HELSINKI - Computer virus writers attacked thousands of computers on Friday using an unusually topical email citing raging European storms, a security company said.

The virus, which the company named "Storm Worm," was emailed to hundreds of thousands of addresses globally with the subject line "230 dead as storm batters Europe."

An attached file contained so-called malware that can infiltrate computer systems.

"What makes this exceptional is the timely nature of the attack," Mikko Hypponen, head of research at Finnish data security firm F-Secure (FSC1V.HE), told Reuters.

Hypponen said thousands of computers, most in private use, had been affected.

He said most users would not notice the malware, or trojan, which creates a back door to the computer that can be exploited later to steal data or to use the computer to post spam.








http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16708397/

I Wonder if that Virus will reach North America?

Usually when I see any weird e-mails, I go to the local university to look at them cause I could care less if a virus infects their computers :D

Usually when I see any weird e-mails, I go to the local university to look at them cause I could care less if a virus infects their computers :D



That's deplorable.

::)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzRxkxu5ZKc

Hey, everyone, listen up, your attention if you please
We wanna give you a warning
'Cause I found out this morning
About a dangerous, insidious computer virus
If you should get it, an email with the subject, 'stinky cheese'
Better off protecting your chances
Under no circumstances, should you open it
Or else it will

Translate your documents into Swahili
Make your TV record "Gigli"
Neuter your pets, and give you laundry static cling
Look out!
It's gonna make your computer screen freeze
Look out!
Erase the Easter eggs off your DVDs
Look out!
Erase your hard drive and your backups too
And the hard drive of anyone related to you

Virus alert!
Delete immediately before someone gets hurt!
Forward this message on to everybody

Soon, very soon, it will make all the paint peel off your walls
It'll make your keyboard all sticky
Give your poodle a hickey
And invest your cash in stock in Euro Disney
Then, it will tie up your phone, making prank long-distance calls
It'll set your clocks back an hour and start clogging the shower
So just trash it now, or else it will

HELSINKI - Computer virus writers attacked thousands of computers on Friday using an unusually topical email citing raging European storms, a security company said.

The virus, which the company named "Storm Worm," was emailed to hundreds of thousands of addresses globally with the subject line "230 dead as storm batters Europe."

An attached file contained so-called malware that can infiltrate computer systems.

"What makes this exceptional is the timely nature of the attack," Mikko Hypponen, head of research at Finnish data security firm F-Secure (FSC1V.HE), told Reuters.
And if you see any post from Saver on the topic of "European Storms...."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzRxkxu5ZKc

Hey, everyone, listen up, your attention if you please
We wanna give you a warning
'Cause I found out this morning
About a dangerous, insidious computer virus
If you should get it, an email with the subject, 'stinky cheese'
Better off protecting your chances
Under no circumstances, should you open it
Or else it will

Translate your documents into Swahili
Make your TV record "Gigli"
Neuter your pets, and give you laundry static cling
Look out!
It's gonna make your computer screen freeze
Look out!
Erase the Easter eggs off your DVDs
Look out!
Erase your hard drive and your backups too
And the hard drive of anyone related to you

Virus alert!
Delete immediately before someone gets hurt!
Forward this message on to everybody

Soon, very soon, it will make all the paint peel off your walls
It'll make your keyboard all sticky
Give your poodle a hickey
And invest your cash in stock in Euro Disney
Then, it will tie up your phone, making prank long-distance calls
It'll set your clocks back an hour and start clogging the shower
So just trash it now, or else it will



You rule Mushroom!  ;D

There are over 100000 viruses out there. This one just happened to make it on the news.

There are over 100000 viruses out there. This one just happened to make it on the news.

Odds are slim, even for an ambitious virus!

There are over 100000 viruses out there. This one just happened to make it on the news.


That is pretty much why I posted that clip of Weird Al.

Hardly a week goes by that I don't have somebody ask me if I have heard about the "newest computer virus".  And many people are shocked that we have an average of 1-5 new virus come out every day.  I gave up even trying to keep track of them a long time ago.  And I have been involved in Anti-Virus since 1990.  I used to give lectures to Computer User Groups as early as 1991, telling them what to do to keep themselves safe.

And things are even worse now.  We have strains like "Cool Web Search", which automatically update themselves daily.  And with the boundry between "Spyware" and "Virus" shrinking constantly, I am already pretty paranoid about keeping them off of my system.

But people never learn.  Over 1/2 of the computers that come in our door have no (or badly outdated) antivirus on them.  Prople continue to use things like Kazaa, Lime Wire, and Party Poker, Zango, and wonder why their systems are so slow and crashing.

And of course, two or three times a year, somebody in a news room gets infected, so it suddenly becomes big news for a few days.

That is pretty much why I posted that clip of Weird Al.

Hardly a week goes by that I don't have somebody ask me if I have heard about the "newest computer virus".  And many people are shocked that we have an average of 1-5 new virus come out every day.  I gave up even trying to keep track of them a long time ago.  And I have been involved in Anti-Virus since 1990.  I used to give lectures to Computer User Groups as early as 1991, telling them what to do to keep themselves safe.

And things are even worse now.  We have strains like "Cool Web Search", which automatically update themselves daily.  And with the boundry between "Spyware" and "Virus" shrinking constantly, I am already pretty paranoid about keeping them off of my system.

But people never learn.  Over 1/2 of the computers that come in our door have no (or badly outdated) antivirus on them.  Prople continue to use things like Kazaa, Lime Wire, and Party Poker, Zango, and wonder why their systems are so slow and crashing.

And of course, two or three times a year, somebody in a news room gets infected, so it suddenly becomes big news for a few days.

I had the CoolWebSearch on my computer several times.  It was a nuisance trying to get rid of it.  It was like the clap or something. 
I had Kazaa but that was like inviting a gang of homicidal maniacs into your home, so I dumped it.
People keep telling me Limewire is safe as long as your protected in this or that way, but I've got no interest in the service anyway.
I'm better protected now, no spyware, data miners, viruses, etc.  Wait until "The Revenge of CoolWebSearch."

And don't forget the folks with all the porno sites....now it's your had drive that gets infected!

I had the CoolWebSearch on my computer several times.  It was a nuisance trying to get rid of it.  It was like the clap or something. 
I had Kazaa but that was like inviting a gang of homicidal maniacs into your home, so I dumped it.
People keep telling me Limewire is safe as long as your protected in this or that way, but I've got no interest in the service anyway.
I'm better protected now, no spyware, data miners, viruses, etc.  Wait until "The Revenge of CoolWebSearch."

And don't forget the folks with all the porno sites....now it's your had drive that gets infected!


The P2P programs are among the worst.  And I don't care what anybody says, none of them are safe.

After all, think about it.  These systems are made by hackers to illegally trade music, movies, and software.  If the hackers have no concern about things like "International Copyright", what consideration do you think they give to the security of your computer and it's data?  That's right, none.

And many times I have seen virus and other militious packages inserted into other files.  I have yet to get a set of MAME immages that is not infected with multiple virus.

CWS is by far the worst though.  A hybred of Spyware and Virus, even Norton has given up and no longer bothers.  This is because the virus constantly updates itself, and the people that make the protection software simply can't keep up.  CWS originated in Russia, and the makers of this program are estimated to be making somewhere between 3-5 million dollars a year.

CoolWebSearch is making that much?  Is that legally, or in scammed credit card numbers/bank details?

Damn, it (again) looks like I've gone down the wrong trouser leg of software development ;)

But I've never had that many problems getting rid of it (ISTR it went with AdAware, last time I saw it here - probably from kiddies playing "free" flash games)

But it's kind of scary how many PCs (especially those owned by non-techies) there must be out there with copies of this sort of stuff on...

CoolWebSearch is making that much?  Is that legally, or in scammed credit card numbers/bank details?

Damn, it (again) looks like I've gone down the wrong trouser leg of software development ;)

But I've never had that many problems getting rid of it (ISTR it went with AdAware, last time I saw it here - probably from kiddies playing "free" flash games)


That is between the pop-ups it feeds you, the websites it forces you to go to, and the sale of ID theft and credit card numbers.  In addition, it steals account and password information - which is sold to other hackers, phishers, and spammers.

But here is the big problem, you did not get rid of it.  Remember, it updates daily.  And the programmers check every version of the removal tools, and "patch" it within 2-3 hours.  So programs like "CWS Shredder", Norton, and Ad-Aware may remove what it knows how to find, by it has already updated your system with a newer version.  And there are "Stealth" aspects of this program, and they have yet to find all of the ways it attaches itself to your system.  They know that it often "Hibernates", waiting weeks or months before "waking up" and going active again.

The most common ways of getting CWS is from pop-ups, porn sites, and "typo" websites.  These are the ones that use a name like GPPLE.COM.  So when you mistype GOOGLE, you end up at their site, and you get the virus.  They own thousands of such web sites.  And they have an active "Affiliate Program", where they pay other programmers to include their code.

And if you think you are safe with "3rd Party Browsers", think again.  Within the last 4 months, it started to attack Firefox.  So now it can infect even the "Bulletproof Browser" as easily as it does IE.  And last month, they found a variant that infects Mac OS X and many versions of Linux.

And tracking the programmers has proven to be almost impossible.  The "Egal Clause" of their EULA follows Quebec laws.  The web sites are registered through the British Virgin Islands.  The main server points to a company in Boston.  But the "style" of programming strongly sugests the programmers are Russian (or another part of the old Soviet Union).

And there are other similar worms, like Aurora.  The only way I have ever found to get rid of them is to do a complete wipe and reload of the hard drive.

And here is an alarming bit of information: less then 25% of people have and use adequate antivirus and antispyware software.  For every good protector, there are 10 scams that either do nothing, or infect you with their own version of spyware (like StopSign).  And Ad-Aware is good, but it does not prevent re-infection.  I have seen Ad-Aware remove CWS, and at the same time the program is reinstalling itself (I discovered this by watching both Windows Defender, and watching network activity through an IP Snooper).  So as one version is being removed, another is being installed.

But here is the big problem, you did not get rid of it.  Remember, it updates daily.  And the programmers check every version of the removal tools, and "patch" it within 2-3 hours.  So programs like "CWS Shredder", Norton, and Ad-Aware may remove what it knows how to find, by it has already updated your system with a newer version.

Well, if I didn't clean it out completely, it's been dormant for more than a year now, in that the only apps configured to talk to the internet are ones about which I know, and nothing else is trying.  No pop-ups or unexpected IE redirections.  As yet there's no report of CWS attacking Opera, so I may switch back to that (I'm currently giving Firefox a try). 

Maybe it's got more sophisticated over the last eighteen months... but I'm not going to lose any sleep: if I have to reinstall Windows, I have to reinstall Windows - won't be the first time (indeed, I have that "pleasure" coming as soon as I've replaced motherboard or possibly whole PC).  Linux is looking more tempting every time I think about it...

Well, if I didn't clean it out completely, it's been dormant for more than a year now, in that the only apps configured to talk to the internet are ones about which I know, and nothing else is trying.  No pop-ups or unexpected IE redirections.  As yet there's no report of CWS attacking Opera, so I may switch back to that (I'm currently giving Firefox a try). 

Maybe it's got more sophisticated over the last eighteen months... but I'm not going to lose any sleep: if I have to reinstall Windows, I have to reinstall Windows - won't be the first time (indeed, I have that "pleasure" coming as soon as I've replaced motherboard or possibly whole PC).  Linux is looking more tempting every time I think about it...


Actually, it is possible to write a virus for any program or operating system.  Nothing is imune from them.  What virus writers code to is the "most common denominator".  And since IE and XP are the most common programs out there, that is what they write to.

In the mid 1990's, there were a slew of "Word Document" virus out there.  And most of them were actually written to attack both Mac and Windows versions.  Almost every corporation was affected by them.  But then corporations got more wise about requiring and useing antivirus software.  And at the same time, the Internet opened to the public.

This gave virus wtirers a new target.  Millions of new computer users, most of which had no knowledge about how to prevent virus.  The first ones to really come out were the "File Infectors;.  Then came the 8 year run of "E-Mail Virus".  Love Bug, Melissa, and a slew of others.  Now, the Internet Worm is the most common type of virus (like Sasar).

Mac had a large number of virus in the 1990's, but by the end of the century, the Mac had become a minority of computers, so the hackers moved elsewhere.  In the beginning of the century, we had virus targeting everything from DOS, Mac, Amiga, even OS/2.  But by the end of the decade, the main targets were Windows and Netscape/IE.  When Netscape became the minority browser, all attention focused on IE.

When Firefox came out, a lot of people flocked to it thinking it was "safer".  In reality, it is no safer.  It is just that so few people used it, that the hackers did not bother.  But once Firefox hit 25% of users, they started looking at it.  Many of the new virus and spyware writen now can infect both IE and Firefox.  And the same thing happened with Linux.  So few people used it, it was not worth the effort.  But with a huge number of people useing a single variation of Linux (Mac OS X), hackers are looking at it more closely.

The vast majority of Mac users have no antivirus software at all.  They have believed the "hype" about being imune from Virus, and are not protecting themselves.  And in the last few months, there have been several "ExperimentaL" virus released.  And they have found that the Mac is fertile ground.

Hackers can write virus or spyware for any browser or OS.  The only question is "are there enough users to make it worth my time?" 

From Yahoo management:

Your email account will be cancelled due to improper usage.
To remedy this problem please download the attached document.

By that time I was thinking they're not even trying anymore!

That's deplorable.
it is, and yet i often do the same thing. they've got pros to deal with that stuff.

Actually, it is possible to write a virus for any program or operating system.  Nothing is imune from them.  What virus writers code to is the "most common denominator".  And since IE and XP are the most common programs out there, that is what they write to
Nope.  It is perfectly possible to write an OS or browser that is immune to attack.  Even ignoring IE's gaping security holes, the problem is that users have got so used to active content that browsers have to download third-party programs in order to show everything that some website have.  As soon as you allow a browser to run ActiveX, Java or IE's "helper" objects (or Opera's widgets - but at least Opera warns you about widget usage), you have to inspect the content to see if it contains viruses which leaves you relatively open to attack by something your checker doesn't know about yet.

Malicious code can't just run on its own: it needs a route in.  Unfortunately, Windows leaves dozens open - Linux simply isn't in the same ballpark (have a look here for The Register's comparison), however hard Microsoft have been trying to push the message that "the virus writers simply don't bother writing Linux viruses 'cause there aren't that many Linux PCs out there"

Word viruses became prevalent after MS allowed "autorun on open" macros to be contained within documents, so that opening a document ran some code without asking (I've still got a simple Word viewer that I use to look at documents without opening them in anything capable of running a program).  From a programming point of view, they were pretty simple (almost as easy to write as the first generation of email viruses which could have come straight from the MAPI examples).  Word no longer runs macros on opening documents by default, which has a lot more to do with their decrease in prevalence than antivirus programs, IMO.

Nope.  It is perfectly possible to write an OS or browser that is immune to attack. 

Malicious code can't just run on its own: it needs a route in.  Unfortunately, Windows leaves dozens open - Linux simply isn't in the same ballpark (have a look here for The Register's comparison), however hard Microsoft have been trying to push the message that "the virus writers simply don't bother writing Linux viruses 'cause there aren't that many Linux PCs out there"


Simply not true.  The capability of "hacking" an OS started from the moment it left the computer's ROM, and installed itself into RAM from a re-writeable media.  The last "Bulletproof" OS I can honestly say was bulletproof is DOS 3.3, when it was loaded onto an 8086/8088 computer from ROM chips.

Once systems started to boot from "disks", it became possible to infect them with virus.  "Pakistani Brain" and "Stoned" proved this.  These infected the "Boot Sector" of the disk, and loaded before any of the primitive antivirus programs available at the time.  Then we got the "File Infectors".  Jerusalem-B, Yankee Doodle, Eliza, and a slew of others.  This was at the time that both McAffee and Norton started to make commercial antivirus programs.  But for the most part, these spread slowly, since there was no Internet, and files were most commonly transfered with Sneakernet.

In the early days, the most common target of virus was DOS and Apple II.  There were also a few "proof of concept" virus written for the UNIX OS (anybody else remember the Morris Worm?).  In fact, programmers had been trying to write "virus" since 1972, when David Gerrold first talked about their possibility in his book "When HARLIE was One".  And as computers became more powerful and complex (and networking became more prevelent), they finaly had a chance to actually make them work.

In the last 20 years, I have seen virus that infect almost everything imaginable.  From Apple II and TRS-80, to DOS, Windows, and even cell phones.  There are currently several groups working on making iPod virus at this time.  And it is only a matter of time before they are successful.  After all, within weeks of the PSP being released, we had virus for them appear (although they were crude, and easily avoided).


Word viruses became prevalent after MS allowed "autorun on open" macros to be contained within documents, so that opening a document ran some code without asking (I've still got a simple Word viewer that I use to look at documents without opening them in anything capable of running a program).  From a programming point of view, they were pretty simple (almost as easy to write as the first generation of email viruses which could have come straight from the MAPI examples).  Word no longer runs macros on opening documents by default, which has a lot more to do with their decrease in prevalence than antivirus programs, IMO.


I was working at Hughes when the Word Macro virus was king.  This was in 1995, and Corporate Antivirus was just getting started.  And on the Hughes Corporate Campus in El Segundo, it was rampant.  At this time, 35% of the computers ran Mac, 45% ran Windows (normally WFW 3,11), and 20% ran "Other" (a mix of everything from Amiga, SPARC, NT 3.51, even C-64 and even a few HP and Apollo engineering workstations).  When we started the first "Corporate Rollout", none of the computers had any antivirus at all, and virus was a major problem.  By the end of 1996, 85% of the company was on the PC (15% used the Mac PowerPC 7200, it was intended originally that the Mac would make up half of the computers, but that is another story).

In 1996 I left Hughes, and moved to another company.  But I returned in 1997, when DirecTV was finally fully on-line.  When I came back, the company had just finished moving from WFW 3.11 to NT 3.51 (but Word 6 was still the word processing program).  And I was part of a team that was tasked with integrating the "New" NT 4 OS to the company.  We fought for months, trying to explain to them why it was better to "upgrade" to Office 95 or 97, and that Word 6 was just obsolete.  But since Hughes-DirecTV already had a "Site License" for Word 6, they did not want to spend the money for Office 97.

I left a few months later, and did not return until late 2000.  Windows 2000 was already out, but they were just then in the finishing stages of rolling out NT 4.  So all of the desktops had NT 4, and Office 97.  One of my first tasks was rolling out a Windows 200 Server for a small engineering group.  Within a week, I had a group from the "Server Group" crawling up my butt, wanting to know what I was doing putting an "untested  server" on the network.  That led to a 3 month battle, about what was "tested and approved", and "what was needed to get the job done".

But I still occasionally e-mail my friends back there (Boeing bought out the last part of Hughes in late 2000).  They finally got XP installed as the "Corporate OS" in the 2003-2004 annual rollout.  The "Corporate Word Processor" is still Office 2000.  And this is fairly typical in "Corporate America".  When I worked at US Borax in 1998, I was actually installing new computers with Windows 3.1!  They were not even considering moving to NT 4 until the 2001 rollout project!

So the idea that MS making changes to Office as being the reason the macros stopped being effective is almost laughable.  I spent most of the 1990's and early 2000's working in "Corporate IS", and most of them are almost laughingly behind in technology.  It is not unusual to see software that is 1-3 generations obsolete in use, simply because the bean counters got a good price when buying/leasing it. 

In fact, the "Bulletproof" Mac/Linus OS has been getting a good beating this month, thanks to the "Month Of Apple Bugs" project.  This is the same group that brought you the "Month of XP Bugs" and "Month of IE Bugs" last year.  Their goal was to expose a new exploit of the Mac OS X a day for the month of January.  And so far, they have been able to do so easily.

http://projects.info-pull.com/moab/

Because the modern OS is written "by committee", it is prime for exploitation.  Often times, one programmer will write some code, expecting another group to find and close any holes left.  Or changes may be made by one group, missing a part of code written by another.  Or often times, it is simply that the programmers never expected a result of sending things like purposefull bad data, like the famous "Win Nuke" exploit.  After all, are programmers really expected to expect somebody to purposefully send bad data to a specific TCP port?

All it takes is a group of programmers (or hackers), who want or need to find an exploit.  And if you think Linux is safe, expect that to rapidly change in the next year.  You see, the French Government has ordered that all Government computers be converted over to Linux by the end of 2008.  And with that large of a block of computers running the same build of Linux, there will be a lot of hackers looking for exploits.  And with Microsoft moving to the "Open Office" platform, expect that format to see new attacks and exploits.

The main advantage that Linux offered originally was the wide array of variations.  An exploit for Red Hat wouild probably not work for SCO, BSD, or Mandrake.  But once OS X came out, you then had a large number of users working on a single build (without constant sub-variations made by others users).  And with the French Government soon moving to a single OS (most people predict it will be either Red Hat or Mandrake), this will finally give hackers a stationary target.

A "Perfect OS" is a utopian fantasy, like an "unescapeable prison" or a "robbery proof bank".  With enough effort, any OS can be broken and exploited.  And by the same token, a virus can be made to break into anything.  All that is required is the desire of somebody to do it.  Windows is a target simply because it is the most common OS on the planet.  If in 10 years Microsoft went Bankrupt and the Mac OS became the world's leader, you would find just as many Mac Virus and Mac Exploits as you see XP virus and exploits now.

There are over 100000 viruses out there. This one just happened to make it on the news.


There's also another virus-slash-trojan that's spreading right now: the "WINDOWS-SPYWARE.EXE" malware. It started spreading during Spongebob's birthday, July 14, 2006, and had caused me some headaches, from my rather irate brother, who demands removal of The Sims and various other apps, which I somewhat need. I downloaded AVG Antivirus and Anti-Spyware, but I hope ChuckyG, or any one of you guys, knows how to get rid of this piece of crap...

A virus for the few, the Linux...hmmm....

They think there's not enough of them to make it worth writing a virus, eh?  Those poor bastards will never see it coming!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/06/men_ani.gif

A virus for the few, the Linux...hmmm....

They think there's not enough of them to make it worth writing a virus, eh?  Those poor bastards will never see it coming!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/06/men_ani.gif


Actually, Linux is both the most secure OS to use, and the most vulnerable.

One of the advantages of Linus is both the small number of people that use it, and the fact that there are many different varieties.  A virus that infects Red Hat will probably not infect Mandrake.  And a virus to hit both Red Hat and Mandrake may not infect a person that uses GNU.

Part of the problem with Linux though is that it is not easy to "patch".  Since many of them are changed by independent groups, support may be almost impossible to find.  This attracts the "Techno Geeks", since they don't need tech support in the first place.  No driver for your video card?  No problem, make the driver yourself.  These also tend to be the most savy people when it comes to threats, so they are more likely then laymen to both take precautions and run detection and prevention programs.

But there are a large number of Linux boxes out there.  Most of them do tasks in the corporate world, running e-mail servers, intranet servers, firewalls, and other such mundane tasks.  Most are behind firewalls, and relatively isolated from the Internet.  Most are also administrated by tech-savy network engineers, who know to keep the patches up to date, and run the best virus software available.

Most consumers don't bother with Linux for 2 reasins.  For one, it is not exactly "User Friendly".  The other is the lack of software available.  Most people want to buy a program at the store, and be able to install it easily.  Linux simply does not offer that to individuals. 

For the first time I can remember, an OS is actually being assembled with a view to being as unhackable as possible: when this rolls out, there will be millions of the things all visible on  a wireless network with users who won't know how to protect their PCs so the OS will have to do it for them (unsurprisingly enough, these laptops aren't being based around Windows of any version)

It will be interesting to see if they'll be got by the hackers, so to speak.

For the first time I can remember, an OS is actually being assembled with a view to being as unhackable as possible: when this rolls out, there will be millions of the things all visible on  a wireless network with users who won't know how to protect their PCs so the OS will have to do it for them (unsurprisingly enough, these laptops aren't being based around Windows of any version)

It will be interesting to see if they'll be got by the hackers, so to speak.


533 MHz?  128 MB DDR 266 RAM?  512 MB Flash Drive?  No hard drive?  No CD drives or floppy?  No USB?  Monochome display?

2 questions immediately come to mind.  First, who in the hell would want one of these things?  And more importantly, why even bother to hack one?  I think it would be more interesting to try and hack a V-Tech Laptop.  ::)

To give an idea, we sell used laptops.  But we have not sold anything that anemic for over 3 years.  Our lowest ended laptop at the moment is a 1.2 GHz, with 512 MB RAM, 20 gig HD, and loaded with XP.  And that is under $450.  I can't imagine this thing selling for much less then that.

These migh appeal to children, but I can't imagine anybody over the age of 10 wanting one.

To give an idea, we sell used laptops.  But we have not sold anything that anemic for over 3 years.  Our lowest ended laptop at the moment is a 1.2 GHz, with 512 MB RAM, 20 gig HD, and loaded with XP.  And that is under $450.  I can't imagine this thing selling for much less then that.

The plan is to roll these out for $100 to underprivileged children around the world - that's the whole basis for the spec, to get something for that (or less):


Mission"]

The OLPC Foundation mission is to stimulate local grassroots initiatives designed to enhance and sustain over time the effectiveness of XO laptops as learning tools for children living in lesser-developed countries.

What it does mean is there are potentially millions of these things, all on the same flavour of Linux, all speaking to the internet and without owners who have any idea about network security.  OK, so it's unlikely that any of the owners will have a credit card to scam, at least to start with, but they may well end up with their own eBay accounts...

What it does mean is there are potentially millions of these things, all on the same flavour of Linux, all speaking to the internet and without owners who have any idea about network security.  OK, so it's unlikely that any of the owners will have a credit card to scam, at least to start with, but they may well end up with their own eBay accounts...


They could also become a target for the bot makers, who use computers for DDoS attacks.  This is the form of attack that crashed several DNS servers earlier this week.

Basically you infect the computer with a small "bot", which sits back and waits for commands.  Then the "controller" sends out a series of instructions, and the "hijacked" computer does what he wants.  It may be sending out e-mails, or attacking other computers.  This way when the attacks (or spams) are detected, the person who started the attack is hard to find, since he'she does not actually do the attack.  This was common several years ago, but fell off as spam filters came into play, and ISPs got better at filtering out DDoS attacks.  In fact, the one this week is the first serious DDoS I have heard of in several years.

They could also become a target for the bot makers, who use computers for DDoS attacks.  This is the form of attack that crashed several DNS servers earlier this week.
I know what distributed denial of service attack is: what brought me to this site in the first place was this article at wired.com, which comments on the security designed into the laptop's OS.  Sorry, should have realized that the link I gave earlier didn't mention some of this.

In effect, they're trying to prove my point that it *is* possible to make an OS unhackable, while still leaving it usable and able to connect to the outside world - it will run java/flash/python, so there are possible ways in; however, the program-level security matrix means that it's a lot less likely (in theory it's impossible, but as the designer says, he may have overlooked something) for a trojan to be able to access the internet.