Posts by Stuart Hatto

Storm worm smackdown as researchers unpick control system

This isn't new

The ability to take over command and control functions of botnets is not new, in fact early last year TippingPoints research team at DVLabs had a semi-religious debate about commanding the Kraken worm to kill itself and clean up.

http://dvlabs.tippingpoint.com/blog/2008/04/28/kraken-botnet-infiltration

and

http://dvlabs.tippingpoint.com/blog/2008/04/28/owning-kraken-zombies

I echo the first comment - its a shame that despite having the technology to mitigate these infrections, Governments throughout the World ban the action.

Skype (kinda, sorta) shields Mac kiddies from VoIP smut

For pities sake

I did read the article, three times.

As I have pointed out, as a Skype user on Mac for some time now I have not received unsolicited messages since not using SkypeMe. So Skype do provide the capability.

The article merely rasies the spectre of free anal sex if you are a Mac user and frankly thats a cheap and somewhat misguided shot.

The reason I posted my first 'driver error' comment was to show that turning off SkypeMe does in fact work.

Sorry Mr Scully

>>Stuart Hatto - On Mac, the contact requests happen even with SkypeMe off.

Not on this Mac they don't. I had set my contact requests off, and still got these unsolicited requests. Once I set my status to anything but SkypeMe the contacts all stopped. I haven't had a single one for many months now.

For me the bigger question here is why Skype allows this spam and why they never really fully explain that SkypeMe may open you up to this kind of spam.

This just smacks of sensationalism to me. There are things that can be done by you to ensure this doesnt occur. Its not a Mac thing, its a Skype thing, blaming the platform is the worst kind of journalism from TheReg - its the application not the platform that has the problem.

Driver error - not Mac fault

I'm sorry but isn't this a case of driver error?

I have Skype on Mac and I also got some undesirable messages - however I very quickly learned that the way to stop this is not set your status to SkypeMe.

Since I changed my status and now dont use SkypeMe as a status I no longer get unslicited contacts or messages of any kind.

I do think its time Skype fully explained the SkypeMe status and its consequences however.