Friday, April 02, 2004
Speaking of virus's, a thing just happened in the chatroom.An op (outside of his control) posted a url like "http://www.somewebsiteorother.com/somepicture.jpg Lol" and crashed out of the channel immediately after.
Within 30 seconds, easilly a dozen people did exactly the same thing.
This is impressive, from an outside point of view, in terms of virus design. While the code itself may have been nothing special... how it managed to spread so rapidly is a major achievment.
Most internet chat savvy people know not to click on links from people they don't know, but when an op or friend does it, you expect it to be safe... so several people clicked the link, posted the link themselves and crashed. Several more people clicked those links... and the snowball effect took over... all coz it was being posted by people they knew and trusted.
Clever social engineering coupled with basic coding... very effective, and probably more dangerous than a comlplex or high-tech virus if it included a destructive payload.
Why didn't I get hit by it?
The Lol at the end of the url... seeing that from one person was nothing unusual, but seeing it twice, when both people crashed immediately after... dead giveaway. Maybe it's callous of me, coz I know it cauzed headaches for all those people, having to track down and remove the virus... but while watching them all fall out of the channel like flies, I couldn't help laughing.
Labels: chatrooms
Steve 12:55 AM [+]
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