Comment Re:Complain (Score 1) 1194
I was highly dismayed to read the factual misrepresentations in Steven Evan's article on the MyDoom virus. There are a couple different points that could have been easily checked, yet clearly were not. I will outline them below hoping that your news outlet will in fact, issue either a retraction of this story, or at least amend the article to remove the falsehoods.
1) The virus was written by 'linux zealots'
This is patently false and spending 10 minutes looking at actual technical discussions on the virus' payload would have shown that.
The purpose of the virus is to turn the infected computer into a keylogging zombie host controllable from somewhere else (most experts point to Asia/Russia). The SCO DOS attack is ancilliary, and in fact was tacked on after the fact if you look at the way the virus was written.
2)SCO is being bombarded by email.
The DDOS against SCO is using HTTP GET's, not email. All the email portion of this virus does is self-propogate. Again, 10 minutes of checking would have borne this out.
Please remove this factual (I hope unintentional) misrepresentation of possibly one of the biggest computer security threats in recent times. I pray that you will inform people who get hit with this particularly nasty virus that it does more then just take down the SCO website. It also keylogs everything you type and saves it for some TRULY nefarious type who wants your CC number.
This is not about Linux V. SCO.
This is about bad people trying to steal your information.
Please do the right thing in this instance and restore my faith in your journalistic integrity.
Thank you for your time.
--
Eric Ricker
eric@thefrc.org
1) The virus was written by 'linux zealots'
This is patently false and spending 10 minutes looking at actual technical discussions on the virus' payload would have shown that.
The purpose of the virus is to turn the infected computer into a keylogging zombie host controllable from somewhere else (most experts point to Asia/Russia). The SCO DOS attack is ancilliary, and in fact was tacked on after the fact if you look at the way the virus was written.
2)SCO is being bombarded by email.
The DDOS against SCO is using HTTP GET's, not email. All the email portion of this virus does is self-propogate. Again, 10 minutes of checking would have borne this out.
Please remove this factual (I hope unintentional) misrepresentation of possibly one of the biggest computer security threats in recent times. I pray that you will inform people who get hit with this particularly nasty virus that it does more then just take down the SCO website. It also keylogs everything you type and saves it for some TRULY nefarious type who wants your CC number.
This is not about Linux V. SCO.
This is about bad people trying to steal your information.
Please do the right thing in this instance and restore my faith in your journalistic integrity.
Thank you for your time.
--
Eric Ricker
eric@thefrc.org
