Which is why I attempted to emphasize "should" meet the requirement of evasion to be an effective virus. The first two items (searching, copying) are critical points in the definition of the term virus. It doesn't have to be a large and sophisticated search function, to effectively replicate however. You're spot on as far as I can tell in your definition of a worm. Once a virus cross the threshold of a network, its defined as a worm, with basically the same function as a virus.

The point I was trying to get across, and I may have not communicated that effectively, was this so-called virus is more like a copy protection scheme than a virus in any sense of the term. This particular Brain program degrades system performance, and attempts to scare the end user triggered by the act of copying the program it is trying to protect. It loosely meets the definition of a virus because it meets the requirement of self-replication. Its an ineffective virus because it does not meet the tertiary requirement of evasion. I'm comparing it to a copy protection scheme, because although it can self-replicate, the intent of the program was never self-replication. Rather this Brain virus actively discourages its own replication in order to protect another program from copying.

The article linked was on CIO.com, its intended audience are IT executives who have a better grasp on managing geeks rather than understanding technology itself. Absolutely nothing wrong with executive types. However, before taking any technical advice from such a site, just know that such trade news sites exist to help sell expensive solutions like Enterprisey multi-platform anti-virus software to executive IT types.

It is certainly not the first, or only, cio.com article I have read, from which I draw that conclusion.

It loosely meets the definition of a virus. It wasn't the first computer virus. It isn't very noteworthy, other than it was the first known computer virus which the author(s) took full credit, and provided their real names and accurate contact information. We have other words for this type of software now. You might even call it copy-protection, or DRM, today.

Computer viruses started off as an academic exercise. In other words, the goal was to create a self-reproducing program with survival instinct, similar to that of a real-world virus. According to Mark Ludwig's Little Black Book of Computer Viruses, the functional elements of a Computer Virus follow in the list below. I highly recommend the book, for anyone interested

1. MUST contain a search routine. Important for both self-replication, and survival. Where and how will the virus replicate?
2. MUST contain a copy routine. This is the self-replication part, and its obviously important for the survival to the virus.
3. SHOULD contain anti-detection routine(s), or somehow evade detection. Obviously important to the survival of the virus.

Number 3 is really what separates a true "virus" from programs which are mislabeled as such. If the virus displays a message "I'm in your computer eating your data, nom nom nom!", it limits its own effectiveness. The virus will get eradicated, it will not survive in the wild. Which comes back to my point about this story. While this program loosely meets the definition of a virus, it was not written to be a self-reproducing entity with simulated survival instinct. It was primarily intended to prevent unauthorized copying. Its impact was limited to floppy disks with unauthorized copies of the program it was intended to protect from copying.

What could it be?

A) Its a botnet of compromised Windows Mobile phones.
B) Its the secret government backdoor, running amok.
C) Its the death rattle of Windows Mobile phones as they continue to lose market share to Android, iPhone, and Blackberry.
D) Windows Mobile became self-aware; this is the first sign its turning into Skynet.
E) All of the above

The Unreal Tournament 3 (Black Edition) on Steam works just fine on Wine/Crossover/Cedega. I remember reading a while back that Ryan "Icculus" Gordon was working on the port, however the proprietary PhysX engine was really holding the whole process up. Ageia, at the time in 2007, did not want PhysX on Linux. I honestly don't know if that stance has changed since NVidia acquired the company. It wouldn't matter if that stance had changed, nobody in their right mind would seriously expect Epic to spend time and money on development, three years later, with little or no profit motivation.

Last year, I broke down and bought the UT3, Black Edition on sale through Steam. Played it a few times on Wine. There was a Linux-based dedicated server released, it barely works, that is if you can even get it to run without segfaulting. Six years ago, you could go pick up a copy of Unreal Tournament, GOTY Edition for $9.99 in the bargain bin. That $9.99 game ran on Linux and Windows, there were thousands of fan-created maps, and it was a lot of fun for very little up-front investment. Our local Linux User's Group members got their money worth when that game was chosen for the group's monthly LAN parties. Several group members played it off and on for at least another 2 years.

Is it necessary to have a source port, absolutely not? Is it disappointing, almost certainly. There are probably a few Linux users 'round here that have fond memories of playing the original Unreal single player game on a 3DFX Voodoo card with the Glide renderer on Linux 10-11 years ago. Especially, since Linux has been supported for both the client, and dedicated server throughout the history of the Unreal franchise. I'm a little disappointed with what seems to be a step back from Linux, from a company who has enthusiastically supported our community in the past.

I hope lessons have been learned on Epic's part and they are not doomed to repeat the same mistakes. Its unfortunate that a Linux port was promised by Epic, and they did not deliver. Has it kept anyone from playing the game, probably not.

Scott Lowe, the named person in the e-mail was never accused of being a BSD coder/developer, in the original e-mail. If you read carefully, he was accused of advocating (while allegedly on the payroll of the FBI) the use of OpenBSD as a VPN/firewall solution specifically in VMware environments. No surprise that he writes books or tutorials for VMware since he, in fact, works for EMC. The original paragraph from the e-mail accusing involvement of Scott Lowe. Facts disputed by Scott Lowe appear in italic, below. Important note: at no point in the original e-mail was Scott Lowe accused of being an OpenBSD coder/developer, or committing compromised code to the OpenBSD project.

Jason Wright, on the other hand was the accused coder. Jason Wright has not issued any public statement on the matter, and the linked article only makes a slight mention of him.

I'd have a problem with it if it were my state implementing this policy in every store where liquor was sold. It sounds to me like PA is another state that has ABC type stores regulating the sale of liquor, I don't know first hand. However, from reading the story it sounds like this is a loophole that Wal-Mart is utilizing to get around silly state laws. I think that's really the key, is its kiosks in Wal-Mart, and not every alcohol selling venue in the state. In other words, you could readily buy alcohol in any other ABC store by flashing your ID and ponying up with cash. Personally I don't shop at Wal-Mart. From a political point-of-view, I'm only concerned with the government wrongfully oppressing people, Wal-Mart can treat their customers however they want. There is a really simple solution if you have a problem with it, either don't use the kiosks at Wal-Mart in PA, or don't shop at Wal-Mart in PA period.

This is pointless moderator abuse. Simply pointing out other significant compromises related to Open Source does not make one a troll. Even if he did post the same link twice.

The Debian OpenSSL debacle was probably the most far-reaching compromise affecting developer signing keys, commercial certificate authorities, server certificates and keys, user ssh keys.

Smear campaigns and FUD can be effective weapons in any election, as we've seen during this particular midterm election. After seeing this article, I went and checked out youtube to see some of the campaign ads from Rick Boucher, his opponent, and also the Virginia GOP's advertisements since I knew nothing of this particular candidate first-hand.

After viewing a dozen or so campaign ads between those three youtube channels, the same strategic smear pattern emerges from the Republicans, I've seen in my own home district. Boucher's constituents have understandable concerns over his support of the Cap & Trade bill and its potential affect on thousands of jobs in his district. Other easy hot-issue targets include his support of Health Care reform, and corporate bailouts. Nevermind, that none of Boucher's campaign ads highlight his stance on Fair Use, or Net Neutrality. Nor do any of Boucher's ads target the 18-40 demographic who may be concerned about such issues.

As a helpless voter, I can't help but feel disappointed with our incumbent representatives from both the Democratic and Republican parties, in general. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for Fair Use and fair access to information through Net Neutrality. Has anybody else been paying attention, or is Fair Use and Net Neutrality really the most critically important issue on the table? More importantly, are Cap & Trade regulations and big bank bailouts possibly a bigger concern for the thousands of his constituents in Southwest Virginia who work in coal mines, than say Fair Use and Net Neutrality?

I read both the articles, and this is what I gathered...

The guy who preaches the Taco Bell model, in his own words, he is using a few simple components strung together to make complex applications. The utilities he refers to are probably not news for anyone who ever read Slashdot. He comes off very much like the guy who would re-invent a square wheel, rather than learn and use newer tools that might just be even better suited for the job. The irony is, he isn't really thinking outside the box. Nor does he have the experience to even comment on software development or systems management, as he points out "this is a path that I am just beginning."

I've got nothing against the thousand of simple Unix tools which can be chained together. But I also know there are limits to what you can do with those tools. The DevOps guy calling for a shift of thinking in I.T., in my opinion is hitting close to home. Read both articles, and seriously tell me who you would rather have on your team? On the one hand, you've got Taco Bell dude who just wrote his first Shell script. On the other hand, you've got the more experienced guy who you may not agree with, but just maybe he's on to something.

This story doesn't seem to add up. Why wouldn't a competent SysAdmin just contact Registrar B either by an Abuse, or a Support resolution process? Worst case scenario, a competent registrar will want a letter on the victim company's official letterhead, or some notarized document, to prove identity. Best case scenario, you could take over the domain (registered in YOUR name), and shut the site down by lunch-time on Tuesday.

If it were me and I WANTED to keep my job, then I'd lawyer up, if that didn't work.

I always thought the Yahoo, or Yay-hoo, name came from Gulliver's travels. As far as a website name goes, it beats the hell out of Houyhnhnm.com.

Ah, I see, even more complicated than I thought. I suppose it really depends on your viewpoint of what constitutes an american company, or more specifically an american owned company. I would have like to been in the board room when they decided whose name, Molson or Coors, came first in the merged entity.

I get why Molson and Coors merged to better compete with big ol' Anheuser-Busch. Obviously, the mergers of brands associated with a particular national identity have done little to erode the definition of what constitutes a canadian, or american beer, in most consumer's eyes. However, I do believe that associating those multi-national conglomerates' commodity products as "american beer" is inaccurate. When these adjunct lagers are, in fact, mass-produced commodities. They happen to be profitable commodities in non-american markets.

As the grandparent poster pointed out, there are a variety of other choices available produced in the US by US companies. As I tried to point out, many of the traditionally recognized American brands, just aren't strictly "american" owned. Rather those companies are now the result of corporations merging into multi-national conglomerates.

I have no problem with anyone wanting to drink commodity beer. I personally couldn't tell the difference between a Fosters, Molson, Budweiser, Pabst, or Miller in a blind taste test. You can taste the cheap ingredients in all of them with that distinct aftertaste. I really wasn't trying to make a argument stemming from a nationalistic belief that the Canadians are taking over Miller or Coors.

You're certainly right that it isn't clear from biased media coverage what, exactly, the merger involved. It seems I was sorely mistaken in the belief that Molson had a controlling interest in Coors. The Molson Coors agreement with SABMiller seems to be a joint distribution venture for the combination of each entities respective brands.

Perhaps you hadn't heard. Anheuser-Busch is now owned by belgian InBev. Both Coors, and Miller, are now owned by canadian Molson.

The argument that americans produce the world's pissiest-tasting beer in the world doesn't hold much weight anymore. Especially, when the largest american owned brewery is the Boston Brewing Company which brews the Sam Adams line of beers. Sam Adams might not be the greatest beer ever brewed, in the average beer drinker's, or beer snob's, opinion. However, its hardly the stereotypical American Adjunct Lager our country has developed a reputation for.

Now you can blame multi-national conglomerates, not just american companies, for producing pissy-tasting beer. Those same mega-corporations fill up 50% of the beer cooler with adjunct lager, and another 40% with re-branded craft beer/micro-brew knock-offs just so they can take up enough shelf-space to keep mom-and-pops and true micro-brewers from getting any real market penetration.

Having said that, not everyone wants to drink "good" beer. The Adjunct beers sell well because of great marketing, and a cheap cost to the consumer. If you don't want to drink pissy-tasting stereotypical american adjunct beer, just don't buy it. Vote with your dollar and support the smaller breweries like Saranac, Lenie's, Sam Adams, or even a conglomerate re-branded craft beer like Blue Moon.

The typical american consumer's tastes/preferences are shifting when it comes to beer. For the most part, you can thank a few small micro-brewers that decided to challenge the american beer stereotype. The result is multi-national brewers having to make craft beer knock-offs to remain competitive in the domestic market. While the consumer gets the benefit of having a greater variety of available choices.

This would be a non-story if it was a private school with a high priced tuition appropriate to the extravagance of the facilities. If the citizens of Los Angeles county actually voted for this extravagance, it doesn't say much about the average voter or taxpayer. If the board of education decided to fund this monstrosity instead of applying it to: infrastructure problems; faculty salary and benefit under-funding; computer/scientific lab equipment; not feeding the kids re-heated processed garbage, then the Board of Education's competence, or complacence in their duties, should be called into question.

I have no problem voting for Levies or Bonds to fix general infrastructure problems, or to build a safer or more effective learning environment so the children in my county all have the opportunity to get a decent education. I applaud you for trying to talk sense into your county school board's administration. I do hope you are able to garner support from either the school board, or other concerned citizens in your area.

My whole point in the original reply was to re-iterate what a waste it is to spend such a large chunk on so very few who will actually benefit from it. The largest waste in the Lost Angeles case is the high cost of this expenditure has no directly-proportional benefit in educational value, not even to the students enrolled at this school.