Digicrime interesting link thread

[xilman]

I posted an "interesting link" to Digicrime's web site at (broken up so that there's no chance that it will automagically get turned into a link) http: // www. digicrime. com

My link was edited out by dswanson because some dumb software claimed that "it contains a Trojan". I happen to know otherwise.

Digicrime was set up by a number of cryptography and security researchers as a satirical comedy. If you're brave enough to get past the dire warnings, you'll find material by luminaries such as Ron Rivest, Matt Blaze, Arjen Lenstra, Kevin McCurley and, for that matter, myself. I'm firmly of the opinion that these folk value their reputations too highly to risk them by putting anything geniunely harmful there.

Part of the humour at Digicrime is poking fun at ineffectual and/or misleading security mechanisms. A scanner, for instance, that produces too many false positives is dangerous --- its users will be tempted to ignore its warnings and switch it off entirely.

Personally, I find the material on Digicrime very funny. I may be biased, but I'm in good company. I found dswanson's response amusing in itself, as it illustrates perfectly a failure of a security mechanism.

BTW, check out the free gift offer. It's a real offer and you do indeed get what's promised.


Paul

[nomadicus]

Hmmm . . . my antivirus (Norton, on Win98se, with the latest virus defs) was triggered when I went to the website.
Did Norton pick up a false positive?

[dswanson]

Originally posted by xilman
My link was edited out by dswanson because some dumb software claimed that "it contains a Trojan". I happen to know otherwise.
...
Personally, I find the material on Digicrime very funny. I may be biased, but I'm in good company. I found dswanson's response amusing in itself, as it illustrates perfectly a failure of a security mechanism.

Not one, but two separate virus checkers (Norton and McAfee) report a trojan at the site. The site may be deliberately set up to trigger automatic virus scanning software, either as a joke or to illustrate that such software can provide false alarms. But I'd far rather have my virus software provide false alarms, rather than letting real malicious stuff in. And I don't consider this a case of crying "wolf"' too often - this alert was only the second time in three years of using McAfee that I'd ever gotten a virus notice.

I also received "moderator alert" emails from two separate users concerning this link before I removed it. Both emails reported the same behavior: trojan at the website. I'm not going to restore the link. Anyone who wishes to explore it may do so using the de-fanged version of the link xilman provides above.

[rdotson]

I think the digicrime website is hilarious, and I received no warning from my Avast anti-virus program. It's unusual to find a website that advertises itself as: "A full service criminal computer hacking organization" and warns "It's now unsafe to turn on your computer" - LOL! ;-)

But where's my free cupholder? All I got was the message:
"Did I knock anything over? Wow that was fun"

Ron

[xilman]

Originally Posted by rdotson

I think the digicrime website is hilarious, and I received no warning from my Avast anti-virus program. It's unusual to find a website that advertises itself as: "A full service criminal computer hacking organization" and warns "It's now unsafe to turn on your computer" - LOL! ;-)

But where's my free cupholder? All I got was the message:
"Did I knock anything over? Wow that was fun"

Ron

Oh dear. Looks like that portion of the site no longer works. At least, it no longer works with your browser and hardware.

Back in the good old days, a browser would quite happily eject a CD if a page asked it to.


Paul