viruses. Is there anything unethical about his? The Bible tells us that it is wrong to “cause your brother to
Nottingham 7
stumble.”(87) Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica says, “…man acts for an end by his reason and will.” (97) So if a person always acts will a reason, it would be helpful to examine VLADs reason for publishing their ‘Zine. They state:
Aims and Policies
+———————+
I guess it’s not our aim, but one of our main policies is that we don’t release and destructive code. Some people out there will argue that a virus in any shape or form is destructive.. what I’m talking about is purposeful destruction such as formatting people’s hard drives, writing random sectors, etc. The reason for this is that it makes thing bad for everyone. It helps further the theory that all virus authors are nerdy *censored*s who have nothing better to do [than] destroy a computer.
The reason we publish this magazine, is because we have something to offer that could be of use to others. We hope to educate people on how viruses work, and do this by giving examples. There are people out their that might have fun inserting their own nick in the virus and spreading it to try and be elite, but I’d say a majority of people actually get something useful out of our mag. Anti Virus research is totally legal as far as I know, and our magazine would certainly help someone who’s in this field. Or on the other hand it could be used by a beginning virus author who needs help to get their virus off the ground. Information is a free commodity, we’re just passing it along.”
If the reasons quoted here are the real reasons that VLAD publishes their magazine then the only people that are doing anything wrong are the people that compile and distribute the working virus. For example, there is nothing wrong with fertilizer. Without it farmers that provide us with fruits and vegetables and the ranchers that provide us with meats would have a much more difficult time growing the plants they need to do their job. However, sometimes people choose to misuse the fertilizer and other normally helpful chemicals for the making of devices that kill massive numbers of people at a time. Are the manufactures doing anything immoral by selling their product? Of course not. In addition anti-virus
Nottingham 8
researchers can update their own programs to look for the newly published viruses as soon as the electronic magazines come out. If Viral Labs and Distribution didn’t publish their code, then anti-virus personnel would have to first isolate the new virus and then spend months disassembling it.
In conclusion, it seems that times most respected philosophers concur with this authors thesis, that virus writing is fine as long as no one is hurt.
“Ultimately, there is no security.”
-Dr. Fred Cohen, Professor, University of Cincinnati
Nottingham 12
Bibliography
Anders, E., Atwater, D., Baker, K., Bergen, K., Duarte, B., & Goldsmith, K. (1993). The Norton Anti- Virus User’s Guide. Cupertino, California: Symantec Corp.
Booth, Stephen A. (1995, June). Doom Virus. Popular Mechanics, pp. 51-54 & 128.
Ludwig, Mark. (1991). The Little Black Book of Computer Viruses. Tucson: American Eagle Publication, Inc.
Lundell, Allan. (1989). Virus!. Chicago: Contemporary Books
Metabolis (1995, April 27). Aim & Policies [Electronic Magazine]. Viral Labs and Distribution, pp. 8-9
Newton, H. Lisa. (1989). Ethics in America. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall
Symantec. (1993). The Norton Anti-Virus: Version 3 for DOS and Windows [Computer Anti-Viral program]. Cupertino, California: Symantec Corp.
Nottingham 9
Appendix A
Throughout this essay I have avoided the use of the word “hacker” when referring to virus writers. The correct way of referring to virus writers would be “cracker.”
The definition of a cracker is one who attempts to break into a system via cracking/guessing user passwords. Most of the crackers are young teenage punks who are very malicious and seek to get their kicks from destroying or altering data on a system. The media often times mistakes the cracker for the hacker. Also note that a cracker’s level of education/intelligence on the system and its inner workings ect. is very low.
The hacker on the other hand is an individual who yearns for knowledge. The hackers are very knowledgeable individuals. They often times know several programming languages, work extensively with the inwards and outwards of UNIX, have a firm understanding of all the TCP/IP implementations and protocols. They keep abreast on all security related issues involving computers. Breaking into a system for a hacker is a thrill, it is a challenge that they take on. The hacker takes much delight in exploring the system from the outside/inside searching vigorously for misconfigurations, bugs, and holes in the operating system that would allow them to break into the machine. Once in the system the challenge had been completed and they have succeeded in breaking in. It is against hacker ethics to alter any data aside from the logs that are needed to clean their tracks. They have no need or desire to destroy data as the malicious crackers. They are there to explore the system and learn more. The hacker has a constant yearning and thirst for knowledge that increases in intensity as their journey progresses.
Nottingham 10
Glossary
Anti-virus protection Usually a program that searches for known viruses and then destroys them
Assembly level programming Most difficult way to program. See CODE for example
Code Viruses are written with code like this:
push bp
mov bp, sp
les bx, [bp+4]
mov cx, [bp+8]
mov ax, 0
A working virus would have hundreds of lines like this
Compiled Compiling changes the “words” seen in CODE to the ones and zero that a computer understands
Data The information on a computer. Files, directories, ect.
Hard drive The memory [storage] of a computer
Formatting Deletion of all data
Source code Same as CODE
Writing random sectors Overwriting random spots on the hard drive to resulting in corrupt files
Nottingham 11
Virus writer Since computer viruses are programs and not natural
devices like organic viruses they must be created. The virus writer creates them.