welcoming computer viruses

[Tyler Durden]

Well, why can we use this to our advantage?

As usual, this thought emerges from Tyler Durden's punch-drunk brain, but 
it's worth considering...

Imagine I'm working for a large Fortune 100 Company. Now imagine I hear 
about a sasser-like worm that will install atself and spread, BUT "it has 
been confirmed" that the worm will proceed to vomit spam at X for a period 
of 48 hours. Depend on X (eg, the CIA, Microsoft, Re-elect George W...) I 
might be more than willing to download that virus, provided I had some kind 
of assurance that it wouldn't trash all my work (and if it closes down my 
company for a day or two, all the better 'cause I'm way overworked).

Of course, I'll need plausible denial: "Oh, I thought that was my boss 
sending me a file...").

-TD


>From: Eric Cordian <emc at artifact.psychedelic.net>
>To: cypherpunks at minder.net
>Subject: Re: Science: throttling computer viruses
>Date: Thu, 20 May 2004 11:01:46 -0700 (PDT)
>
>Major Variola writes:
>
> >  Computer viruses and worms are an increasing problem throughout the
> > world. By some estimates 2003 was the worst year yet:
> >  Viruses halted or hindered operations at numerous businesses and other
> > organizations, disrupted cash-dispensing machines,
>
>I have a dual boot system which normally runs Linux.  Since it had been a
>couple of months since I last ran XP, I booted it on Tuesday to run
>Windows Update, and keep it current with critical patches.  Within
>minutes, before I had even downloaded the first update, my box ground to a
>nearly screeching halt from Sasser, and some other piece of malware which
>was trying to make thousands of connections to random IPs on port 5000.
>
>I've had Linux exposed to the Net for years, and have never had these
>kinds of problems.  You really wonder why someone doesn't arrest Bill
>Gates for software malpractice.
>
>It's really silly when code can leap into your machine, install itself,
>configure itself to start up again every time the system is booted, and
>then sit there using all your system resources looking for other boxes to
>victimize.  Didn't we learn all we needed to know about provably correct
>secure inpenetrable kernels with MULTICS in the 1960's?  Why has the world
>of computing been subjected to 20 years of Microsoft slowly reinventing
>the wheel starting with DOS, and they still haven't gotten it right.
>
>We recall McDonalds toys with parts kids can bite off and choke on, but we
>let millions of lines of closed source code that does Lord-knows-what on
>various network ports run on nearly every machine in the universe with
>impunity.
>
>--
>Eric Michael Cordian 0+
>O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division
>"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"
>

_________________________________________________________________
Get 200+ ad-free, high-fidelity stations and LIVE Major League Baseball 
Gameday Audio! http://radio.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200491ave/direct/01/