And You Wonder About The GOP Base
There really are some incredibly stupid people using the ‘Net: Free computer virus finds willing victims
HELSINKI, Finland (Reuters) — Computer specialist Didier Stevens put up a simple text advertisement on the Internet offering downloads of a computer virus for people who did not have any.
Surprisingly, he found as many as 409 people clicking on the ad saying “Is your PC virus-free? Get it infected here!” during a 6-month advertising campaign on Google’s Adword, said the IT security expert.
He didn’t actually provide a virus, so I guess someone could file a false advertising complaint.
Speaking of foolish moves, I’m in the process of upgrading from WordPress version 2.0.3 to version 2.2, so if everything disappears, don’t be surprised. There are security issues involved or I wouldn’t do it.
3 comments
Someone probably WILL file a false advertising complaint. As a very wise man said “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”
The best “social engineering” story I know is the one in which members of an IT department created jump drives containing an autorun virus, then distributed them around the employee parking lot of their company. The virus did nothing but email the IT department with info to allow them to locate the machine on which it had been run. According to the story, the “free” jump drives found plenty of takers.
Good luck with the upgrades. One thing I’ve found about UNIX/Linux-world software is that one upgrades to a new version at one’s peril, unless one is some sort of wizard. I suppose that’s true in any environment, but it’s certainly an undesirable “feature” in a world filled with security threats that necessitate frequent patches and occasional upgrades.
In one of my collections of corollaries to Murphy’s Law, Andante, there was:
Nothing can be made foolproof – fools are too ingenious.
So now we have drowning hazard warning labels on the sides of buckets.
I waited out all of the 2.1 upgrades, Steve, but there are some minor problems that it would be nice to fix and someone is apparently exploiting a couple of php flaws.