Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Pearls Before Swine
That will screw up a computer, especially one with an old mother board (more than a year or two old) where the BIOS chip is hard to find or unreasonably expensive

Yep. And you can lump almost all laptops in there, even the newer ones.

Thing about malware, you can never be sure where it hits - it's not very targettable, even the fancy stuff that has been brewing in military backrooms :). And these critters sound like morons. So wait for the music industry to be hit with a few juicy lawsuits if they try this. To give you just one scenario:

"We were hit with a virus which as a payload had a download of a file from kaazaa. This file happened to be infected with a trojan put out by music company xxx. The trojan then proceeded to wipe out five years worth of cancer research data, taking care to first destroy any backups. Basically, we want all of xxx's assets - and all their executives as experimental specimens".

And then you have all the really malevolent folks who will see this is a thrown down glove. Interesting times ahead.

143 posted on 06/17/2003 4:52:08 PM PDT by Cachelot (~ In waters near you ~)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 83 | View Replies ]


To: Cachelot
Oh they'll be sue proof. His Hatchness will see to that.
145 posted on 06/17/2003 4:54:38 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 143 | View Replies ]

To: Cachelot
And these critters sound like morons. So wait for the music industry to be hit with a few juicy lawsuits if they try this.

That won't work, since the RIAA has the courts thoroughly bought and wins every suit brought for or against it, even the weird frivolous ones (loot a college student's life savings for writing a search engine, for example).

No, what's going to happen is the hackers will declare open season on Hollywood. Music execs will have their credit card numbers made public, be shipped tons of online items they never ordered, see their kids' school records deleted... There will be no end to it.

294 posted on 06/18/2003 12:10:32 PM PDT by BlazingArizona
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 143 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson