OT: What's next? DRM on viruses?

[Giftzwerg]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080428-malware-authors-turn-to-
eulas-to-protect-their-work.html

"Selling botnets for particular attacks, black markets for stolen
identities, and malware construction kits are all now par for the course
for the increasingly commercial malware industry. Discovering that
malware authors have actually turned to End-User License Agreements
(EULAs) in an attempt to protect their own intellectual property,
however, most definitely qualifies as something new, different, and
beautifully ironic."

...and...

"It's obviously difficult for the manufacturers of an illegal product to
threaten legal sanctions against an infringer, but the Zeus authors give
it their best shot. According to the EULA, 'In cases of violations of
the agreement and being detected, the client loses any technical
support. Moreover, the binary code of your bot will be immediately sent
to antivirus companies'."

Laugh? Cry?

I can't wait for the first time somebody brings me a workstation for
cleaning and the message is, "Stomper.64.virus. Activation Error. Your
two licenses for this product have been used. Please contact customer
support at ..."

--
Giftzwerg
***
"One way of testing whether Obama is the candidate of 'bringing us
together' and 'getting past partisan divisions' is to ask him to specify
one - just one - significant issue on which he would be willing to break
ranks with his party and join with the other party."
- Bill Otis

[eddys...@hotmail.com]

On 29 apr, 15:23, Giftzwerg <giftzwerg...@NOSPAMZ.hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> I can't wait for the first time somebody brings me a workstation for
> cleaning and the message is, "Stomper.64.virus.  Activation Error.  Your
> two licenses for this product have been used.  Please contact customer
> support at ..."

Well, at least the error message is way more informative and is an
indication of a professionalism than cannot be found in wargames using
DRM ...

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

[Briarroot]

Giftzwerg wrote:
> http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080428-malware-authors-turn-to-
> eulas-to-protect-their-work.html
>
> "Selling botnets for particular attacks, black markets for stolen
> identities, and malware construction kits are all now par for the course
> for the increasingly commercial malware industry. Discovering that
> malware authors have actually turned to End-User License Agreements
> (EULAs) in an attempt to protect their own intellectual property,
> however, most definitely qualifies as something new, different, and
> beautifully ironic."
>
> ...and...
>
> "It's obviously difficult for the manufacturers of an illegal product to
> threaten legal sanctions against an infringer, but the Zeus authors give
> it their best shot. According to the EULA, 'In cases of violations of
> the agreement and being detected, the client loses any technical
> support. Moreover, the binary code of your bot will be immediately sent
> to antivirus companies'."
>
> Laugh? Cry?
>
> I can't wait for the first time somebody brings me a workstation for
> cleaning and the message is, "Stomper.64.virus. Activation Error. Your
> two licenses for this product have been used. Please contact customer
> support at ..."
>

It won't happen but it would be great for the rest of us if all the
malware authors in the world began fighting with each other. The result
might look something like a snake swallowing itself!

--
"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the
blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of
misery." - Winston Churchill