Registered: Aug 2000
Location: In a Blue, Blue State
Posts: 12547

It's time to delete the child porn from your computer

Worm tracks down child porn

By Wendy McAuliffe
ZDNet News
May 29, 2001 11:58 AM PT

An e-mail virus that seeks out images of child pornography on systems running Microsoft Windows and alerts government agencies to positive findings, has been released by hackers intent on cleaning up the Internet.
The worm dubbed "Noped", encrypted as Visual Basic Script (VBS) code, arrives as an attachment to an email entitled "FWD: Help us all to end illegal child porn now." Once executed, the virus searches all hard drives for JPEG files possessing names that indicate they may contain child pornography.

"Noped" comes bundled with a list of government and police e-mail addresses that it will send a random alert to if it discovers a match for one or more of the JPEG file names listed in the script. The attached file is named "END ILLEGAL child porn NOW.TXT...vbs", with a string of a dozen dots helping to obscure the fact that it ends with the executable ".vbs" extension and not ".TXT". The worm also displays a lengthy document detailing what it claims are international laws concerning child pornography.

But police inspector Terry Jones, of Manchester Police's Obscene Publications Unit, has confirmed that British police departments will not be responding to the worm alerts, as the reports would fail to meet evidence standards. "This is not an approach that we would advocate, as child pornography is a delicate area to investigate, and we must have reasonable cause to suspect our evidence has been gathered ethically."

Antivirus company Symantec is reporting that the virus only offers a level two threat, and that it expects to see less than a hundred infections reported. "The virus is currently not that wild--companies should have updated their virus definitions by now, so that if it spreads, they will be safe," said Andre Post, researcher at Symantec.

Noped appears less malicious than the prolific Homepage worm that infected scores of companies earlier this month. Like Noped, Homepage was written in Visual Basic script. When launched, the Homepage attachment automatically forwarded the same email to all the people in a victim's address book, and simultaneously opened one of four pornographic Web pages on the person's computer.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: aggressivly happy
Posts: 9120

shit

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Words that are strictly true seem to be paradoxical.

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Registered: Mar 2001
Location: Minnesota
Posts: 2451

That's not very bright is it? The cops can not use the e-mail as evidence because it violates so many privacy laws I'm sure. So all the cops get is inadmisable evidence. Meanwhile the offender will likely find out about the virus before the cops could get real evidence, and just have that much more time to clear the evidence.

Why did they think this would work?

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: library
Posts: 19562

Personally, I'd proposed somethin along these lines, except that if I was a l33t virus maker I wouldn't do one of those retarded vbs scripts, nor would I have it e-mail law enforcement agencies, I was thinking more along the lines of having the park the heads on the drive or some other not nice thing.

-m


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Dust mites are your friends.

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Playa d'en London
Posts: 9788

quote:

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Originally posted by RiZZ:
shit

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Cambridge
Posts: 7113

I think they should allow that as evidence.

I mean, come on... anyone who has child pornography under the name of kiddieporn.jpg or what have you, just deserves to get busted.
Also, why would someone who has child pornography on their computer open a file named "END ILLEGAL child porn NOW.TXT" ?

quote:

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Once executed, the virus searches all hard drives for JPEG files possessing names that indicate they may contain child pornography.

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Reflect. Who is the puppeteer?
Turn back. Blindness strikes.
Wicked rise. Vile rise.
Lines melt. Life burns on.

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: library
Posts: 19562

For that matter, why do morons still open .vbs spam? fucking idiots.

-m


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Dust mites are your friends.

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Playa d'en London
Posts: 9788

quote:

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Originally posted by Caffeine:
Also, why would someone who has child pornography on their computer open a file named "END ILLEGAL child porn NOW.TXT" ?

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Beatrice, Nebraska
Posts: 18490

So, it looks for file names that are sorta maybe kiddie-porn names? What does it search for, "hey&this%is$kiddie_pr0n.jpg?" Yeah, that's reliable. It probably just scans for JPG files and spawns children, sending them off using Outlook.

Going by the general way files are named, I doubt this virus will be effective.

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Have a good day, and if you feel like subjecting your genitals to high doses of x-ray radiation I'm sure the world will kindly thank you.

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Playa d'en London
Posts: 9788

its just poor propaganda.

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forever in a trance

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