[NTLUG:Discuss] Inflamatory remarks on Sophos' website

[Steve Baker]

Richard Geoffrion wrote:
> To: Maui Ing (maui.ing at sophos.com)
>  http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/articles/linuxwars.html
>  
> I  think that reporting Graham Cluley's speculation on the reason
> behind the creation of the mydoom/novarg/sco.a worm is irresponsible.

I agree with your sentiments - but I think you may be overreacting.

Let's look closely at what he says:

  "Virus researchers at Sophos are suggesting that the W32/MyDoom-A
   worm, currently spreading widely across the internet, may have
   been deliberately constructed as a weapon in the current round
   of "Linux wars"."

Well, Duh.  Someone deliberately constructed it as a weapon against
SCO.  They didn't do it accidentally - so it's "deliberately constructed"
to do whatever it does.  It's certainly a weapon (in Internet terms at
least). It's certainly aimed against SCO.  So what's to disagree with here?

  "It appears that the author of MyDoom may have taken the war of words
   from the courtrooms and internet message boards to a new level by
   unleashing this worm which attacks SCO's website."

...again - this is obviously true.  There would be little reason to
attack SCO unless it was somehow related to the present legal shinanigens.
I mean, it MIGHT be someone who has some other grudge to bear against SCO
- but you've got to admit the odds are against it.

  "If we ever get our hands on MyDoom's creator my guess is that he
   will be an open source sympathiser."

...well, he only says that it's his *guess*.  He's not reporting it
as a fact.   It would be my guess too - although I also don't know
for sure.

These morons who unleash worms, virii and other nastiness are not
exactly the smartest people on the planet or they'd be doing
something more productive in their spare time.  It wouldn't at all
suprise me if one of them (perhaps being a Linux user) would be stupid
enough to launch a DDOS against SCO.

Yes, it *could* be Microsoft - or someone paid by Microsoft - or even
a fairly devious Microsoft sympathiser - heck, it *could* even be SCO
themselves...but if I was a betting man, I'd be bet on idiocy over
conspiriacy every time.

It's not a good thing to face up to - but I have to say I think it's
very likely that a Linux enthusiast did this.

What's important (IMHO) is for us all to express outrage - to make it
clear that this person is an idiot and in no way representative of the
other ten to fifteen million Linux users out there.

A very large proportion of Linux users are programmers - there are probably
a million people who COULD have done this if they really put their minds to
it.  The fact that 999,999 of us did not speaks volumes for our intelligence
and self-control.  However, in any population of a million people, there are
bound to be quite a few morons who would do something like this.

If our community at large really, truly wanted to damage SCO and/or Microsoft
and if we weren't afraid to fight dirty, we could do immensely more damage than
this stupid virus is doing...but we shouldn't and we won't because that's not
the kind of people that 99.99999% of Linux users are.  However, there is always
that 0.00001% that we can't always control.

---------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------
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