Doc's Computin' Tips: World's first FBI-approved virus

from Maggie's Farm by nospam@example.com (Dr. Mercury):

Doc's Computin' Tips: World's first FBI-approved virus:

A whole pisspot full of computers are going to lose their Internet connection this July 10th.  Let's find out if yours will be one of them.

It's actually kind of a bizarre story.  Your computer connects to the Internet using DNS numbers.  Some bad guys in Estonia ran a fake advertising scheme and infected a shitload of computers around the world with a DNS hijacking program which changed the computer's DNS numbers.  It would still connect with the Internet just fine, albeit occasionally the user might find some new browser window open advertising this or that, which is how the bad guys made their money.

Enter the authorities, who catch the bad guys but then are faced with a problem.  If they had just confiscated their servers, every infected machine on the planet would have immediately lost its Internet connection — and without the owners having the slightest idea why.


[...]