Not all computer-virus writers fit the stereotype of the teenage boy trying to impress fellow hackers, experts say. Changing motives and increasing sophistication make these perpetrators harder to catch.
Victims of the Blaster and SoBig.F worms, which this month barraged hundreds of thousands of computers with e-mail, may curse the offenders and wonder what twisted psychology lies behind such destruction.
The answer is complex: People compile and release malicious code into the world's computer networks for reasons ranging from curiosity to anger to desire to profit financially or make a political statement.
The garden-variety culprit is still the "script kiddie," a teenage or young adult male who's been messing around with code and decides to release a virus just to see if it works — and to show off his skill to the community of underground programmers.
News source: Seattle Times
Victims of the Blaster and SoBig.F worms, which this month barraged hundreds of thousands of computers with e-mail, may curse the offenders and wonder what twisted psychology lies behind such destruction.
The answer is complex: People compile and release malicious code into the world's computer networks for reasons ranging from curiosity to anger to desire to profit financially or make a political statement.
The garden-variety culprit is still the "script kiddie," a teenage or young adult male who's been messing around with code and decides to release a virus just to see if it works — and to show off his skill to the community of underground programmers.
News source: Seattle Times
Trillian maker Cerulean Studios is interested in signing a deal with Microsoft, the company's co-founder and head developer Scott Werndorfer said in an e-mail answer to a reporter's questions.
"We're anxious to work with Microsoft on any licensing models they might have," Werndorfer said. He added that Trillian Pro 2.0, which entered beta testing on Aug. 1, supports the latest MSN IM protocol, but did not say if that means that older Trillian clients will be locked out from the MSN IM network soon or if Trillian Pro 2.0 would work with MSN IM regardless of a licensing deal.
Other clients that connect to Microsoft's IM network include Imici and Odigo.
Besides the issue of not wanting to run an IM network for other client makers to exploit, the changes to the MSN IM network also are for security and privacy reasons, Microsoft said.
"If there is unauthorized access to our network, it opens us up to potential security and privacy vulnerabilities," Gurry said. In fact, there is a yet undisclosed security flaw in Microsoft's IM network and clients, she said.
Because of this unknown flaw, Microsoft is forcing users of several older versions of its own MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger clients to upgrade to newer versions. Users that have to upgrade have been alerted via e-mail and will soon start to see notifications in their Messenger client, according to Microsoft.
MSN Messenger is one of the most popular IM services on the Internet, along with AOL's Instant Messenger and Yahoo's Messenger. Microsoft claims about 100 million unique users log on to its service each month. IM services let users exchange text messages in real time and providers have also added video conferencing, PC phone calls, gaming and other features.
Occasionally code gets leaked, like CIH, but most of the *really* bad viruses never hit the wildlist.
We are *very* lucky that the people who do write viruses with the intent of causing trouble are actually almost totally skillless. And yes, those people are script kiddies, riding on the back of someone elses exploit code.
Serious viruses are proof of concept, challanging each other to get code that spreads as far and fast as possible. Blaster could have done a LOT of harm, but did nothing but spread, with a token DDoS for fun (before you pipe up, the reboots were an unwanted side effect of multiple OS exploit code).
The USA doesn't own the Internet you know..
The USA does not own the internet, but it can regulate its' citizens use of the internet. If they think they can do it without too much public outcry. They already do to a small degree, I just think they want even more control. And one way of doing so is to make and release security threats so the public will think more government control is needed. I may have watched Conspiracy Theory one too many times, but I do not trust my government one bit and would not put anything past them. They want to control everything. And the net in the USA is one of the last things they do not have complete control over in this country.
You will never stop the script kiddie most people who do complain are oneabes them selfs and wish they had the information in there head.
Problem is that a teenager beat you too it. and that is hard to take in.
the script kiddie is getting cleverer and brighter as more ways and more power is unleashed to them. It is a matter of time before a big bang happends and one day it will come. What I say is dont be so dependent on your computer.
After all they are machines programed by humans. If a human can make it then a human can destroy it.
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