The Psychology of Virus Writers 253
securitas writes "BBC Technology reports on the psychology of virus writers and the work of security researcher Sarah Gordon, who has been studying this area for 20 years. ''The stereotype that virus writers are all young teenage boys with no social life, hiding in their basement is not accurate,' she said. In contrast, she said, most virus creators are typical for their age, are on good terms with friends and family and are often contributors to their local community.' The story is an interesting contrast to a previous BBC report about why people write viruses."
virus-con (Score:4, Interesting)
Do virus writers really go to virus conventions? I'd think you'd find people like Ms Gordon, undercover FBI, wannabe 133t teenagers, and maybe a couple former virus writers out of jail and trying to find admiration.
Re:virus-con (Score:4, Informative)
Re:virus-con (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, for the general public it might be big news that writing viruses, especially nowadays with MS Outlook everywhere, has become a challenge just about only for a few teenagers. The article didn't mention anything about even the possibility of someone writing viruses for some ill purpose e.g. creating spam drones, preparing for a DDoS attack or whatever.
In a typical psychologist style there were general statements like "viruses written by hackers are more complex". Who's a hacker? For me it's Linus and Alan Cox etc. not someone running "nmap" and waiting for a new exploit to be published. The point is there is no clear definition of a"hacker" and the statement becomes plain meaningless. What does "typical of their age mean"? Oh nevermind.
Btw. Also I'm not sure what she meant by "participating in the local community". Does that mean slashdot?
Re:virus-con (Score:5, Informative)
Sure, geeks and
So the use of the word geek does not make the article loose validity.
Re:The usual fakery, I think. (Score:2, Informative)
Have you seen a picture of her [com.com]? Maybe attractive if I put on my beer goggles. She probably didn't get her job just on looks and while not be a programmer the media seems to think she's a computer security expert [google.com]. Disclaimer: I only know what little I've read about her. Personally, I think you're right about the article. It makes a lot of weeping statements and generalizations without facts to back them up.
Re:The usual fakery, I think. (Score:3, Interesting)
Ms. Gordon is not actually logical?
Hired for her looks?
Typical of the "culture of American women"?
One psychologist writes an article (intended for mass consumption, not an academic audience), and you forgo logic to assume all women are illogical.
Let me guess, women make their decisions based on emotions, you buy into the theory that PMS is behind most female crimes, etc.
At least TRY to be logical when attacking someone else for being illogical.
In terms o
Cracker or hacker? (Score:2)
A form of PR (Score:2, Interesting)
So she may know for what she speaks in a general sense.
BUT... why hire her?
Quite simple even from the early days of anti-virus companys a certan amount of hype was needed to keep in business.
Macafie's early virus infection stats were so inflated some in the field were very scepitcal.
Unix experts were quick to point out that ANY secure operating system would resist virus infection and blamed viruses on Dos having primitive multitasking with out the precaution of se
There are 4 kinds of users. (Score:3, Interesting)
The parent post is not well written, but it does answer the question posed by the grandparent post.
Basically, he says that virus software is closely related to fraud, or is fraud itself. His argument is that there are 4 kinds of users:
Re:virus-con Sarah is the O.G. (Score:2)
Re:virus-con Sarah is the O.G. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:virus-con Sarah is the O.G. (Score:2)
Actually, it was when she became Mr Gordon
Re:virus-con (Score:4, Funny)
Re:virus-con (Score:2, Funny)
Not really, I think there might be one registered with
But have YOU ever seen her?
Re:virus-con (Score:2, Interesting)
Does it show I don't like virus writers?
Oh, you must be a hacker. From the article:
"In her experience many malicious hackers have a borderline criminal view of the world and do not share mainstream ethical norms."
Re:virus-con (Score:2)
Slashdot? (Score:5, Funny)
How about running a similar investigation on /. folk?
Re:Slashdot? (Score:3, Funny)
How about running a similar investigation on
Result: The average slashdotter is a diehard geek. He does have a social life and gets regular sex with his two friends, miss Right and miss Left.
Re:Slashdot? (Score:5, Interesting)
No, I'm not trolling...
Virus writers get a lot of attention and feedback regarding their work. They usually believe they are exposing some weakness or highlighting some security risk. They see their actions on the news and the internet.
Slashdot posting gives some similar stimuli. By posting an excellent message, the author receives moderation and more people start discussing the idea. Likewise, most slashdotters are posting to expose an idea or highlight something they think somebody else might appreciate.
Both activities give certain rewards. Just like trolling is a cheap (immoral?) way of getting good slashdot stimuli such as responses and emotion... virus writing is a cheap (immoral?) way of getting "rewarded" for programming.
I think the worship of Rand (Atlas Shrugged) is stupid... however, it serve to remind us that people do certain things for rewards--slashdot or virus writing included.
Davak
Re:Slashdot? (Score:1)
Re:Slashdot? (Score:2)
Actually, if you look at
OTOH, often the first two levels
Re:Slashdot? (Score:1)
Stereotypes (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Stereotypes (Score:5, Insightful)
As reported in this [slashdot.org] Slashdot story, the interview is here [nytimes.com] (free reg, etc.)
The relevant question and response were:
We've been getting hit with a lot of viruses and worms lately. What's your idea for ending the attacks?
When you have people who hook up these machines that weren't designed for the Internet, and they don't even want to know about all the intricacies of network security, what can you expect? We get what we have now: a system that can be brought down by a teenager with too much time on his hands. Should we blame the teenager? Sure, we can point the finger at him and say, ''Bad boy!'' and slap him for it. Will that actually fix anything? No. The next geeky kid frustrated about not getting a date on Saturday night will come along and do the same thing without really understanding the consequences. So either we should make it a law that all geeks have dates -- I'd have supported such a law when I was a teenager -- or the blame is really on the companies who sell and install the systems that are quite that fragile.
Though I respect Linus (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why people write viruses? (Score:5, Insightful)
The kids who learnt how to do this 5-10 years ago are now living off it. For the really good virus writers, it's become a career.
Re:Why people write viruses? (Score:2, Interesting)
I suspect the modern corporate virus writer would be the employee who spends the majority of time playing company politics, as opposed to the Dilbert type engineer that loathes politics.
I suspect that mos
Re:Why people write viruses? (Score:3, Informative)
Writing self-replicating code that 'lives' in cyberspace is 'cool.' It's completely uncool when it is used in malevolent ways and/or damages anything.
The hacker 'ethic' demands that nothing be damaged, it's more like climbing a mountain 'because it is there.'
Oh the other hand, most of the 'modern' viruses are neither interesting nor technically oriented. Hell, I remember peeking into 'virus writing news
Re:Why people write viruses? (Score:2)
Because it's good business, when you're being paid by spammers to create huge networks of compliant computers.
Viruses are not used by spammers. Worms and trojans may be used by them, but NOT viruses!!! Now, looking at worms and trojans, how many are used by spammers? I work for an AV company, and I know of about 10 worms and less than 20 trojans that are obviously written for spamming purposes.
The kids who learnt how to do this 5-10 years ago are now l
Worms, trojans, viruses (Score:2)
Hardly.
As Slashdot has commented before, the spam industry is probably the main commercial force behind the latest viruses/trojans/worms, not to mention large-scale and sophisticated DDOS attacks on anti-spam vendors.
You are part of the AV industry? And you think you're facing a bunch of teenage script kiddies? God help us all, we're in for real trouble then.
Re:Worms, trojans, viruses (Score:2)
1, I said I work for an AV company. For all you know, I could be in the finance department.
2, What difference does it make what I think? Even if I was a developer, would I deal with things differently because I believe it was written by a scripkiddie, when it was infact written by an organized crime unit? Wouldn't the end result be the same in both cases, regar
One word to sum up the psychology of virus writers (Score:5, Funny)
that's right. (Score:2)
The BBC jouranlist should have done a little more homework and written a story rather than quoting this Symantic employee straight. All the makings of a good story are there, a repeated pattern, many people harmed, a few benifit, and a money trail a mile
New virus authors are different (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:New virus authors are different (Score:2, Interesting)
These newest virii, ie MSblster, are made to impact users, how could you think otherwise? oops sorry i didnt realize that it would shutdown your computer, or perhaps nimda, oh i didnt realize i was collecting your admin passwords to your NT servers, I guess I'll stop now.
The artical was really nothing special except what one person thinks of people shes met, but you cant say with a straight face that a disastor
Re:New virus authors are different (Score:2)
If I understand you correctly, you're making the point that viruses not related to spam are equally destructive. My problem is that spammers are creating viruses as part of a long-term strategy. They are establishing an infrastructure that is already showing long-term impacts on the Internet (huge regions of the net being blacklisted; dynamic and dialups no longer being treated equally).
A teenager gives up on viru
No, it's been done before. (Score:2)
How's this different from Gator and other malware? How about some of Microsoft's practices, like keeping a database of all the movies and songs you use and selling space on "their" desktop to third parties that spam you later? All spam is evil, using proxies is just a new twist.
In any case, the evil would die out if Microsoft did not make a crapy OS that any 17 year old could break. Give credit where credit is
Really, it's not that difficult... (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, things that attack vulnerabilities such as buffer overruns, etc are harder because you actually have to do some research.
A question for
Re:Really, it's not that difficult... (Score:1)
Re:Really, it's not that difficult... (Score:4, Interesting)
The only difference between a virus and a trojan is that with a trojan you know you have SOMETHING on your computer. In many instances, such as with an Outlook attachment, the distinction is unclear.
The important part is that both viruses and trojans cause your computer to do things without your permission.
When you run a program that's supposed to help you paint pretty pictures, and instead it pops up "YOU'RE HOSED!" and wipes out your partition table, it doesn't matter that you knew you were running a program. The point is that you didn't know it would wipe out your hard drive.
If all it does is pop up a window saying "Hi Mom!" then the distinction between a virus and a trojan makes more sense.
While there may be specific laws against writing viruses and/or trojans... there are other laws that can apply too. Criminal Trespass/Damage to Property comes to mind.
Re:Really, it's not that difficult... (Score:3, Interesting)
MSblast and other nasty programs only do things your PC/OS is designed to do, but in a way that you wouldn't want them to, at a time you did not specify.
You could include windows update in that ca
Are stereotypes usally right? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not saying that every stereotype is right all the time, and some are downright wrong, and have been perpetuated, not out of a means of mentally sorting and grouping, but out of hate or fear.
Anyway, I'm gonna go hang out in the backyard of my white Protestant family's backyard and talk about golf while barbecuing.
Re:Are stereotypes usally right? (Score:1)
So, if the sterotype is not generally true, it's not a sterotype.
Re:Are stereotypes usally right? (Score:3, Interesting)
Two quick questions... (Score:5, Funny)
Anyway, I'm gonna go hang out in the backyard of my white Protestant family's backyard and talk about golf while barbecuing.
1) Your backyard has a backyard? Cool!
2) Golf while barbecuing? Do you have a grill hitched to the back of the golf cart? 'Cause that would be neat, but the greenskeeper might get mad. Oh, you meant ((talk about golf) while barbecuing), not (talk about (golf while barbecuing)). Gotcha.
Bet you thought these would be at least somewhat relevant questions about stereotypes. In the words of Dark Helmet: "Fooled you!"
Re:Two quick questions... (Score:2)
Re:Are stereotypes usally right? (Score:2)
Yes. But it annoys Joe Sixpack and his vocabulary and simple understanding of victimhood in society.
social life (Score:2, Funny)
Re:social life (Score:2)
But seriously... I thought computer viruses haven't even been around that long. It was my impression that the first one was Pakistani Brain [brain.net.pk], written in 1986 and not really becoming widespread until the late 80s. 2003-1986 = 17 years.
but what about the psychology of virus catchers? (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember the times when viruses spread around with floppies. It got written into boot sector and loaded into memory when floppy was inserted into drive. Then antivirus programms were necessary. Nowadays, however, it is not a technical issue to write a virus but purely human engineering. Those virus writters have better understanding of average human psychology than I have and they know that average Joe will download untrusted file, or will run the attachment, regardless how suspicious it may look.
Why care about virus writers? They will always be arrond like those who draw grafiti on walls which is a nuisance but not something that any sane man would seriously believe to. Better educate people how to use their computers and whom to trust online.
Re:but what about the psychology of virus catchers (Score:3, Insightful)
For corporations, all it takes is one guy with a laptop to get infected and bypass the firewalls. You might not be affected, but IT depts are.
Re:but what about the psychology of virus catchers (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:but what about the psychology of virus catchers (Score:2)
Because you don't do stupid things like click on attachments that you weren't expecting. Not running Microsoft software helps.
Re:but what about the psychology of virus catchers (Score:2)
Re:but what about the psychology of virus catchers (Score:4, Funny)
(start rant)
Fact is, people, most users are idiots. [thinkgeek.com] People run attachments [thinkgeek.com] and expect geeks to fix it [thinkgeek.com], all the time blaming someone else for their stupidity. [thinkgeek.com]. Seriously, you will not believe the number of times I have been called over by a computer illiterate person [thinkgeek.com], asking whether the Windows prompt boxes on their screens are real (it's really the web page ads that masquerade as prompt boxes) [thinkgeek.com]. I wish there was some kind of mandatory license [thinkgeek.com] to use the Internet; if you know what the hell you're doing, fine, you get to use the internet [thinkgeek.com] with no restrictions. But if you fail, a Special Ops Geek Force [thinkgeek.com] will invade your home, and lockdown [thinkgeek.com] your computers (e.g. firewall, popup blockers, antivirus, etc, that all work automatically). And maybe we can have some fun educating some chicks [thinkgeek.com] about computers.
Re:but what about the psychology of virus catchers (Score:2)
You should write "vaguely remember", because obviously you were quite young and inexperienced then.
not like... (Score:1)
The same could be said about
profile (Score:1)
Someone who wants fame... so, therefore, I would opine that they have low self-esteem, be in a job that doesn't get many rewards (apart from income), seeks personal satisfaction, possibly high IQ, possibly asking themselves the question of the meaning of life
Or, revenge seekers, or just misguided in their zealous attempt to defend a view they passionately believe in....
So true... (Score:3, Funny)
It's true, I'm on the second floor not in the basement.
Side-profile. (Score:2, Insightful)
Couldn't the same be said for most crimminals?
Re:Side-profile. (Score:2, Interesting)
Last time I checked, most *criminal* convicts in the joint have a history of violent behavior, difficulty with anger management, and difficulty expressing strong emotions in a constructive fashion. Don't believe me? Check the type of crowd inhabiting your local county jail.
White-collar criminals, OTOH, often fit the above pattern you describe: these individuals typically have no problem being nice to the people they *know*. They also usually
Ethics etc... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think ethics should be in the school curriculum, but not just with respect to computers. There are far too many self centred people coming out of schools. And by ethics I do not mean religious dogma; I mean an honest, frank, and thoughtfull discussion of consequential and deontological ethics, without reference to religion.
I'd also like to see First-aid and basic emergency procedures a required part of the curriculum... it really sucks to be the only one at an accident scene who knows first aid when you're one of the casualties.
Re:Ethics etc... (Score:2)
See this recent study: Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments. [homeip.net]
Interesting that you mention consequential ethics. Is it actually a field of ethical study? I ask
Re:Ethics etc... (Score:2)
Consequential Ethical theories are those theories that consider the expected consequences of an act, not the intent. It includes:
Re:Ethics etc... (Score:2)
In your article you have an incomplete description of Singer's obligation to assist.
I was not attempting to discuss ethics in detail; I was simply trying to dissect people's common stance on morals. You are focussing on the actual philosophies and logical consistency, and thus you categorize religious morals as irrelevant. From a practical sociological perspective, this is not useful since religious mores are all many people know. I was att
Re:Ethics etc... (Score:2)
The quote you use claiming "Ayn Rand actually denies Singer's definition entirely" is not in reference to Singer's theory of the Obligation to Assist. You are clearly not focusing on logical consistancy.
Seeing that you have chosen the path of a troll, I will not waste my time writing anything more on ethical issues in this thread.
Re:Ethics etc... (Score:2)
The Obligation to Assist, as you have phrased it, is predicated on the notion of a duty to protect others from suffering and death since they have a *right* not to endure suffering. Ayn Rand denies that suffering is a valid basis for rights as I explained; praytell, where is the logical inconsistency?
You assume that simply because it does not reference the Obligation to Assist directly, or that it does not use the identical phrasing that it has no
Re:Ethics etc... (Score:2)
Damn straight. I remember lying in the road with a shattered leg after getting hit on my motorcycle and having to tell people to get a blanket for when I go into shock. People want to help, but it's no good when all they can think to do is pull the keys out of your wrecked motorcycle and say "here's
Re:Ethics etc... (Score:3, Interesting)
You fail it!
Most of the "Ethics" in organized religion is rule utilitarianism. Most religions do not discus why something is the right thing, or the wrong thing to do. They just say (The Lord, or YHVH, or Allah, or the Bobdivista etc) say do (or dont do) this (eat pork or eat beef or eat any animal or cover your he
Re:Ethics etc... (Score:2)
Re:Ethics etc... (Score:2)
That doesn't work because it assumes everyone wants the same things done to them. What do you do about (extreme example) someone who wants others to kill him? Sick person, but proper ethics wouldn't tell him to kill others.
I should also point out... (Score:2)
So tell me now how Ethics comes from religion? Ethics does not mean blindly following your leaders. You must examine the issues for yourself. A secular ethics curriculum gives you the tools to do that. I
She's got her head up her ass (Score:4, Insightful)
Case in point, why hasn't the doomsday virus been released? Think blaster accept it turns your computer into a spam machine and deletes everything accept windows and the virus, for example. Any hacker with sufficient knowledge of how to do this also knows that we live 3 meals from anarchy; if the accounting and shipping systems of a major food chain go down because of your virus and can't be brought back up again, the food won't get delivered. What happens to the inner cities and suburbs? The farms? Other countries?
They know if they do this that they are indirectly fucking themselves, and many infact fear other hackers doing this. This is the reason for blaster; to show everyone how insecure the system is and all it takes is one person with sufficient knowledge to start ww3.
Additionally, hackers are extremly social beings. They all come from varied backround but almost all have 2 things in common; they faced conflict at a young age that they overcame, and that they overcame our school system dumbing down intact enough that they still have a love for learning and playing. They love to be social, infact, some 2600 meetings involve people bringing their boxen, and trying to hack eachother to kingdom com, this is the basis of social virus writing she is talking about although some groups may be more militant than others. Some hacker cons also feature this but wherever there's a major con, there is also feds and police but the smaller meetings are unpoliced and patrons (such as stores, becuase face it, they don't hold these at houses that often) usually welcome the groups as they bring buisness. The more friendly groups welcome newbies to learn so long as they don't come too often (even the best of us will go on a homicidal rampage if people ask questions too often, too repeditvly).
What bothers me is how she ends the article "There are much better ways to use your time online." which shows she knows nothing about the subject she's writing about. Do what else online? But crap? Play games? Watch pr0n and jack off, pirate music and movies, get angry about stuff help political movements? Join a irc group circle jerk where everyone else calls everyone else l33t?
Writing viruses is a crucial part of our society, if it weren't for these smaller groups we wouldn't know how insecure everything is and if we didn't know how insecure everything is, we wouldn't be trying to secure it. Take Independance Day (Yea, the movie with all those aliens and ships nuking us). Why did we win? Because the aliens had bad computer security, that's why. People call me nuts, but when it boils down to it, do you want to be safe from the pain or do you want to take the pain full on and if you survive it, will you then learn?
I also had a big problem with this part;
"I believe that with correctly designed curriculum, talking about ethics can really reduce these behaviours," she said, "they need to learn from the first time they use a computer what is appropriate and what is not." .
Oh, so it's wrong for me to figure out what's wrong with a computer and fix it, but it's right for microsoft to lie to millions of people and advertise their OS as secure then bribe judges to be nice to them? This bitch has no idea what she's talking about and BBC by publishing her bullshit has further done damage to the reputation of hackers everywhere.
Finally, to end this on a constructive note, If you want to have a good understanding of hackers and their nature, listen to radio freek america. They do all sorts of hacking on air th
Re:She's got her head up her ass (Score:3, Interesting)
She didn't talk about MS lying about the security of their products. I think this is annother example of why we need ethics in the highschool curriculum. Corporate leaders and marketing droids have no qualms about deception, just as some claim to have no qualms about breaking other peoples' property t
Re:She's got her head up her ass (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:She's got her head up her ass (Score:2)
Second, back in the day, virus authors DID hang out on BBSs, and FidoNet had (a
You're a tool. (Score:4, Interesting)
Kid, critical shit isn't connected to the Internet. It's just not. Web servers don't count as mission critical. I don't think that anybody died because of "Blaster". Hackers are *not* that important.
They all come from varied backround but almost all have 2 things in common; they faced conflict at a young age that they overcame, and that they overcame our school system dumbing down intact enough that they still have a love for learning and playing.
Yeah, you're describing dorks in school that got beat up. Boo-fuckin'-hoo. If you read the article you'd realize that she said that this is NOT the stereotypical virus writer.
Writing viruses is a crucial part of our society, if it weren't for these smaller groups we wouldn't know how insecure everything is and if we didn't know how insecure everything is, we wouldn't be trying to secure it
Insecure from what? Oh yeah, script kiddies telling us how insecure our boxes are. It's a vicious cycle. Security wouldn't be a problem if not for these little spoiled shits with too much time on their hands.
Take Independance Day (Yea, the movie with all those aliens and ships nuking us). Why did we win? Because the aliens had bad computer security, that's why.
That was the most ridiculous movie I've ever seen. That doesn't prove anything. And yes, you are nuts. Fucking nuts if you think that the movie "Independence Day" proves anything.
Oh, so it's wrong for me to figure out what's wrong with a computer and fix it, but it's right for microsoft to lie to millions of people and advertise their OS as secure then bribe judges to be nice to them?
Last I checked, virus writers aren't fixing anything.
Kid, you're delusional. Get a job. Get a life. Get laid.
Re:You're a tool. (Score:2)
Dumass, so you're telling me that millions of people in corperate america don't have their machines hooked onto the internet? You're telling me every single internet connection of all the fortune 500 companies internal networks are all as secure as the militaries? You're telling me that a virus can't sprea
Re:You're a tool. (Score:2)
WTF??? My copy of the TTL Cookbook [atariarchives.org] is gonna help somebody write a virus?
Don Lancaster, hang your head in shame!
heh
Re:You're a tool. (Score:3, Insightful)
The parent post also neglected to realise that super-destructo viruses have a very short lifespan in the wild, because a virus that kills its hosts doesn't spread nearly as well as one that only subtly disables something but leaves the majority of the system in working order. Also, it's a lot more likely to get noticed and targeted for extermination *real* early in i
Sarah (Score:2)
Re:Sarah (Score:3, Informative)
Shows how much you know.
I'll save you the time. (Score:2)
I don't need a Phd to figure that one out.
Profile of Suicide Bombers. (Score:3, Interesting)
Read about [abc.net.au] Scott Atran's Paper [interdisciplines.org] on the psychology of suicide bombers.
Unless we take the time to understand and remove preconceived moral notions we put ourselves at a disadvantage vis a vis solving the problem by fixing the underlaying issues
Won't happen. (Score:2)
> moral notions
Would be nice, but it won't happen.
Thinking about suicide bombers as crazy fucks is just -WAY- too intellectually comfortable. "They're not like us, son, they're
The truth, which I long suspected and which your link confirms (many thanks for posting it!!) is that they're just
Re:Won't happen. (Score:2)
I have made a suggestion to Charlie Rose [charlierose.com] the excellent PBS talk host to maybe invite Scott Atran to discuss his findings.
Well who knows. I think it is important to try and shape the debate in a different direction, however little the impact.
Not a flattering picture of hackers, bad morals. (Score:3, Interesting)
In her experience many malicious hackers have a borderline criminal view of the world and do not share mainstream ethical norms.
That's what I'd expect someone from Symantic to say. Because Symantic makes it's money protecting and promoting Microsoft junk, this lady is far from impartial. Good virus writers may be hackers, but blaming hackers for viruses is like blaming people for murder.
Her view of script kiddies is also simplistic and patronizing. I'd wager that most script kiddies' outside the "mainstream ethical" norm's thought process has more coherence and depth to it than her blather.
While I don't write viruses and I don't think they are a reasonable form of protest - the moral standpoint is correct. Microsoft is an evil company that produces and forces shoddy, invasive software on the world. They have screwed their business partners, employees, shareholders and customers. Their vision of computing makes TIAA look small and well behaved. Virus writers realize thses things and point them out to people . They exploit holes in Microsoft software to mail out personal information, drive people nuts with adverts and do other things that Microsoft does themselves. They seek to make the public aware of these practices and flaws and have to shout out and make the user notice. They, as most of us here, believe that the world would be better off without Microsoft. People are better off with free software that protects their privacy and control of their machine than they are with Microsoft. Virus writers are pointing out the flaws directly. In deed, these people go out of their way to do it and have no prospect of rewared other than a job well done. Criminal? Perhaps, but so is Microsoft, the convicted anti-trust and IP violator. Condeming the virus writer as criminal and unethical shows a poor understanding of the class.
Re:Not a flattering picture of hackers, bad morals (Score:2)
I'm no fan of Microsoft and dubious about any attempt to coerce a large block of people into a sigle pigeonhole - that doesn't mean I'm going to buy the "robin hood" stoy over the "criminal scum". In fact, after the recent slowdowns due to worms and the relentless increase in spam, I'm tending rather strongly toward the latter
Follow the steps. . . (Score:2)
2. Deliberately create and enforce the use of shoddy OS software vulnerable to virus attacks.
3. Deliberately allow the water to boil until the public is going out of their tiny minds. .
4. Quietly start introducing draconian controls to the web. People, if not begging for them, will at the very least be more likely to tolerate such measures. (And, yes, that would be, 'Profit!')
It's getting close, kids. Cuz, you know, Terrorism, blah
Sarah gordon does not even use her own articles (Score:3, Interesting)
But my main point is here, Every single reporter that I have emailed about making false claims about hackers
So don't take these articles for what they are the media twists them and re writes them all to make them apear sexier, And non of the so claimed authors are truely the real author.
Re:Hackers don't write viruses. (Score:1)
Crackers are mostly a subset of hackers.
Re:Hackers (Score:2)
I blame Angela Jolie.
Re:Hackers (Score:2)
That's the one! Skateboarding around messing with my
Gibson.
Re:Hackers (Score:2)
I'd assume she meant that complex viruses usually come from those with a background in hacking. If she'd said that most good soup comes from the hacking community, would you be ranting about all the people using 'hacker' to refer to a cook? $.02
Re:Hackers (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Hackers (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe it makes us feel good to educate these people, at the same time as we are installing a firewall for them and pointing them to lavasoftusa.com?
Every person posting on this site knows the difference, and for the most part, people that don't aren't likely to matter until you have explained it to them.
Doesn't it make sense to have an immediate reaction test like the word hacker to assess unknown people with?
I for one welcome our new "know the difference
Re:Hackers (Score:2)
Thought Slashcode protected against this? (Score:2)
'course, neither am I going to click and find out (and I don't care enough to make up a test account), but if this works, it's definitely a Slashcode bug.
Re:we need more ignorant technophobes in the way (Score:2)
Yeah, that whole "don't hurt other people" thing is just the MAN'S way of keeping us down. Think different.