At 01:49 PM 1/31/04 -0500, Tyler Durden wrote: >One byproduct I'm noticing as a result of the MyDoom virus(es) is that we're >seeing all sorts of email addresses we've never seen before. Does this mean >these are all sorts of subscribers' names we've never seen before? Is a
>byproduct of this virus to "out" lurkers? > >If that's the case, then it may be worth thinking about some interesting >possible sources for virii of this type. My feed is [EMAIL PROTECTED] so I don't see them. However during the Sircam period I saw this, so I know what you're talking about. A virus that uses on-disk addresses to propogate *does* have the side-effect that you mention ---involuntary help for the traffic analysts. Note that a biological (retro)virus or transposable element can have side effects (like cancer) as it hops about the genome, occasionally smashing some regulatory machinery. Not that smashing regulatory machinery, on the social (not cellular) scale, is always bad :-) You'll recall that some virus a few years ago would forward documents from infected machines, and supposedly a NATO RoE in Yugo got outed. Microsoft apps are the equivalent of eating african monkeys smothered in british cowbrain sauce. With chinese civets for dessert.
