Bill.Weston@f12.n376.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Bill Weston) (12/28/89)
I'm not sure that writing viruses will ever stop. Ross Greenberg wrote perhaps the best psychological profile of the "virus programmer" that I have ever read. (It's in the docs of FLUSHOT, you've all read it...) The virus writer likes causing damange. He thinks it's funny and makes him feel powerful. You can bet that most of them are reading what is written here. Just look at the worldwide scope of the current AIDS virus scam. To this day, tha STONED virus still infects thousands of systems all over the world. (Poorly written as it is..) The target of many virus writers are the millions of PC users who don't know much about computers. The novice user, or perhaps the user who knows how to run programs but does not know much about DOS, is the primary mark. A friend of mine was just such a person. Less than 20 days after buying his PC he was hit by the STONED virus. He did not know how to protect himself. Lots of grins for the programmer. There will always be socially retarded morons to write virus programs. There is only one way to stop them - cold. Forums such as this. It is possible that this very ECHO stopped and cured the AIDS virus... I wonder how many thousands of PC users did not install that "program" thanks to what they read here. ---- REMEMBER ---- There is *NO* better protection than FULL AND ADEQUATE BACKUPS!!!!! Bill Weston == ...!usceast!uscacm!12!Bill.Weston
clear@actrix.co.nz (Charlie Lear) (01/07/90)
Bill.Weston@f12.n376.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Bill Weston) writes: >I'm not sure that writing viruses will ever stop. > >Ross Greenberg wrote perhaps the best psychological profile of the >"virus programmer" that I have ever read. (It's in the docs of >FLUSHOT, you've all read it...) > > The virus writer likes causing damange. He thinks it's funny and makes him >feel powerful. > To this day, tha STONED virus still infects thousands of systems all over the >world. (Poorly written as it is..) > >The target of many virus writers are the millions of PC users who don't know >much about computers. The novice user, or perhaps the user who knows how to >run programs but does not know much about DOS, is the primary mark. A friend >of mine was just such a person. Less than 20 days after buying his PC he was >hit by the STONED virus. He did not know how to protect himself. Lots of >grins for the programmer. One day, you'll actually write something you know something about, Bill... 8-) The schoolkid who wrote the Stoned virus did it on a dare from an Amiga owner who was suffering from the first effects of the SCA virus. It was believed *impossible* by the "experts" for a PC virus to be written, so he went ahead and wrote a simple, non-destructive bsv on a standard XT. Having written it, the consequences of unleashing it became a bit much to think about, so he made sure all copies were destroyed bar one which he kept at his house. Despite being under lock and key, his little brother and a couple of his friends thought it would be a huge joke to steal the disk and deliberately infect disks in a local computer store. This was fine, but after the initial laffs it proved impossible to trace ALL infected disks and the STONED epidemic was born. Since then, the programmer has lived a very cloistered, paranoic life. Huge publicity has done nothing to help his studies or his state of mind, even though his identity has not been publicly revealed. The last burst of publicity was later discovered to be a protection mechanism for the guy, although front page coverage on a capital city daily is bizarre protection. It seems that after the "blue" side in an Australian army exercise deliberately infected "red" side computers with the virus to gain military advantage, certain people in certain security organisations wished to interview the man who wrote Stoned. The press coverage allegedly stopped a kidnap attempt in its tracks - the threat of a full diplomatic incident was too much for the Aussies and they went home. Of course, I have no documentary proof of the above as anyone connected with the writing or dissemination of a virus would be stupid to write anything down. I believe I have just illustrated how an "innocent" prove-it-can-be-done scenario can turn unbelievably bad. Is it really the programmers fault that the virus does not damage 360k floppies or 20meg XT disks, and only becomes a danger when used on large capacity floppies or big hard disks? He had no access to, or knowledge of, such hardware when he wrote it... - -- Charlie "The Bear" Lear: Call The Cave BBS, 64(4)643429 157MB Online! Snail: P.O. Box 12-175, Thorndon, Wellington, New Zealand