There just aint no free lunch.
If you run a multi-tasking operating system, by definition, there are
tasks running in the background. There is no necessity for you to know
they are running. Whatever else sabotage software is, it runs in the
background.
I run DR-DOS. in single tasking mode. no background, nothing for a
virus running on netware to get into. I can see where some geek
might be able to modify JAVA code so that it alters the firmware of
the modem, turning off the speaker, so you dont hear it dial out or
logon.
The worst sabotage event I know of happened years ago, when a hacker
under contract saw that the software house he was coding for was not
going to pay him for his work, feeling that they had enough lawyers
to keep him in court forever. Which they certainly did.
He put a virus in the software module he wrote. When they ripped him
off, by making copies of that work without his permission, they also
ripped off the virus in it. This was in turn copied onto the master
disks, and onto those in the shrinkwrap on the shelf in the stores.
IIRC, it cost corporate customers 40 million to fix. They arrested
him, but all charges were dropped when it was demonstrated that they
had no right to the software in the fist place.
Now, the bad news. Talented programmers are leaving Microsoft in
droves to find contracts working in Linux. What bombs have they left
on the WINx disks? Damifino.
But since it could be embedded in the operating system from the outset,
there aint no such thing as a windoz firewall.
Another thing I read in programmer reports was that Microsoft was very
concerned over piracy in Asia. To ameliorate that problem, each copy
of WINx was coded with a serial number, and unbeknownst to the user,
the software included a macro to email Microsoft headquarters with the
name and other personal information of the WINx user of the copy. This
would no doubt tip them off if a lotta people were using the same copy
of windows. But I dunno what else Microsoft corporation might do with
the database. The data could include not only your name, but your most
private passwords.
Like they say, whatever you say here is recorded, and might be held
against you. Be polite.
It would appear that Big Brother's last name is Gates.
You cannot do this with an 'open source' operating systems like Linux
or DR-DOS. Every macro and subroutine are up on public display for
programmer peer review to see what it does, and why it is there. If
you wanna be sure your system is not sabotaged, you dont havta depend
on your opinion of the competency and honesty of proprietary scanner
software; if you wanna be sure, you havta use open source software.
Even better with heritage hardware which is far easier to check on.
uncopywritten- do what you will with it.
-- Arachne V1.68, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/
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