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Hear the beat go, Revolverlution
During one of the London subway’s many breakdowns, I entered into a conversation with a man to my left who (it turns out) was much more to the right than is strictly necessary. When I told him what I did for a living, he let me in on his plan. Out of his mind with frustration with a CWS (CoolWebSearch) infection on his family network, he fully intended to go to Russia and “bust some heads”. When I pointed out that wandering round Russia asking for the Russian Mafia was likely to get him a nice pair of concrete sneakers, he replied that he was still going anyway. At that point, I was about to trot out the old mantra about security not affecting real-life before remembering to my horror what caused me to get into security in the first place. I’m about to perform a little experiment, and it involves the genesis of that Malware-chaingunning entity known as Paperghost. I warn you, it pulls no punches and doesn’t have a happy ending. But you’ll see where I’m going with this…
“Computer infections aren’t real, anyway. They don’t hurt anybody.
You can just switch off the PC and forget about it”.
Right?
Wrong. Before I became involved in security, I was studying to be an artist – I conducted orchestras, exhibited paintings and worked on low / medium budget films. What could possibly happen that would change the course of my life so drastically that I would abandon everything I had worked so hard for?
A long time ago, I had a very close friend who lived in australia. However, she had some rather dark personal problems and I tried to help her out by talking to her over the phone and on MSN. Unfortunately, she had fallen in with a very nasty piece of work who was into a little of everything – as long as it was illegal. I eventually found out he was keeping her around as his girlfriend, and kept feeding her enough “supply” to keep her habit going. I tried everything to keep her away from him, but she kept away from him by talking to me online – which was eating up her money to go to the detox centre. A vicious circle in every way, shape and form.
He was getting increasingly violent towards her and her friend (another guy from university who was very protective of her – but wouldnt have stood a chance against him) – to the extent that one time, she was on msn messenger going nuts because he was outside their flat, trying to smash the door in with a knife in his hand. They ended up with the power cut off, and I didnt know if they were okay for over twelve awful hours. There were too many incidents like this to mention, and this is the super-sanitized version.
I hatched a plan – I would take up teaching english and get on a “teach english in Japan” course. once there, I’d attempt to get her into Japan with me. I went down to London, nailed the course and was all set. I’d told her to pack her things in secret and we were all ready to go. Then it all went wrong – I got a call TWO DAYS before flying out to say the teaching post had been cancelled – no explanation, nothing. Just ditched. I was devastated – not to mention the fact that I had the problem of trying to explain to her what had happened. On msn I pretended to be her friend “Sophie” – though the scary lunatic guy did know of me, he thought she didn’t speak to me anymore.
Then the bomb dropped – I was talking to her on msn (he was in her flat at the time) and the next minute, all this “secret” stuff appeared on the screen on both msn chat boxes, hers and mine. I was rather shocked to say the least, and then she just went offline. I heard nothing for days before finding out from her mate that he’d gone nuts and absolutely beat the living daylights out of her and put her in hospital.
All because of an msn trojan on her machine.
After that, I heard from her on the phone one more time and then nothing, ever again. No letters replied to, no phonecalls answered – no sign-ins on msn.
Nothing.
And because of that, I dropped painting totally and took up a different kind of art.
Now, thankfully I’m not a crazy. I believe the written word combined with massed public pressure is still the greatest force for change that exists today. But here comes the experiment – go back and read the above tale from the viewpoint of an unhinged entity, some rambling lunatic looking for an excuse to go wild.
If you were such an individual, what kind of impact would the above experience have on you? Anyone with a security weblog will tell you about having to regularly delete death threats to various entities, personal information, you name it, it gets posted (and deleted) all the time. During the BitTorrent Adware bundle story, I regularly recieved death-threats from people who thought I had an anti-P2P agenda – phone calls, emails, the whole nine yards. Were any of these people serious? Certainly, they were serious enough to obtain my home phone number and dial me at three in the morning.
Add to this people now crossing oceans to “hunt down” the Mafia and you have an absolute powder-keg ready to blow, such is the rage that exists in the tinderbox world of security. Be thankful to the volunteers that remove infections from end-user’s PCs. Every time they do so, they may just be averting a scenario like the above and (just maybe) helping prevent the creation of a potential monster from which we may never recover.
One thing is for certain – security is no longer something that is bought off the shelf for £29.00. It is much, much more serious than that. Problem is, how on earth can we prevent things from getting any crazier?
Chris, I remember that sad story. At least after that you realised where your true talents lay. Keep up the good work, and glad you are on my side and a friend.
Totally shocked by that story
you have my heart-felt sympathies 
that truly is a horrible situation 
Whoa, dramatic :O