Virii and Warez

Thu, Mar 26

In today's class we consider two inter-related topics: software viruses and software piracy. In the early 1980s, a new type of computer security threat appeared: autonomous programs that infected computers by traveling attached to another program. Drawing an analogy to biology, these new programs were dubbed "viruses," and they quickly became the bane of personal computer users across the globe. From the hacker's perspective, automated attack propagation is more effective if you don’t have a specific target in mind. Some viruses were simply practical jokes that merely annoyed computer users, while others caused significant damage to the systems they infected. Many hackers in the underground considered virus writing a lesser activity because it wasn't targeted at higher-end servers or networks and in many cases was unnecessarily malicious. 

Also beginning in the 1980s, an entire community of hackers coalesced around the activity of illegally trading commercial software. Given what we know about the age of those involved in the hacking scene, it's somewhat understandable that they couldn't afford the software they often wanted to use. Of course, the idea of stealing software was attractive to many others as well --- not always out of necessity. At first, this was a simple thing to do: one merely had to copy the data over to a floppy disk or BBS repository. Over time, elaborate copy protection mechanisms were developed and deployed by software publishers to thwart illegal copying. And technical means merely complemented the legal action against software pirates.

Viruses and piracy quickly converged as pirated software (especially games) became the primary vector of virus transmission. 

We have three learning goals for today. By the end of our lecture class, you will: 

1. Learn about the emergence and evolution of the virus writing scene, from its beginnings as a form of perpetrating practical jokes to a technically sophisticated and sometimes damaging endeavor. 
2. Have an understanding of the progression of software piracy from kids copying files to sophisticated cryptanalysis to break copy protection schemes, as well as the ethics around piracy.
3. Understand the intersection between the virii and warez scenes in the computer underground.

The digital artifact for today is the Elk Cloner.

The slides for today's lecture are available.