Hackers, spammers and spies go into overdrive in December and January, when unsuspecting neophytes unwrap new computers, connect to the Internet, and, too often, get hit with viruses, spyware and other nefarious programs.

"People want to get on the Net right away, just like they want to put together and start using any Christmas present," said Tony Redmond, chief technology officer of Palo Alto, Calif.-based computer giant Hewlett-Packard Co., whose new PCs ship with 60 days of virus and adware protection. "They should be warned that the Net is a very, very dangerous place."

Susan Love's problems began with a smile.

The New York City fund-raiser clicked on a happy-face attachment in a friend's e-mail last year. The virus crashed her computer within an hour.

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Buz

Lets give all those pathetic losers out there a hand for keeping the hacker culture alive over the Christmas / New Year period. Without them too many people would be enjoying there new computers virus and hack free. Oh and lets not forget all those System Admins giving up there happy holidays to return to work fixing all the damage done.

Ho ho ho…

it doesnt matter if its christmas or eater, weekday or weekend, day or night

if theres an exploit im going to compile and learn, im not going to wait for people to get back to work. I had 4days off during Christmas break, 3 of them i had to work. Im not waiting for others.

But im not malicious either

You see I just don’t get that?!?! Are you telling me that you’d prefer to be sitting in front of your computer on Christmas Eve/Day learning how to exploit one of those new Oracle exploits rather then spending time with family and friends???

Now don’t get me wrong. I see nothing wrong with using your computer over those days. I was on mine those days downloading pictures off the digital camera, emails friend, etc. But I knew when to walk away and return to the celebrations.



In your case Myth1368 it’s unfortunate that you only got one day off over the Christmas break. But are you being spiteful or jealous of other people that do have time off by saying “You’re not waiting for others”. If you found an exploit during this period, that’s great, but wouldn’t it be more responsible to sit on it and share it with the community after the New Year?

I don’t know??? My opinions come from being the defender rather then the attacker.

quote
UKo
"Lets give all those pathetic losers out there a hand for keeping the hacker culture alive"

Excuse me, u complete imbecile the so called hacker culture is the one force that drives progress in most computer filelds. whether it be on the one hand the hackers and crackers exploiting holes and weaknesses in multi platforms scenarios to the " good guys" closing the holes creating patches and constantly reshaping and modifying there software.
lest we pay homage to Tim Berners-Lee, who was " Banned from using university PC for hacking" i think that pretty much proves my point.
Without "hack culture" there would be no net.

Hey hey hey, com’on.

Firstly if you’re going to quote someone at least put in the full sentence m[a]d. Anything can be twisted to your favor extracting half a sentence. The sentence you were referring to was related to those few days between Christmas and New Years only. I guess more specifically those two actual days.

By no means was I trying to ostracize the hacker culture itself. I have great respect for a lot of hackers out there. Yes, you’re right m[a]d, the net was founded on great hacks, agreed. My comments were directed at the people who give the hacking culture a bad name.

I feel that you’re missing my point though, and that is, I find it hard to understand why a Christmas Day / New Years eve needs to be spent looking for someone elses bad code. Then actually spending that day exploiting that code on the net. That’s it, that’s all, nothing more too it…

While I’m writing, though, let me tell a short story with no meaning. It’s Christmas day, 1994. Tsutomu Shimomura is spending this special day with his friends not worrying about his email or computers in general. Somewhere else though, Kevin Mitnick is hacking / cracking (whatever you want to call it) into Shimomura’s computers. From that point on Shimomura’s holidays were F’ed right up because of Kevin. Ultimately leading to Shimomura’s obsession to help catch Mitnick and land him in jail for 5 years.