I am sick of things like savenow, lycos sidesearch, ads180 etc. These advertisers bundle their ad-software with free games or apps. Then kids download and install the games, but they don't realise they are also installing advert software.

these programs cause additional pop-ups, waste cycles and bandwidth. they are also very difficult to uninstall. I find them to be dispicable forms of advertising.

So why not make a virus that is nice, and removes these from a system, without the user ever knowing? the user doesn't know they're installing the ads, they won't be bothered by their disappearance!

the people who will carelessly download anything are exactly the type to propagate this virus.

the virus could also update itself thanks to a team of authors who are constantly vigilant, ever mindful of the advertiser's intrusions.

to put it simply, this is a virus that strengthens the immune system of the computer illiterate. Those who know what they are doing and don't want this virus in their system can make some minor setting that would be incorporated into the system software: "disable helpful viruses."

Microsoft won't willingly make your computer immune to advertisers, so we have to do what's right!
-- changokun, Feb 21 2004

Welchia http://securityresp...2.welchia.worm.html
Road to hell still paved with good intentions. [ConsultingDetective, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

Widely known to exist. The Welchia worm was written specifically to exploit the DCOM security hole exploited by Blaster, look for other machines to infect, then download and run the security patch, thereby "fixing" the problem.

Problem was, tens of thousands of infected computers tried download the patch simultaneously, many of them over dial-up connections, thereby wreaking havoc.
-- ConsultingDetective, Feb 21 2004


oh, wow. great link, thanks! so it was a virus that made it's host immune to itself? cool. that's what i'm talking about, mostly.

the overload on servers could be avoided, through a scheduling algorithm, and who cares if savenow servers crash?

but you're right, good-intention paving stones.
-- changokun, Feb 23 2004



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