yeh, mines started dl'ing every night, its usually when im playing cs which can be a bit of a pain. Can there acually be new viruses every single day ;(

:x

My own view is that, in not too long from now, the virus problem will become so vast and unmanageable that something really radical will have to be done. else the Internet will simply become unusable. It doesn't help that such trifling, puny punishments are meetered out to people who are caught designing and distributing viruses. And I simply don't go along with the self-confessed virus-generating/hacking fraternity who claim they're doing society a favour. That's bull****! In my opinion, anyone other than officially employed test agents, caught generating viruses or engaged in hacking, should receive the very severest of penalties. Sling 'em in jail and throw away the key!

Some of you, with somewhat pro-hacker viewpoints, are talking illogical nonsense, in my view. No truly self-respecting virus designer or person with hacking skills would deliberately launch their proceeds on to the entire world, using us all as guinea-pigs, causing millions of dollars-worth of damage every year. If their intentions were truly sociable ones, then they'd get themselves employed by the likes of Microsoft, Symantec and so forth and could test out vulnerabilities on isolated systems and specially-designed mock-ups instead.

No, there's no excuse for such people. The law needs to brought down on them in the heaviest way possible. The longer we, as an Internet community, tolerate them, the worse it'll become to eradicate them, or at least control them within sensible bounds.

Okay, Alecstaar, I agree with much of what you state but you appear to be very IDEALISTIC, rather than REALISTIC. You can't excuse these virus-generators and hackers simply because there are limited employment outlets for them. If they're so clever, they'd take up employment in some other, equally fulfilling field. But they don't; they continue to engage in what can only be described as downright criminal activity. Your vision of a world made better by the Internet will be doomed if we continue to give those types free reign. I guess, in the end, some sort of workable legislation will have to be brought in that'll unfortunately restrict us all. I mean, for a start, it might help if ISPs did a certain amount of filtering.

You say "It takes a thief to catch a thief". Well, sometimes that's true. However, in our everyday world (even in what we regard as UNcivilised societies), we don't tolerate thieving, do we, especially on a wide scale?

For some peculiar reason, we seem to tolerate hackers and suchlike. Opinions are gradually changing, however, and more and more people are realising just how unmanageable it's all becoming. So, perhaps in not too long from now, we'll see some workable solutions to this pestilence.

like i've said before, Viruses are one of the lowest forms of attack out there in my opinion.

Get a good firewall, get a good a/v program, sit back and relax.

I haven't had a virus cause damage to any of my systems for almost 5 years now.

Ah, methinks I detect complacency. Jdulmage, you're, of course, not alone in having remained free of viruses and other nasties - but for how much longer? That's the point. Yes, we have to be thankful for Symantec, McAfee and a host of others for assisting us but I'm afraid it's a constant race between the hackers and virus generators and the organisations like Symantec, McAfee, Microsoft, etc.

I personally know of several people whose machines have been hit by some of the more common viruses and you need only look at the problem pages on many websites to realise the extent of the problem. The editor of my own local community website recently had to scrap his main hard drives because, despite extensive firewalling and protection, a particularly damaging virus got through and caused hugely extensive damage. It wiped out months of work and he had to reconstruct the website virtually from scratch. Being an open, interactive community website with constant e-mail coming in, there was only so much that he could do to protect the site.

For the purpose of this conversation, I would suggest not clumping "Hackers and virus authors/releasers" in the same category.

Personally, I scour the net for hacking tools, and hack my own machines.

Don't touch viruses.

Very true sam as the people who think they are being hacked by a "hacker" when there firewall goes off.


No, you likely are getting scanned by a "script kiddy"

u got your:
Virus Makers
Hackers
Script kiddies
phreakers

etc etc, and they ALL do diff, things.