I am been around Unix in its variants for over 15 years and have even ported
it to different platforms (anyone remember the Wang VM IN/ix port?). The
story does have that 'I do not know what I am writing about' journalistic
touch, but it also may be a wake up. We are not impervious, and in my best
"Lone Gunman" conspiracy self, I can only think that the best way to derail
the growth of an OS would be to find some smart ways to do this kind of
sabotage. RPM's are the best part of Linux and its Achilles heel. I could
easily wrap code in an RPM that would subvert a machine. True if you check
your RPMs you would catch it, but I for one am lazy in that regard. It was
at least either amusing or interesting or both.
Paul Anderson
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Jerry Winegarden
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2001 2:16 PM
To: Redhat-List (E-mail)
Subject: Re: An interesting virus story...
On Wed, 28 Mar 2001, Paul Anderson wrote:
> http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/Business/reuters20010327_3831.html
>
> This is an interesting article about a new, and I think first, virus that
> affects Linux. This form is nondestructive, but it only takes a script
> kiddie to change all of that. This is the first I am hearing of it. Does
> anyone here know any more about the virus?
>
> Paul Anderson
Paul, if you believed this even a little bit, you've been HAD!
Whoever put up that story and somehow passed word of it is ROTFLMAO right
now!
The story included just enough technical sounding terms to make it appear
as authentic, but if you know ANYTHING about those terms, you would
immediately see through it - maybe even chuckle yourself that someone
might believe this!
The key to making people believe this is claiming that it was written in
"assembly language", as if assembly language was uniform for any operating
system that might run on an Intel I386 PC. Although "assembly language"
under MS Win or DOS or whatever and "assembly language" under Linux talk
to the same hardware/firmware, that is where things stop being "the same".
No way it could be.
Nice story about "Group 29A" and "Benny"...
Heh, this company appears to be a net security company, so they must
have access to such info...
I don't know. Are we supposed to trust such a company with OUR systems
for security? Sure, they've gotten us to LOOK at their web page, but do
you REALLY think anyone will go back and look after their hoax is so
easily exposed?
I don't know.... clowns to the left of me, bozos to the right... :-(
***************************************************************************
Jerry Winegarden OIT/Technical Support Duke University
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www-jerry.oit.duke.edu
***************************************************************************
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