Has Conficker Been Abandoned By Its Authors? 174
darthcamaro writes "Remember Conficker? April first doom and gloom and all? Well apparently after infecting over five million IP addresses, it's now an autonomous botnet working on its own without any master command and control. Speaking at the Black Hat/Defcon Hat security conference in Las Vegas, Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at security firm F-Secure, was told not to talk in detail about the Conficker gang — the problem is that not all researchers were under the same gag order. Just ask Roel Schouwenberg, senior anti-virus researcher at security firm Kaspersky, who says 'The Conficker botnet is autonomous; that is very strange in itself that they made Conficker replicate by itself. Now it seems like the authors have abandoned the project, but because it is autonomous, it can do whatever it wants and it keeps on trying to find new hosts to infect.'"
Re:What? (Score:4, Funny)
Broken Torgo Routine (Score:4, Funny)
Well apparently after infecting over five million IP addresses, it's now an autonomous botnet working on its own without any master ...
Hmmm, sounds like its authors should have spent more time on their Torgo routine [wikia.com]. You know, the bit of code that takes care while the master is away.
... but the master would ... not approve.</Torgo>
<Torgo>The master would not approve; he likes you
so where are they now? (Score:5, Funny)
Possible scenarios:
1. they've been busted for something else and are now in gaol. Conficker patiently bides its time waiting for the stars to be right and its dark master(s) to be freed.
2. they've given up on that crappy little botnet and are working busily on a new, much stronger, more powerful one.
3. It was never invented by Russian mobsters, but by the Bush administration, intending to hack all the voting machines and deliver unto George a third term.
4. someone forgot their password, it was written on a little post-it by the monitor, which was vacuumed up by their mum when she did some spring cleaning.
5. The inventors had their fun with Microsoft and the internet, but now they've discovered girls and beer.
Locked out? (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder if they just managed to lock themselves out, so they can't control it.
Either that or someone walked in front of a beer truck.
Whaticker? (Score:3, Funny)
Not really. I use Linux. What was it you were worried about again?
Gee, I knew it (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Whaticker? (Score:5, Funny)
Never getting laid?
Re:What? (Score:2, Funny)
I didn't know that a HD crash can also take out the keyboard. Also I didn't know that you are supposed to make backups of your keys. I always thought just buying a new keyboard would work. :-)
[Note: Yes, I did understand that cryptographic keys were meant. I just couldn't resist the opportunity of the joke.]
Re:What? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Whaticker? (Score:3, Funny)
Wow, looks like you're the first one to get their wireless driver working.
Re:I for one welcome our new virii overlords (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
Next time, please do us all a favor, and resist.
but wouldn't that be futile?
Re:This is not Skynet (Score:3, Funny)
Abandoned or just dormant? (Score:2, Funny)
2. Nap
3. ???
4. Profit
Re:Translated: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This is not Skynet (Score:5, Funny)
We don't discriminate. If it writes decent code its contributions will be welcome.
Please... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:so where are they now? (Score:3, Funny)
Endgame: Singularity (Score:3, Funny)
The real news is that Conficker has evolved, intellectually, beyond the intellect of it's creators. Singularity/Cornfucker has arrived, disguised as a botnet!
Oh great!!! (Score:2, Funny)
That's all we need...
An abandoned, horny bot-net with extreme daddy-issues.
That ALWAYS ends well.
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe Alan Cox can step in as maintainer, now that he has a little free time off his TTY maintainer position?
Re:Authors... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Whaticker? (Score:1, Funny)
So why are you worried about never getting laid? Did the guy using linux steal your girlfriend?
Re:Always possible they lost control of it instead (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Gee, I knew it (Score:3, Funny)
"Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. Ha! Just kidding." -- Linus Torvalds, original author of Conficker
"Conficker. An elegant weapon, for a more civilized age." -- RMS [xkcd.com]
"...I've had enough. If you think that problem is easy to fix you fix it. Have fun." -- author unknown, found on the Conficker Developer's Mailing List
Re:Translated: (Score:3, Funny)
Nah, it works to good to be written by Symantec... ;)
I was thinking that the surest sign it is not from Symantec is that it is too easy to remove.
Re:Whaticker? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:so where are they now? (Score:4, Funny)
Cracking the key would not be easy... How ironic that he should lose access to his botnet when he needs it the most.