2008 Woodie Awards
Latest worm proves to be all talk
Bitter Bytes
By Brandon Himes
Rocket Web Editor
Issue date: 2/10/06 Section: Life
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The warnings of the virus' Feb. 3 commencing date resounded on all forms of mass communication. CNN featured a lengthy report on Kama Sutra on American Morning. During the report Miles Davis, ever the witty soul referred to the date as the day the Kama Sutra worm would "climax." Try Googling that one: "kama sutra worm climax". You'll be wading through more pornography than the back room in Pee-Wee's Playhouse. The American Morning report also warned email users against opening suspicious emails with attachments, especially "sexy e-mails" Davis said (the rest of us call it porn).
Since we are on the pseudo-related topic of Miles Davis I think it is fair to mention that I hate him for many reasons. First, he isn't funny. His puns are mundane at best and often completely out of context for a news program. Also, he is relentless about his attempts at humor. Of course, I'm not above forcing a joke where it doesn't quite fit (reference any column I've ever written), but give it a rest, please. Way to be that guy, Miles Davis. Secondly, he is always assuming to be an expert on what he reports. Now, I'm not going to get on my high horse and claim to be some kind of journalist or anything, but shouldn't an interview be about the people who actually are an expert rather than Davis' interjected and often far too obvious opinions? Davis, take your "armchair economics" and any other "armchair" expertise you may have and shove it. You aren't funny; No one cares how you think the United States' economy can be fixed; and your mom probably still ties your shoes.
The Kama Sutra worm travels via Davis' "sexy e-mails." The Kama Sutra emails are sent with such sultry titles as "School girl fantasies gone bad," "Crazy illegal Sex!" and of course, "Kama Sutra pics." The materials described in the email are supposedly attached. However, upon opening the attachment, much to the user's disappointment there is no illicit material. It appears as if the computer has frozen and has to be restarted.
Once the machine is restarted it acts normally. E-mails are sent to the user's contacts further spreading the worm, secretively of course. Beneath the surface of Windows a time bomb is slowly ticking away. When the computer's clock hits Feb. 3, 2006 the virus goes to work on your files. Ironically, the virus can be effectively held at bay by simply setting the system clock back so that it never reads later than Feb. 3.
The method to Kama Sutra's mayhem is file destruction. The worm slowly overwrites popular file formats such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel and many others. In addition to ruining files, Kama Sutra visits a web page which increments a counter on the page. Conjecture says this is so that the author can check how many systems he (virus writers are usually male, no offense ladies) has infected. The virus also performs a feeble attempt at a Denial of Service attack on Microsoft.com. The combination of the virus' tendency toward Microsoft office files and attack on Microsoft.com suggest that perhaps the author doesn't like the Gates regime. I concur.
On Feb. 3, 2006 came the day of the anticlimax. A big, fat nothing happened. A few computers here and there were affected but there were no horror stories as there have been in years past. In hindsight, it is clear to see that the threat of Kama Sutra was greatly inflated. There are several causes for this. First, the virus' counter page (which boasted close to two million infections) that experts had been watching was observed to be a count of times it had been loaded, not the number of machines visited. This inflated the count, as many machines would have visited the page more than once.
Second, experts notice that someone had been artificially increasing the number of times the page was loaded. Speculation was put forth that this was the work of the virus' author; however it's equally probable that a computer geek that still lives in his parent's basement was the culprit. People do the darndest things, especially with their computers.
Third, once news got out that the virus was incrementing a counter online, it sparked some curiosity. Soon geeks and experts alike were visiting the page to get a forecast about the amount of damage the virus might do. That's all well and good, but at the same time they were running up the counter. These things together produced a greatly inflated prediction about the virus' impact.
So Kama Sutra turned out to be a hill of beans. The only people to really suffer are those who didn't practice the most basic of personal computer maintenance. You folks can claim you just didn't know, but not after reading this. The five commandments of virus protection according to yours truly follow.
1. Thou shalt not open the forbidden fruit of unsolicited e-mails. This applies especially when they have file attachments and especially when they are pornographic in nature. They contain viruses, all of them. Not to mention that, fellows, watching lots of porn is very bad for your view of women and your love life. Show a little restraint.
2. Thou shalt use protection. I'm referring to your computer not in your love life. You need to be running antivirus software with a virus definition subscription. Anyone that did this was safe from Kama Sutra and will be safe from viruses to come. If you don't have antivirus software Slippery Rock University provides McAfee VirusScan free at http://www.sru.edu/pages/9773.asp. If you aren't enrolled at Slippery Rock you can purchase antivirus software or get Avast! Antivirus software for free at http://www.avast.com/.
3. Thou shalt run anti-spyware on thy system. Microsoft has a package at Microsoft.com. If you don't like to support blatant, unchecked monopolies you can get monopoly-free and cost-free anti-spyware software from AdAware available for download at Download.com.
4. Thy firewall shalt burn hotly. Windows has a built in firewall that is good enough. If you'd like something else I would suggest ZoneAlarm. ZoneAlarm is free and available from ZoneLabs.com.
5. Thy updates shalt be done automatically. Updates are vital. There is currently a problem on campus that causes some people's updates not to work. If this is the case I would take whatever means are necessary to get them working. To my knowledge on the subject, Microsoft doesn't know if the problem is with them or Slippery Rock's network so they're doing what they're best at: nothing.
Doing these things will keep you relatively safe from any threats, new or old. If everyone did this there would seldom be a threat that would mandate the amount of attention that Kama Sutra received. Nothing will ever eradicate viruses once and for all though. Someone will always have to fight the good fight.
