Shawn K. wrote:
> Hmm, I don't understand that "wonder if..." aspect of virus writing.
Set your way-back machine to the early days of networking, when
the idea of a self-propogating program sounded like either a
science fiction plot device or a mathematical puzzle, and that
"wonder if" aspect makes more sense. It just doesn't make so
much sense _now_, when such things are everyday nuisances.
> think the value of curiosity is over stated constantly. I know a lot of
> "hackers" consider themselves on the side of good because they are acting
> out of "curiosity" and they use that to justify their actions.
*cough* _Who_ do?
The hackers I know are in fact motivated by curiosity and
challenge. Then again, they don't generally go breaking
into systems or writing viruses and worms. For most of
them, the most ethically questionable things they've done
as part of being hackers are to want to be able to play
a legally-purchased DVD on a computer running Linux, and
to illustrate the idiocy of a government policy by printing
T-shirts that (at the time) were legally classified as
munitions (solely by virtue of what was printed on them).
You may have two different groups confused. _Hackers_ do
explain a lot of their motivation as curiosity. They also
tend to look down on crackers and script-kiddies.
Hackers are the people who brought us Usenet, IRC, Linux,
gcc, Emacs, GIMP, and at least some of the popular blogging
tools. The hacking urge is inherently creative, not
destructive.
> I think the
> real answer is that it's sheer idiocy combined with an undeserved talent
> that results in all this criminal activity.
Uh, not even ... From what I've read, it turns out that there are
"virus kits", and apparently a significant number of the people
creating viruses aren't really even all that talented or skilled.
"Sheer idiocy combined with [...] talent" might describe
the RTFM worm, which was supposed to stay contained to a
campus network (to demonstrate a vulnerability0 but escaped
due to a bug in it -- we can call that hubris. But the author
was properly embarrassed at the result; he didn't take delight
in causing destruction or think it earned him l33tness points
the way script-kiddies seem to. I don't think most of the
people writing worms today are doing so because they're
curious. At least not the ones who release them into the
wild.
-- Glenn
