://www.theregister.com/content/55/35722.html ) and let's
     not forget what they did to Osirusoft and Monkeys.com

  b) be used by organized crime as tools in extortion against businesses

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes-SLHPyeZ9y/tg9hUCZPvPmw at public.gmane.org>
Email users are divided into two classes;
1) Those who have effective spam-blocking
2) Those who wish they did
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