Category: Technology

ACM Queue magazine has this fictional account of malware creators and their experiences. Although the characters are made up, the techniques and events are patterned on real activities of many different groups developing malicious software. Very interesting read.

“A guarantee? You want a guarantee?” Misha frowned at the screen. His negotiations with kru5h3r via IRC had been going well, till now. Kru5h3r wanted a full-function rootkit that he could distribute to build a botnet. He was willing to pay, but he didn’t want his investment to go up in smoke if his rootkit signature found its way into popular intrusion detection software.

“Nobody gives a guarantee,” Misha thought, but as he was about to type that reply, something made him pause.

“That’s right… we offer them insurance!” Misha grinned. Slava looked at him in disbelief. “Of course, they pay for the custom rootkit, but for a little bit extra every month, we will give them protection from the signature databases. If their kit is spotted and tagged, we’ll give them another one that does the same thing, but doesn’t match the known signature. They pay us a subscription fee through Aurum, so it all stays nice and anonymous.”

Read full story.

The internet has now begun blurring the lines between reality and virtual reality. It started with people spending large part of their lives (over 14 hours per day in some cases) inside the virtual worlds created by massively multiplayer online role-playing games like World of Warcraft, or Second Life. Second Life has for a while been attracting a bunch of non-gamers too, because it it not really a game. It is just a virtual world where people hang out, and in some cases, run businesses.

According to wikipedia Second Life is an Internet-based virtual world which came to international attention via mainstream news media in late 2006 and early 2007. Developed by Linden Lab, a downloadable client program enables its users, called “Residents“, to interact with each other through motional avatars, providing an advanced level of a social network service combined with general aspects of a metaverse. Residents can explore, meet other Residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, create and trade items (virtual property) and services from one another.

Soon, real life began intruding into Second Life. For example, the announcement of the release of Sun Open Java was also done inside Second Life in the form of a Press Conference. In early 2007 the Swedish Institute stated it was about to set up an Embassy in Second Life. Now, Coldwell Banker, a real estate agency in the US has bought a large tract of land inside Second Life. It plans on re-selling half of it and renting out the other half.

Coldwell, which employs over 120,000 real-world sales agents in the United States and operates in a total of 45 countries, isn’t in Second Life to make money, says Charlie Young, the company’s senior vice president for marketing. “In the end this is about buying and selling homes in the real world,” he says. “We’re trying to figure out how to reach what we call the ‘new consumer’.” Executives insist that any profits will be reinvested in Second Life real estate.

See full article.