The news called me an idiot

[fujinsan]

indirectly of course, but it just feels like they did, because of this evil virus that should have everyone scared to death. It's the news coming from people I believe don't know how to work a computer or something like that. I know how to prevent getting a virus, I know all the tricks, and why is a worm news? Shits been around since the internet, so why is this news? Apparently a bunch of hackers decided to get together and fuck up some internetz *shrugs* So my question is, has the news made you afraid of this? Or do you feel like they just slapped you?

[Starnum]

I don't know, but I thought it sounded pretty stupid when I first heard about it. Either it's a joke, or some hackers are being real arse-holes. Either way, best to be safe I guess.

[Aetherfukz]

What news?

The only news that shocked me in the last few days was a 13year old shooting his 10year old brother in the face with the fathers handgun because, WTF?!, his brother took his favorite place in front of the TV...

[fujinsan]

That's exactly my point though, they blow little things like this out of proportion and present it in a much larger scale. I didn't even hear about the news your talking about! That should be the biggest news on right now. It's crazy, if your stupid enough to download shit your not supposed to then yeah you'll get it. Do tell more about this story though, I'd like to hear about it.

[Aetherfukz]

Hmm apparently this already occured a few weeks ago, but I just read it last week, and this wasn't on any news in german television when it happened:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/ ... 1887.shtml

[Starnum]

Well, from what I've read about this virus, it's been out for about a year now. It activated yesterday, but to no real affect from what we can tell. It apparently has the ability to shut down your computers defenses, and theoretically the creator would have control of your PC. It was mentioned on the news because we've known about it for a while, but it was dormant until yesterday supposedly, and I guess they just wanted to warn people about it (especially if you knew you already had it). If you don't already have it, then it shouldn't be much of a concern. Even if you do have it, it doesn't seem all that harmful (unless it disables your computers defesnes, that could be really bad), but what they're really wondering is what the creator might do with the millions of computers now at his disposal. Probably nothing will come of it, lets hope not anyway. I agree, it's not really very news worthy. I mean, if you don't know how to protect yourself from a virus or have virus protection, the news isn't gonna help much either way. Yeah, this isn't really any special virus though, so it's nothing new. Just do what you normally do to protect your system and you should be fine, as far as I can tell. *shrugs*

[Aetherfukz]

Well, from what I've read about this virus, it's been out for about a year now. It activated yesterday, but to no real affect from what we can tell. It apparently has the ability to shut down your computers defenses, and theoretically the creator would have control of your PC. It was mentioned on the news because we've known about it for a while, but it was dormant until yesterday supposedly, and I guess they just wanted to warn people about it (especially if you knew you already had it). If you don't already have it, then it shouldn't be much of a concern. Even if you do have it, it doesn't seem all that harmful (unless it disables your computers defesnes, that could be really bad), but what they're really wondering is what the creator might do with the millions of computers now at his disposal. Probably nothing will come of it, lets hope not anyway. I agree, it's not really very news worthy. I mean, if you don't know how to protect yourself from a virus or have virus protection, the news isn't gonna help much either way. Yeah, this isn't really any special virus though, so it's nothing new. Just do what you normally do to protect your system and you should be fine, as far as I can tell. *shrugs*

Nitpicking, but still:

If this entity gives its creator entry to computer system, it's not a virus, it's a trojan.
If it's a trojan, a good network layout and firewalls + proxy should take care of it.
In the first place I'd bitchslap all the network/system admins of the involved companies around for letting their users surf with internet explorer, because such things won't happen in firefox/opera to sane users.

Anyway, why hasn't anybody developed a virus that would do the following upon activation:



The floppy will be broken for the most part I think but still - that would be one awesome virus.

[Starnum]

Heh, sweet video. Yeah, I'm not terribly computer savvy, but I do what I can to protect my system. I use Firefox now too, so I guess that helps.

[fujinsan]

@ Aetherfukz: That my friend would be a badass virus, if you have a floppy drive still.

@ Starnum: With a million computers computing something all at once, I think it would be possible to build a nuke? :Shrugs:

But anywho, off topic I just got windows 7 beta today, and I gotta say it is alot like vista, a few things to note though. Numeral backgrounds that shuffle to make a slide show, Like 12 different colors, task bar is like a million times better from xp imo. There's also a new paint out for it, not sure if it's for all os's. Alot faster than both xp and vista hands down. Aetherfukz, you are very good with computers right? Have you got w7?