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Extortion Virus Code Cracked 371

Posted by Zonk from the unlock-your-stuff dept.
Billosaur writes "BBC News is reporting that the password to the dreaded Archiveus virus has been discovered and is now available to anyone who needs it. Archiveus is a 'ransomware' virus, which combines files from the My Documents folder on Windows machines and exchanges them for a single, password-protected file, which it will not unlock unless a password is given. The user would normally be required to pay the extortionist money in order to receive the password, but apparently the virus writer made one small, critical error in coding: placing the password in the code. BTW, the 30-digit password locking the files is mf2lro8sw03ufvnsq034jfowr18f3cszc20vmw."

Teens Arrested in MySpace Extortion Scam 193

Posted by Zonk from the not-the-brightest-criminals-ever dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Two New York teens have been arrested after trying to extort $150,000 from the makers of MySpace, the popular online community site." From the article: " MySpace discovered the intrusion earlier this year and blocked it. The Los Angeles-based company also reported the incident to authorities. During the course of the investigation, threats were made that unless $150,000 was paid, new exploit code would be released, according to the statement. By this time, the sting operation had been set up, so instead of meeting with MySpace late last week, the pair from New York met with undercover officers from the U.S. Secret Service and the Los Angeles District Attorney's Bureau of Investigation. "

Automating Future Aircraft Carriers 571

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the sign-em-up-for-a-skynet-subscription dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "Britain and France will jointly build three new huge aircraft carriers which will be delivered between 2012 and 2014. With their 60,000 tonnes, these 275-meter-long carriers will be the largest warships outside of the U.S. Navy. They're going to cost about $4 billion each, but with their reduced crews due to automation, they'll save lots of money to taxpayers during their 50 years of use. StrategyPage tells us that these ships will need at most a crew of 800 sailors instead of 2,000 for ships of that size today. At a cost of $100K per sailor per year, this represents savings of more than $6 billion. Impressive -- if it works."

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