the vx is a community of people involved in the creation and distribution of viruses and viral materials... the term 'vx' is an acronym that stands for Virus eXchange - it was originally the name of a virus trading BBS (bulletin board system) back in the 90's...
members of the vx community (also known as the virus underground), are known as vx'ers... many in this group of people create, share, publish and in some cases even spread computer viruses...
while some people outside the community like to claim that it's members are anti-social, the fact that they formed a social group suggests otherwise... just because one social group does things that the rest of us don't like doesn't make them anti-social, it makes them a counter-culture... furthermore, studying the group reveals that they are motivated by the desire for many of the same social rewards that motivate everyone else - respect, social status, notoriety, influence, friendship, collaboration, etc. all within their social group... that's not to say that those are the only reasons people create/distribute/release viruses, but those that participate in the vx community do so because they are motivated at least in part by the same things that make any set of people form a social group...
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Showing posts with label vx. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vx. Show all posts
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Saturday, March 26, 2005
let's be part of the problem
DVForge - Virus Prize 2005
what the hell are these people thinking, offering to pay people to write viruses for the mac and spread them in the wild? like virus writers don't already have enough motivation to write and spread viruses - especially when it comes to being the first one for a new platform or the first one in the wild for a new platform... those sorts of things already make them (in)famous...
these folks have clearly had a break our ethical reality - you do not need a proof of concept virus to prove viruses can spread on the mac - mac OS X is basically a form of unix and the very first viruses that fred cohen wrote when doing his seminal work on viruses back in the '80s worked on unix systems... and they did work, they spread on production systems...
come on, folks - all general pupose computing platforms are susceptible to viruses... all of them... it's been proven - and i don't mean the way you prove things in court with evidence, because there will always be new platforms for which there is no evidence yet... i mean it's been proven on paper with logic - the only facilities a virus needs are those that are already present in the definition of general purpose computer...
these people are not solving any real problem by offering a reward to virus writers for writing yet more viruses (and you know damn well there are going to be a lot more viruses written than rewards handed out)... all they are doing is making virus spreading (because you do need to spread your virus so that it makes it's way onto the target systems naturally in order to get the reward) seem more legitimate by wrapping it up like it's some sort of good deed that puts a set of misconceptions by uninformed people to bed... the fact is that they are soliciting behaviour that is illegal under canadian laws (criminal mischief pertaining to data) as well as laws in a variety of other countries that have unauthorized-access-related legislation...
john mcafee reputedly paid for virus collections and thus became a pariah in the anti-virus industry for supplying virus writers with financial motivation to write viruses... these people here are supplying financial motivation to write & spread viruses and that absolutely contributes to the problem, rather than the solution... these people are not interested in the greater good, they're only interested in making a name for themselves and they don't care how much damage they cause in the process...
update 5:30pm: well, that was quick... seems a lot of people contacted the guy in charge and convinced him to stop the contest... hurray!... now let's move on...
what the hell are these people thinking, offering to pay people to write viruses for the mac and spread them in the wild? like virus writers don't already have enough motivation to write and spread viruses - especially when it comes to being the first one for a new platform or the first one in the wild for a new platform... those sorts of things already make them (in)famous...
these folks have clearly had a break our ethical reality - you do not need a proof of concept virus to prove viruses can spread on the mac - mac OS X is basically a form of unix and the very first viruses that fred cohen wrote when doing his seminal work on viruses back in the '80s worked on unix systems... and they did work, they spread on production systems...
come on, folks - all general pupose computing platforms are susceptible to viruses... all of them... it's been proven - and i don't mean the way you prove things in court with evidence, because there will always be new platforms for which there is no evidence yet... i mean it's been proven on paper with logic - the only facilities a virus needs are those that are already present in the definition of general purpose computer...
these people are not solving any real problem by offering a reward to virus writers for writing yet more viruses (and you know damn well there are going to be a lot more viruses written than rewards handed out)... all they are doing is making virus spreading (because you do need to spread your virus so that it makes it's way onto the target systems naturally in order to get the reward) seem more legitimate by wrapping it up like it's some sort of good deed that puts a set of misconceptions by uninformed people to bed... the fact is that they are soliciting behaviour that is illegal under canadian laws (criminal mischief pertaining to data) as well as laws in a variety of other countries that have unauthorized-access-related legislation...
john mcafee reputedly paid for virus collections and thus became a pariah in the anti-virus industry for supplying virus writers with financial motivation to write viruses... these people here are supplying financial motivation to write & spread viruses and that absolutely contributes to the problem, rather than the solution... these people are not interested in the greater good, they're only interested in making a name for themselves and they don't care how much damage they cause in the process...
update 5:30pm: well, that was quick... seems a lot of people contacted the guy in charge and convinced him to stop the contest... hurray!... now let's move on...
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
legality of virus writing
someone at f-secure is clearly frustrated...
how many times have i seen someone say that virus writing should be illegal? i don't know, i've lost count it's been said so many times... i'm sure it probably seems entirely reasonable too... except wait, oh my goodness, it's not!...
huh? what am i talking about? i'm talking about the fact that enforcing such a law would be an unprecedented contravention of fundamental human rights...
let's face facts - abstracted from all other related activities, simply writing a virus is analogous to writing in a personal journal... it's a matter of freedom of thought and as such one of the most fundamental freedoms there is... it doesn't affect anyone until the writer tries to communicate his/her idea with others... if i write a virus and no one else ever sees it, have i contributed to the virus problem? if i utter a racial slur and no one's around to hear it, have i offended a minority group? no on both counts... what i do in the privacy of my own home or the privacy of my own computer should be of no concern to anyone else...
if you're going to outlaw something, outlaw something that actually causes a problem... outlaw spreading viruses, maybe even outlaw publishing viruses (see here for why full disclosure shouldn't be usable as a valid argument against such free speech limitations), but keep the thought police out of the picture...
that's important so i'll repeat it - outlawing virus writing would be a contravention of a person's freedom of thought, keep the thought police out of the picture...
how many times have i seen someone say that virus writing should be illegal? i don't know, i've lost count it's been said so many times... i'm sure it probably seems entirely reasonable too... except wait, oh my goodness, it's not!...
huh? what am i talking about? i'm talking about the fact that enforcing such a law would be an unprecedented contravention of fundamental human rights...
let's face facts - abstracted from all other related activities, simply writing a virus is analogous to writing in a personal journal... it's a matter of freedom of thought and as such one of the most fundamental freedoms there is... it doesn't affect anyone until the writer tries to communicate his/her idea with others... if i write a virus and no one else ever sees it, have i contributed to the virus problem? if i utter a racial slur and no one's around to hear it, have i offended a minority group? no on both counts... what i do in the privacy of my own home or the privacy of my own computer should be of no concern to anyone else...
if you're going to outlaw something, outlaw something that actually causes a problem... outlaw spreading viruses, maybe even outlaw publishing viruses (see here for why full disclosure shouldn't be usable as a valid argument against such free speech limitations), but keep the thought police out of the picture...
that's important so i'll repeat it - outlawing virus writing would be a contravention of a person's freedom of thought, keep the thought police out of the picture...
Monday, November 29, 2004
vx'er crackdown
Police raided another virus writer
Benny, Ratter questioned
looks like law enforcement is starting to get more serious (and capable) about getting their hands on virus writers... i said this kind of thing was coming, years ago, but do the vx'ers listen to me? no...
well ok, maybe some of them did... but obviously not enough...
there should be billboards with pictures of stern looking cops and captions that read "write viruses? that's fine. let 'em out and you're mine."...
and i'm not even suggesting that the vx'ers referenced in those articles actually let anything out - but obviously someone has been doing so, and that endangers the whole 'scene'...
Benny, Ratter questioned
looks like law enforcement is starting to get more serious (and capable) about getting their hands on virus writers... i said this kind of thing was coming, years ago, but do the vx'ers listen to me? no...
well ok, maybe some of them did... but obviously not enough...
there should be billboards with pictures of stern looking cops and captions that read "write viruses? that's fine. let 'em out and you're mine."...
and i'm not even suggesting that the vx'ers referenced in those articles actually let anything out - but obviously someone has been doing so, and that endangers the whole 'scene'...
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