The NY Times reports today on a leering virus which searches the Web for machines which might contain porno material, real or imagined as the virus decides, and then the little shit fingers the machine to one of various law enforcement agencies in its database. (Excerpt below) Anybody had this leerer rat their cave or know of a victim? ----- http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/11/technology/11VIRU.html June 11, 2001 Virus Searches for Pornography By Roy Furchgott A new rogue computer program, possibly intended to perform a public service, has raised thorny legal questions and seems sure to fuel the debate over computer privacy. The new virus, which is called VBS.Noped.a, searches the target's machine for what it suspects may be child pornography and reports the names of files to the police. There are no reports of police officials acting on such results, and antivirus software companies say it has not yet been distributed widely and is at relatively low risk of damaging computers. Technically a worm, the virus is of unknown origin and was spotted by computer security companies on May 22. It arrives as an attachment to an e-mail message titled, "FWD: Help us ALL to END ILLEGAL child porn NOW." When a recipient opens the attachment, child pornography statutes appear on screen. The program then searches the user's hard drive for picture files that have pornographic-sounding names and then sends an e-mail message and a list of suspect files to a law enforcement agency picked at random from the program's database. "Hi," the message sent to the police says: "This is Antipedo2001. I have found a PC with known child pornography files on the hard drive. I have included a listing below and included a sample for your convenience." The virus also sends out copies of itself to addresses in the victim's e-mail address book. Apart from the program's invasive nature, virus experts question the results the program sends out. Its search software is apt to falsely identify files as containing child pornography, said Stephen Trilling, director of research at the Symantec Anti-Virus Research Center in Santa Monica, Calif., which suggests that the results could cause irreparable harm to run-of-the-mill computer owners if the results are acted upon. While law enforcement agencies cannot search an individual's computer without a warrant, they can act on a tip. The F.B.I., one of the agencies on the Noped list, would not say if it had received tips from this virus program. A Justice Department lawyer said that law enforcement officials could legally conduct a search based on the tip, but added, "That's a very different question from `would law enforcement ever open an investigation based on that information?' " Perhaps most troubling, legal experts say, is the havoc that the virus could wreak on the reputation of people with no involvement in child pornography. "There is no telling how far this information might spread," said Stephen J. Davidson, a lawyer and spokesman for the Computer Law Association. Local news organizations could report that a parent was under investigation as a pedophile, he said, "all resulting from an unwarranted and illegal entry to your private computer." ...