US Warns Users of Child-Porn Blackmail Ransomware 196
coondoggie writes "The nasty Trojan known as Citadel malware, which is based on Zeus, has typically been used to extort money from online banking users, but a new variant is making the rounds that tries to get your money by saying you looked at child porn sites and must pay a violation fee to the U.S. Department of Justice. This variation, called Reveton, lures the victim to a drive-by download website, at which time the ransomware is installed on the user's computer, says the U.S. Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). Once installed, the computer freezes and a screen is displayed warning the user they have violated United States Federal Law."
Scummy yet brilliant. (Score:5, Insightful)
Its not like you can call the police and complain about it. You'll instantly get labeled as a pedo and have your kids taken away.
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I imagine most people would also be hesitant to take it into a repair shop with that message displayed on the screen even if they recognize it as a scam.
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"FBI asks computer shops to help fight cybercrime"
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Feb/05/ln/ln01a.html [honoluluadvertiser.com]
Re:Scummy yet brilliant. (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems to me that from your post American law has a much bigger problem than the Russians do in this particular instance.
Re:Scummy yet brilliant. (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't have "American Law" we have whatever your favorite executive agency decides to this week or worse with this person. That is the real problem.
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Is that why the supreme court is giving the executive such a hard time about so many things these days?
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Yes once in a great while you see a tiny glimmer of hope but not often enough. The former administration was slightly better in that they at least got Congress to authorize things, even if they boondoggled them to do it. The current admin has lets see:
1. Orchestrated the passage of the Affordable Care Act in a way that was deliberately designed to prevent congress for reading it before the vote.
2. Given an American Car company to the Italians over the objection of the bond holders, despite the proper orde
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Thats not a law problem, its a problem of people's perspective. There is no law change you could make which would change the whole "felony makes it harder to get a job" thing, or the whole "accusations stick with you even when proven false".
Re:Scummy yet brilliant. (Score:4, Insightful)
I speak from personal experience. Being arrested and charged with a sex crime does fuck you for life in the U.S. I was arrested, spent 14 months awaiting my "speedy trial" and was acquitted in court. However when I purchase a gun my arrest is flagged and it takes three days for the paper work to be approved. Also I have neighbors who now treat me like dirt because the arrest is printed in the paper but the acquittal isn't. Being arrested is akin to being convicted, in the American legal system. Here, there is no such thing as the American Justice system.
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Also I have neighbors who now treat me like dirt because the arrest
Do you think the accquital being int he paper would matter? Is there a law which requires thearrest to be in the paper, but prevents the acquittal from being there?
More to the point, you really think there is a change of law which could change this? If so, tell me what it is, cause im skeptical.
Re:Scummy yet brilliant. (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm not so sure he was joking.. At any rate, if you call the cops they expect to arrest someone. If the real perp is too inconvenient to go after, you're the lucky winner. This is even more likely if the malware does a bunch of google searches for kiddie porn in the background
I agree, it sounds like a very realistic scenario to me.
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Re:Scummy yet brilliant. (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, because something like that [slashdot.org] could never happen in a democracy, so it must have been a joke!
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You mean, like, say, Communists?
Oh, the ironing.
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Where's Batman when you need him?
There really needs to be a vigilante for law enforcement to unofficially ignore while the press reports on the worldwide vivisection of Malicious code authors, botnet admins and their benefactors.
Re:Scummy yet brilliant. (Score:5, Informative)
You really, really, really dont want to live in a world where vigilante justice is what passes for criminal justice.
Re:Scummy yet brilliant. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is why "possession" of something shouldn't be a crime. Anything can be planted in your house/PC/car/whatever without your knowledge.
A country which allows a computer virus to ruin your life and make you forever unemployable has some serious problems with its laws.
PS: I cleaned up a machine with this three or four months ago here in Spain.
Re:Scummy yet brilliant. (Score:5, Funny)
"PS: I cleaned up a machine with this three or four months ago here in Spain."
With MyCleanPC no doubt.
Re:Scummy yet brilliant. (Score:5, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with "possession" or even crime in and of itself.
This has to do with the hysterical overreaction of the general public towards anything which is so much as suspected as being involved with or related to child pornography. Victims of this ransom-ware may well pay in fear of being ripped to pieces by an angry mob, and their fears would not be all that far fetched at this point. At the very least, they stand a good chance of having their entire life ruined should even a hint of suspicion fall on them.
Child pornography, like all hysterias, has become an excuse for a segments of the public to indulge in chaos, anarchy and criminal behaviour in their reaction to it. Even a pointed finger can now be a life or death sentence for innocent people. This is why it was important not to let the rule of law slide on this or any other issue.
But no. People wanted to indulge their outrage. I suppose democracies get what they deserve.
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But it's possession of illegal material. There are many good reasons why possession of certain stuff can be considered a crime. Toxic/dangerous stuff without a license.
Sure, if they can prove that you *know* you have the stuff in your possession.
eg. If they find the heroin in a baggie in your underpants then it's unlikely you didn't know about it. If they find it taped under your desk in a busy office then there's no way you should be in trouble unless they have more evidence. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.
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Innocent until proven guilty and all that.
As far as the police and the courts are concerned, that's (hopefully) the case. As far as your job, marriage, and social life are concerned, it can be more like "innocent until accused, and then forever after assumed guilty, even if you're later acquitted". :^(
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By 'rapist', you mean 'is accused of having consensual sex without using a condom', a minor crime in Sweden with a $750 penalty.
Re:Scummy yet brilliant. (Score:5, Insightful)
By 'rapist', you mean 'is accused of having consensual sex without using a condom', a minor crime in Sweden with a $750 penalty.
If it's such a minor crime why is Sweden willing to extradite him for it? Maybe because they intend to send him to a US torture camp, something the UK is unwilling to do.
Rape, having consensual sex without using a condom, or whatever every else Julian Assange is being accused of is just a ruse to get him somewhere the US can deport from.
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By 'rapist', you mean 'is accused of having consensual sex without using a condom', a minor crime in Sweden with a $750 penalty.
That gets you sent to Gitmo.
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I can see toxic/dangerous substance, because I can cause a lot of people harm with it. With CP, I guess the harm has happened before someone got into possession of the material.
Re:Scummy yet brilliant. (Score:5, Insightful)
But it's possession of illegal material. There are many good reasons why possession of certain stuff can be considered a crime. Toxic/dangerous stuff without a license.
You may disagree that CP should be considered illegal material, but good luck convincing lots of people otherwise.
On any website there could be this:
<iframe src="http://pedo.example.com/illegal-porn.jpg" style="width:1px; height:1px; border:none" ></iframe>
Cross site scripting and/or SQL injection could easily plant that stuff on any website, unseen. Your browser will happily and automatically download the image and put the "illegal material" in your possession.
We don't need "good luck convincing lots of people" that this can happen to them, all we need are script-kiddies like Anonymous who'd love nothing more than to get a bunch of people wrongfully convicted of child porn possessions esp. if it means making a point about how retarded the law is.
This stuff isn't dangerous or toxic sitting in your Internet cache unseen and unknown to anyone. It's only dangerous to have the configuration of bits on your drive because the laws have deemed it to be so. Protip: this script kiddie scenario isn't hypothetical... delete your caches regularly.
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delete your caches regularly.
Which would also require you to wipe the free space on your disk because LEA scanners look for sectors with specific content.
Re:Scummy yet brilliant. (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's the part that scares me more than that ransomware by itself. Because it can only mean one of two things:
1. That there ARE actually that many people looking at CP and they feel guilty and don't get help for that reason.
2. The CP witch hunt has crossed the line where people don't even dare to get help if accused wrongly because the allegation alone already puts you on some stupid list.
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Well, communists are outdated. Terrorists don't work anymore either. And, well, the simpletons need someone for their daily two minute hate.
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But wouldn't it be wonderful, instead of all the blunder butt crap the government does do to the U.S. people, why don't they do their secret snooping to find black hats responsible and let the C.I.A. peel all their skin off. I don't think you could get a rights organization to shed a tear, if they've ever fallen prey to a trojan or lost something to a virus.
The time for tolerating "black" hats as useful to computer security was sooooo over years ago. Now is the tim
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Yeah you have to admire the unadulterated evil brass balls on these lads. Its a nice mix of social engineering and tech. If they put half as much effort into legitimate business imagine how much money they'd have made.
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If they put half as much effort into legitimate business imagine how much money they'd have made.
Contraband is much more profitable... and tax free. Crime does pay... very well.
Violating Federal Copyrights and Identities (Score:4)
The operators of this extortion system should be on the "Public Enemy #1" list. Not only are they an organized syndicate extorting from Americans, on a very large and nationwide scale. They are impersonating Federal officers to do it. Protecting the ability of Americans to respect someone who claims to be a cop, especially a Federal one, is among the highest priorities of the Justice Department. Or at least it should be.
The failure of the FBI and the other cop agencies we give $BILLIONS to every year, who have vast and even un-Constitutional powers to do whatever they want in the name of protecting us, to do what's necessary to stop these giant phishing operations is baffling mystery. Why banks are allowed to let their trademarked brands get diluted by phishers robbing in their name, resulting in large and widespread losses contrary to the very essence of trademark and copyright, is a mystery. But the failure of the cops to protect themselves is even more bizarre.
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Why would you be labeled as a pedo? Are the police somehow going to lend credibility to some random piece of scumware?
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Yes. Because everyone goes irrational after the words child porn comes up. If you ever find child porn on any of your high traffic machines or even something borderline, you better not alert the police, or they'll take your kids away and label you a pedo before any sort of legal proceedings can determine otherwise. And if they can't prove it came from you? Good luck getting your kids back, regardless, because social services will still likely say they aren't safe with you.
That's the mentality drilled into e
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Yes. See:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/03/07/1757248/man-barred-from-being-alone-with-daughter-after-informing-police-of-porn-on-pc [slashdot.org]
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and have your kids taken away.
at least that's some consolation
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What are you trying to imply?
Stupidity (Score:2, Insightful)
A "violation fee" to the "Department of Justice" for a felony without conviction.
What kind of idiot is going to--- never mind.
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A "violation fee" to the "Department of Justice" for a felony without conviction.
What kind of idiot is going to--- never mind.
I know, right? How ridiculous. It's like people think the President is putting people on some sort of "kill list" and sending drones after them. oh... wait.
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I know, right? They should do it the right way, and publish decks of playing cards with the targets fancifully depicted as jokers.
Nah, that would imply a desire to capture and try them. Better to just keep the list secret and just share it with the drone pilots. Cheaper, too - it's not like there's a reward, just kill them. Also makes it easier as we moving from "Americans we think are terrorists" on the list now to "Americans that are political enemies". No need for they drone pilots to know WHY anyone is targeted for death.
Who would fall for a fee? (Score:3, Funny)
I'm pretty sure with all the "DINK OF TEH CHILLUNS!" bullshit that goes on that we burn anyone that looks at child porn at the stake, no one will believe they can get away with it for just a fine.
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The problem is the laws define a pedo with just having the material.
For example, if I uploaded kiddie porn to your computer you are a criminal for having it. Sure the penalty is much less than being a kiddie porn manufacturer which is someone who sends it but you are not guilty.
Worse, try to get a job again? Your future is ruined forever, because of an asshat and many will pay to make the problem go away! This is truly evil in the nth degree whether you feel this current laws are silly are not.
No respectabl
Re:Who would fall for a fee? (Score:4, Interesting)
There was recently (in the last few months, I believe) an article about intent in child porn cases. I think it was even on /. It said that simply possessing the child porn wasn't enough, there had to be proof that the person had intentionally viewed it.
found it. http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/05/10/138205/ny-ruling-distinguishes-downloading-viewing-child-pornography [slashdot.org]
Is that only in New York, or has it set some sort of precedent or how does that work? I'm not fluent in legalese.
Re:Who would fall for a fee? (Score:5, Insightful)
but even if it is only in that area - you have to prove you didn't do it, and even if you can do that you have to do it n court, even if you come away "free" then it is still there that you where once prosecuted for it, and you have to live/survive that process which will more than likely ruin your life as you know it.
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Re:Who would fall for a fee? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765576135/New-York-bill-quickly-follows-court-ruling-on-child-porn.html [deseretnews.com]
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Now if only this trojan could be targeted at certain prominent conservatives... say Limbaugh, Murdoch, et al. When it came out they'd gotten this on their computers, bet you the conservative media drumbeat changes.
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It shouldn't be too hard to scan through the files on their machine and do some simple word statistics on things that they wrote. I have a feeling that you can find the political persuasion of the author with good accuracy.
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She's lying. There's little to no commercial trading. A few places require newcomers to trade pictures to join but most sources are free. Commercial trade is too dangerous.
The curious thing about child porn is that so few people are involved in it that very few actually know how it works. That leaves the field open to people with an agenda to lie because you cant argue against them without knowing how the field works and if you know then people will think you're involved in it.
MOD PARENT UP (Score:2)
Insight and accurate information should be rewarded.
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Unfortunately for those who are truly innocent
No. Not "unfortunately." I'd rather have a hundred criminals escape than wrongfully convict a single innocent person. People are innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. That doesn't change just because children are involved, or for any other reason.
Pedophiles were once children, so, are there any signs that would indicate someone may grow up to become a pedophile?
It's only a problem if they become child molesters. Pedophiles don't necessarily molest children, and I do not believe in thought crime.
The cycle needs to be ended if we want to prevent the victimization of children.
If the solution involves punishing people for thought crime or harming innocents, I'm out.
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Pay? Not much more than the price of a brand new hard drive,which last time I looked was about $90. Bury the old dribe somewhere unretrievable, install the new drive, and you either baccked up your data or you didn't. No worse than a hardware meltdown...
I don't get it (Score:4, Funny)
Bury the old dribe somewhere unretrievable
I guess "old dribe" must be the guy sending out these blackmail notices then.
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Not much more than the price of a brand new hard drive,which last time I looked was about $90. Bury the old dribe somewhere unretrievable, install the new drive, and you either baccked up your data or you didn't. No worse than a hardware meltdown...
Considering how damn awkward some malware is to remove, this is probably not a bad solution for a lot of infestations. It's certainly quicker than a scan with a live CD followed by booting in safe mode, running every virus scanner you can think of, digging through HijackThis logs and still finding there's traces on there - and for a lot of people, time is money.
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Money? C'mon, be a bit more creative.
Hint: You cannot post critical political comments from a PMITA jail.
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Obviously you must be a pedophile, anti-American, neo-Nazi, terrorist [did I miss any?]. How dare you mock "think of the children".
Everyone, for the sake of our children, please help root out this vile anonymous coward. We must not allow questioning of anything done for the children. /sarcasm
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"I think of children all the time," said the pedophile.
Corollary: Anybody who thinks of children might be a pedophile.
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My hope is just that this trojan infects the same bunch of people that kept cheering on when some BS laws got proposed and passed.
I cannot wait for the first politician infected with it. Please let me be the one who gets to analyze the computer, please... it will be the first NDA I violate.
de-lousing... (Score:3)
Re:de-lousing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:de-lousing... (Score:5, Funny)
It took you a long time to find Linux users, pity if they where to think of you as dual booting...
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You mean like this [bitdefender.com]?
It's worldwide (Score:5, Informative)
I've seen a version that's been localised to the UK; apparently there are also versions localised to Canada. I haven't analysed it but it wouldn't surprise me if it's all the same trojan and it uses geolocation to display an appropriate logo.
Brilliant scam because even if the user knows it's a load of rubbish, nobody wants to be even remotely associated with paedophilia. You'd have to be a bit of an idiot to think you could make such an accusation go away by paying a small fine - or for that matter to believe that the police's MO in these cases is to put a great big warning on your screen (rather than to arrest you at dawn and take all your computers away), but I suspect there are probably enough idiots in this world to make it profitable.
Re:It's worldwide (Score:5, Informative)
My dad's PC had this, although apparently the creators didn't do their homework very well. Belgium having 2 (main) languages the scareware used the wrong language for this part of the country so he hardly understood what needed doing (not everybody speaks both languages). Off course the police logo etc made it look kind of daunting and -although it started up ridiculously slow- once it took over the pc became completely unusable.
It was rather easy to get rid of (safe mode, regedit, hijack-this and then a full scan with Security Essentials -which seemingly had missed it originally!)
The part I don't get is : how do the scammers get to their money (assuming some people are silly enough to pay) without the possibility of being traced back ?
=> shouldn't there be ridiculously easy traces to follow via paysafecard.com ??
=> worst case it should be easy enough to have these -at least!- blocked
Re:It's worldwide (Score:4, Informative)
how do the scammers get to their money (assuming some people are silly enough to pay) without the possibility of being traced back ?
Usually they use different 3rd parties, don't tell them where the money is comig from or where it's going, and have them take the fall if they get caught.
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Yes, and in Finnish among other languages, F-Secure has identified [f-secure.com] a lot of localized versions. Although that malware is not that well sophisticated as zeus (instructions to get away from it are quite simple and included in the blog article) the method is the same - display the logo of a local law enforcement agency (police, internal police...) and demand (an anonymous) payment because they have found cp on your machine.
Easy money because it is a big accusation (even stronger than copyright infringement - w
general purpose virus (Score:2)
Someone do the right thing... (Score:2)
make one of these that informs people to instruct government on what and where the taxes they pay are to be spent.
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make one of these that informs people to instruct government on what and where the taxes they pay are to be spent.
How would that be different from the status quo?
Everyone already "instructs their government" that taxes spent on things that primarily benefit them (or their community) is "vital and necessary investment", and anything that primarily benefits other people is "wasteful government spending".
I doubt malware is going to give anyone a broader perspective.
Breaking News: (Score:2)
US Warning of Child-Porn Blackmail Ransomware Remains Unheeded
US Gov. to proceed with CISPA anyway.
As night follows day (Score:5, Insightful)
Who couldn't see this coming? First, you make "looking at child porn" the worstest crime imaginable, like genocide against against a million nuns, worst than murder, worst than cannibalism, worst than, I don't know, eating fatty food, and then you...PROFIT!
Anybody want to bet that in the next few years (or less) we'll be hearing about some major politician who has (cue the somber, scary music...) looked at drawings of naked children.
"Is he right for America? We don't think so. Paid for by Americans for Families and Stopping Immoral Behavior among People Who are Different From Us."
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What we need next is a version than downloads some Al Qaeda manuals to your drive. Pay a ransom or you'll be locked away without trial.
let's say the Kelly Middle School gets hit by this (Score:2)
let's say the Kelly Middle School gets hit by this what will happen then??
Obligatory bitcoin reference (Score:2)
reasonable doubt (Score:2)
what we need to stop this (Score:3)
1 make it a lot easier for folks to get hands on Self Booting Fix discs (hint Norton/Mcafee/ect should include this in their products)
2 redefine CP laws so that CP is defined in a strict narrow way:
as a rough example:
A Does it depict a Sex Act with a Minor?? (wiggle for models with actual ages not in line with appearance needs to be written in)
or
B Is the Model NUDE (or only clothed in something Trival) AND is it devoid of Artistic Diagnostic or Documentary Value
or
C Does it depict any other crime
Then the Pic/Vid/media IS NOT CHILD PORN.
the problem is BURN THE WITCH!! is never Justice so we need sanity in the laws.
Re:aka Idiot tax (Score:5, Insightful)
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Thats a lot of crime to solve, a huge boost for cyber enforcement clear up numbers and a budget boosting PR victory for next year
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I think it's a great scam, because people are terrified of the idea of being associated with child porn. A threat like that will ensure they don't go to a repair shop, or mention it to anyone. Not the police, not friends or family. Noone. Greatly reducing the chance of the sucker being told it's a scam.
If the authors of this scam thought it through they probably delete all your temp internet files and your history. That way it looks like you already tried to clean up your activity (the act of an obviously guilty person). They may even send a few http requests to known CP sites to plant some evidence on your computer.
Re:aka Idiot tax (Score:5, Insightful)
In most places, Illegal porn gets you a a dirty look from the judge and a fine if you are really unlucky. CP on the other hand can get you a 20+ year sentence in the US.
It doesn't matter if the victim watches it or not. The scammers are hoping to exploit the fact that their victims would be reluctant to seek help out of fear of false prosecution, which is not as far fetched as I'd like to. Personally, I'd suggest zero-write to anyone who caught this bug. I wouldn't count on the malware authors not putting incriminating evidence on infected systems and even putting spiteful logic bombs which trigger when you clean the infection. Better paranoid than trying to reason with the pitchfork jury.
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Personally, I'd suggest zero-write to anyone who caught this bug. I wouldn't count on the malware authors not putting incriminating evidence on infected systems and even putting spiteful logic bombs which trigger when you clean the infection.
Technically, that stands true for every kind of unwanted software (any worm, virus, etc). As soon as you run untrusted code without any restrictions, your whole system is not to be trusted any more.
That's why I consider virus removal software to be a flawed concept in itself.
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Just illegal porn would be much better
Uhhhh... what is illegal porn again? Child porn involves criminal acts with a child. Rape porn, also involves criminal acts against a person. Snuff... well you get the point.
Other than obvious instances of crimes that are being visually recorded just what do you feel should be made illegal?
Sounds to me like "illegal" porn is just what you find objectionable on a moral or cultural basis, and is not actually against any law. Unless you are talking about antiquated sodomy laws or something.
Re:aka Idiot tax (Score:5, Informative)
Well, for example, porn that depicts violent acts, even between consensual adults, is illegal in the UK [wikipedia.org].
The performers have a defence as long as the acts they participate in are acts which a person is legally able to consent to in the UK, but the photographer and others present (sound crew, director, etc) are on the hook.
A relatively recent law as well, so not some antiquated sodomy law.
Re:aka Idiot tax (Score:4, Informative)
The defendant is not a child abuser by any means, and in all likelihood hasn't got any pedophilic tendencies. He's just a fan of Japanese comics and owns a huge collection of those.
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Aha! Japanese comics. He's obviously a pervert. Lock him up!
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Huh. How does it not apply to boxing, wrestling, and MMA?
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And his (insightful) point was that a porn film involving these acts can have *explicit* consent, have greatly reduced risks of injury (I think the average S&M flick probably has a script and performers who will accept "safe words", unlike the majority of contact sports, but probably something it has in common with WWF), but remains illegal under this law, despite being less dangerous, just because people are getting their rocks off instead of screaming until their face goes purple while drinking beer a
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Umm... in the other cases you mention, the crime is actually not the sexual act.
Rape: assault/bodily harm
snuff: murder
What else is there? Aside of backwards laws that outlaw stuff between consenting adults, every "sex crime" has an element outside the sexual act that is actually by itself a crime.
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Uhhhh... what is illegal porn again?
Well, in Saudi Arabia it would be pretty much all of it.
Other than obvious instances of crimes that are being visually recorded just what do you feel should be made illegal?
This isn't an issue of what the previous poster thinks should be illegal, it's an issue of what the law says is illegal. If you live in a country where porn is illegal, then you have to deal with that reality, regardless of how you (or anyone) think things ought to be.
Re:Not as bad as I expected... (Score:5, Insightful)
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All of them using Flash and Java. Most of which spend a lot of time unpatched. Even if they are, zero day exploits happen monthly.
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That's because to the people writing those stories, using a PC equates running Windows. Yes, some of them have heard of Linux, but they usually don't know what it is and even if they do, they're going to assume that their audience doesn't.
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> ...will it run on Linux?
If it's a Java or Flash exploit, yes it can. I haven't had Java on my linux machine for years. And while I generally disagree with a lot of Steve Jobs' ideas, getting rid of Flash was a brilliant idea. A container file for audio/video does *NOT* need an embedded scriptable language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actionscript [wikipedia.org] as part of the spec. The scripts that execute as part of the Flash spec are the root of the vulnerability, OS notwithstanding.
Not only that, the newer HTML5 v