On Thu, Dec 06, 2001, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote about "Re: making a non-GPLed module":
> Each time I see such a thread I remind myself that I am either
> unusually lucky or I must be doing sth right (for a change). While I
> get a lot of emails and I am subscribed to quite a few mailing lists
> and newsgroups, I never (sic!) get viruses and very rarely (once in a
> few months) get spam (not counting the few spam postings on the
> newsgroups). The only thing I consciously do is mangle my email
> address posting to newsgroups. Maybe most of my friends are
> technically-minded and don't keep my address in their Outlook
> contacts? Actually, maybe most of them don't use Outlook? Plausible.
> Be careful in choosing friends... ;-)
This has nothing to do with my friends - none of these 143 viruses came
from anyone I know. It's most likely people who browsed one of my sites
(namely, iguide.co.il) and my email (or one of my numerous webmaster@...
aliases) was on the bottom of the page.
Note that recent worms don't just send viruses to your "friends" - they
also evesdrop on your TCP sessions and try to pick up interesting email
addresses on these communications, so you'll be sending viruses to people
whose websites you read, whose mailing list postings you read, and so on.
Most recent viruses used a special-purpose mail sender which didn't show
a correct "From" address, but interestingly this one does (except it adds
a "_" in the beginning of the address).
These worms actually give me a strange insight on who's browsing my sites.
This one (badtrans-B) gave me the email addresses of 143 such people, and
now I can contact them with unsolicited offers, or even blackmail them for
using my site[1] ;) A previous worm (I forgot its name) even sent me dozens
of secret files (Word documents, and so on) from poor windows-using suckers
who browsed my site...
[1] If you're into racketeering, consider setting up a porno site with an
email at the bottom of the page, and smile as lists of potential victims
to extort just start flowing into your mailbox.
It's quite similar to the phone-sex racket explained on the last two
weekend editions of Yediot Acharonot.
--
Nadav Har'El | Thursday, Dec 6 2001, 21 Kislev 5762
[EMAIL PROTECTED] |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |If you choke a Smurf, what color does it
http://nadav.harel.org.il |turn?
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