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David Heath
Sunday, 15 November 2009 12:30
In a recent on-line survey, Sophos (the anti-virus people) asked for readers' opinions on the merits of Ashley Towns, the author of the iPhone worm (or virus, if you prefer).
The poll asked, succinctly enough: "What do you think about the iPhone worm's author?"
The (completely unscientific) results, based on 721 votes, were intriguing:
He's done iPhone users a favour. This was an acceptable way to raise awareness of poor security. 547 votes.
He's acted recklessly by releasing the worm, the ends didn't justify the means. 69 votes.
I hope he's investigated by the cops - when he released that worm he broke the law. 105 votes.
What this is saying is that around 75% of visitors to a well-known anti-virus site (people who ought to know better) are essentially supporting Towns' actions.
Graham Cluley, writing in his blog comments, "Has the world gone completely bonkers? It's a depressing notion that most people think that doing harm and breaking computer crime laws is a good thing. The 21-year-old Australian student who wrote the iPhone worm has acted utterly irresponsibly - even if he now regretted (which he doesn't) releasing a worm into the wild, there is nothing he can do to stop it continuing to try and infect jailbroken iPhones.
"Can you imagine a world in which everyone takes it upon themselves to release worms and viruses into the wild in the hope that it might raise awareness'?"
Most white-hats take this view, and rightly so. For instance, many years ago, Paul Ducklin, also of Sophos, took apart the "good virus" argument very succinctly.
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