Virus Writers: the End of the Innocence

Architecture and Background

Sarah Gordon - Virus Writers: The End of The Innocence. Earlier research has empirically demonstrated the cyclic nature of virus writing activity: As virus writers age out, new virus writers take their places; enhanced connectivity amplifies the existing problem and various technical factors result in new types of virus writers surfacing and the cycles repeat. However, a new variable has recently been introduced into the cycle: legal intervention. The virus writing community now has experienced visits by concerned law enforcement; there have been arrests and sentencings.

Vulnerability Analysis

New laws are being enacted, and acted upon. Thus, the virus writing scene is no longer a casual game of kids on local BBS. What has been the impact (perceptually and operationally) of these visits, arrests, and most importantly, the (yet to be imposed) sentencing of David Smith. In other words, as the virus problem gets more and more attention, where are we actually going in terms of shaping acceptable behavior in our virtual communities and what, if any, impact are these legal interventions having on the impact of viruses impacting users ?

Exploitation and Demonstrations

In order to produce a scientifically meaningful answer to this question, this pre and post-test study examines pre-sentencing opinions of the impact of the visits/arrests/sentencing and compares these findings with those from post-sentencing opinions. Opinions are interesting and must be considered, as we know the opinions of today shape how people behave in the future. However, we are also concerned with immediate impact. To this end, impact will be examined in terms of viruses found both ItW and on the WWW, as a function of time with parameters being pre/post sentencing.

Remediation and Defensive Strategies

In particular, we are interested in any discontinuity noted in the graph of viruses both ItW and on the WWW, and in online references to legal concerns. The conclusions will obviously depend on the actual results, but there appear to be essentially one of two scenarios: i. The pre and post tests studies will demonstrate significant differences. Thus, proponents of tough police follow-up of virus writers will have some hard evidence that this actually has a financial value, as well as a societal impact. The pre and post test studies will demonstrate no appreciable difference. This means that we need to re-evaluate the worth of pursuing virus writers as a useful way of curbing the problem and evaluate the wisdom of spending large amounts of public funding to pursue this avenue of defense.