I just read an article at Ars Technica about a virus that chats with you and tries to convince you to install it. It first disables anti-virus software and software firewalls on the infected computer. It then sends out instant messages to everyone on the buddy list of this machine’s IM client. The user of the infected machine never sees these outgoing IMs or any of the conversations that result.
The virus sends a link to all the buddies and asks them to click on it. The kicker?
If the user queries the bot about the link, the virus will respond: “lol its not a virus.”
If you ever ask someone about a link they sent you, and they respond “lol it’s not a virus”…it’s a virus.
Talk about a false sense of community.
Oh dear … since one the stated aims of artificial intelligence is to be able to convince a human that they are in fact talking to another human, I don’t think it’ll be long until virii are able to make a more convincing attempt to sound innocent.
In fact, it’s probably best to assume, from now on, that everyone who communicates with you online is a virus. Trying to get you to click a link to another virus.
Except me. My link is not to a virus. Seriously. You can trust me. Click it.
Comment by Paul.za — December 10, 2005 @ 2:45 am