May 14, 2001– Newsletter #130

Greetings, Weekend Silicon Warriors,

My PDA arrived. Sorry I couldn’t tell those of who
wrote what kind I bought but I really didn’t know. Now I
do. It’s a Handspring brand running the Palm OS.
Apparently it’s a good one because the university radio
station manager, who lives by his by the way, said it was
a really good one.

I’ve turned it on, set the date and time, entered some
phone numbers and tried the alarm function. That’s
about it at this point.

Further updates as events warrant.

Did you hear

Oh dear this will certainly mess everything up. The
story goes that Danish officials are preparing a law that
will make it legal, yes, legal, to download music off of
the Internet. The catch is that you must only download for
personal use and may not share the files you download.
Yeah? And? The International Federation of the
Phonographic Industry, the global equal to the RIAA here
in the U.S.A. is all upset. If the law passes, which it
seems it will, then one can basically launder music in
Denmark. Someone may illegally post a song to the
Web, but if it is downloaded in Denmark, it’s legal. Oh,
this is going to muddy the waters.

According to a conference in Ottawa, Canada, the
Internet will run out of IP addresses by 2005. There are
only 4 billion available you see. The conference is being
held to discuss the new Internet protocol version 6 (Ipv6),
which will offer a solution to the problem.
You know what’s funny about this? It won’t be people
who will take up most of the IP addresses in the near
future, but appliances that are attached to the Web. Yes,
refrigerators and toasters and cell phones will fill up the
Web. Cool, huh?

Now onto today’s topic

OK, this time it’s serious.

The last couple of viruses I told you about were what
were termed mid-level concerns. This latest has been
rated serious. Once again it is a virus that spreads
through an attached file that carries a VBS extension.
Once again the thing spreads through Microsoft Outlook
so it looks like a friend sent it. Once again it has a
message suggesting, You have to see this. The subject
line is once again nondescript. It simply reads,
Homepage.

Once again, once again, once again

The Homepage virus, as its know from the subject line,
is officially titled VBSWG.X. The virus itself is a lot like
the Anna Kournikova virus that hit last February
attacking well over a half million computers. Where this
puppy is different is that when it’s fired up it opens a
bunch of porn sites all at once.

Kaboom.

I have to tell you, I am just stunned when another of these
hits. It’s just like the last ones. Oh sure, it does other
things but it’s still delivered the same way.

AND IT KEEPS GETTING PEOPLE!!!

Huh? It’s the same darn thing.

Yes, I know that there are people that will open anything
as long as they think it might be porn, but can the
percentage of people really be that high? Can there really
be a half million surfers out there that will keep running
headlong into the same brick wall as long as we keep
painting a different naked woman on it?

It seems odd that the virus is basically like the last ones
but gets a serious rating from virus companies. I guess
the reason is that even though it’s basically the same
delivery method, this one is working for some reason.
It’s already hit Europe with a vengeance.

I also think it’s having such success because, just like the
Kournikova virus, there’s a fake legitimate extension
before the VBS. The Kournikova virus had .jpg.vbs. I
think I received 20 of them. This one has .HTML.vbs.
Note that the HTML is in all caps too. Maybe
people’s eyes just stop at the known extension and never
see the VBS. Either way, this one’s getting through.

When asked about how to protect one’s self from viruses,
I’ve actually stopped telling people to look for the VBS
extension. I now tell them to open nothing. I mean
nothing. Period. If you get an attachment you didn’t
specifically ask for or don’t recognize, call the person
who sent it and verify what the thing is. If you don’t
know the person, don’t open it. It’s pretty much that
simple. If you get a ton of attachments each day through
your work, then look for that VBS extension. You should
also look for the SRC, screen saver, extension but that’s
another newsletter.

If all of this has seemed interesting to you so far, now we
get to the best part. Unlike many of the other viruses that
came out, we actually know who started this one right
from the get-go. Furthermore, we know why.

Three Netherlands teenagers who wanted to boost traffic
to some porn sites started the virus.

One more time! With feeling!

Three Netherlands teenagers who wanted to boost traffic
to some porn sites started the virus.

Yes, you heard right. There is a new marketing tactic out
there. Surely there will be a rush to name the silly thing.
Allow me to throw my hat into the ring. I say we call it:

Varketing

Virus plus Marketing equals Varketing.

Let’s run that one up the flag pole and see who salutes.

I can see it now. A person sits down to read his or her
email and opens a Varketing virus. He or she proclaims:

AAAAUUGH! All of the data I’ve been working on is
gone, gone, gone! But hey! There’s a 20% off sale on
virus software at Amazon.com. I guess things are going
to be OK.

The authorities certainly couldn’t get the Varketers for
Spamming. I mean, Spam implies that it’s an unwanted
advance. Varketing is enacted by you much like opening
the Sunday paper, right?

I’m kidding of course. There’s no need to write and tell
me I’m wrong, or worse yet, ask how your company can
get into Varketing.

I’m just wondering what the next virus will be.

I already know how it will be distributed.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

That’s That. Thanks for reading.

Joe Burns, Ph.D.

And remember: Around where I live in Louisiana are
these huge live oak trees. Hanging from the branches of
those trees are long strands of what are called Spanish
moss. It doesn’t hurt the tree and just looks great when
the wind picks up. I heard a couple of facts about
Spanish moss I thought were interesting. First off, it used
to be that Spanish moss was used to fill mattresses and
pillows. The person that I was speaking to reported that
the moss-filled bed items gave rise to the phrase, Don’t
let the bed bugs bite. Apparently there were actual bed
bugs brought along with the moss. Ugh. Then I found
out that Spanish moss isn’t really moss at all. It’s what’s
known as a Bromeliad. Spanish Moss’s closest relative is
the pineapple. Go figure.