Re: What is the motivation for Virus Writers?

From: Robert Moir (bofh_at_mvps.org)
Date: 12/15/03 

Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 22:41:00 -0000

Trevor wrote:

> The parallel is that victims are people who have no power at all in
> both cases. We have lived with terror in the UK for decades with the
> IRA (although now there is almost peace in Ireland). The IRA lost
> support because it rarely attacking military, but normally civilians
> in clubs, etc, or businesses (eg offices). They were called "soft
> targets" instead of "hard targets."
>
> I cannot change XP, so why attack my PC and cost me $200 and a lot of
> trouble?

But as I alluded to in my other reply, very few virus authors are thinking
about you and your $200 when they write a virus. Lets be clear about this,
many more people write viruses and either destroy them without letting them
loose (obviously the 2nd best outcome after not writing them at all), still
more write them and send them to virus companies and don't let them loose
"in the wild".

Still more write them, show their friends, and claim a friend released the
virus without their permission, in fact against their direct request. Some
of these might even be telling the truth, though when they claim it happens
more than once I have my doubts.

Some authors are malicious, some are just dumb, some are naive, some are
thoughtless, and some write and destroy their own viruses without doing any
harm because they want to see how they work.

Of my list, its only the first lot who are even remotely close to being
terrorists (and as they don't kill people, I'm sorry, I think the comparison
is still over the top), and the last class in my list aren't doing anybody
any harm at all. 

-- 
-- 
Rob Moir
Microsoft MVP for servers & security
Website - http://www.robertmoir.co.uk
Virtual PC 2004 FAQ - http://www.robertmoir.co.uk/win/VirtualPC2004FAQ.html

Relevant Pages

  • Green, Orange and A Touch Of Grey (NDC) Just History.........
    ... Regarding the Unionist Terror Groups.... ... > street violence (and they too are as tiny a band as the thugs of the IRA) ... > all of which adhered to the peace agreement. ... In Northern Ireland, with the largest turnout ever of 81% ...
    (rec.music.gdead)
  • What does 26 + 6 = 1 mean?
    ... Regarding the Unionist Terror Groups.... ... > street violence (and they too are as tiny a band as the thugs of the IRA) ... > all of which adhered to the peace agreement. ... In Northern Ireland, with the largest turnout ever of 81% ...
    (rec.music.gdead)
  • Re: Perplexed American in London
    ... tiny fraction of the population of the USA goes abroad. ... the Yanks in this country are quite nice, ... Not to mention lots of people in the USA giving money to the IRA to try ... not like the current crop of idiots trying to cause terror in the UK: ...
    (uk.people.support.depression)
  • Re: Hamas memochat
    ... we all know what this "IRA is Hamas" mantra is about. ... > Both used terror. ... moral claim than the other or that either one's goals are more ...
    (rec.sport.football.college)
  • Re: Hamas memochat
    ... > rich hammett, what are you supposed to be, some kind of a cosmonaut: ... >>> Stop comparing the IRA to Hamas. ... Hamas wants a solution based on genocide. ... Both used terror. ...
    (rec.sport.football.college)