Programmer Arrested For Logic Bombing 'Whac-A-Mole' 218
McGruber writes "WFTV.com has the curious story of programmer Marvin Wimberly, who was arrested for having installed a logic bomb on Whac-A-Mole arcade games made by Bob's Space Racers in Holly Hill, Florida."
It's safer (Score:2)
when the moles don't have bombs. Especially logic bombs.
Planned Obsolescence (Score:2)
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Kinda like having a 100000 mile warranty, and your cars engine dies at 103000 miles.
Exactly what I was thinking. My parents had a lightbulb in their garage that was there when they bought the house and never burned out in the subsequent 40 years and still hasn't burned out. Yet every incandescent bulb I've ever bought was only good for a couple hundred hours.
I hope his jury remembers what the corporations have been doing to them for decades and decades.
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It depends on the garage: My garage lamps, if I had a garage currently, would be used quite a bit since I would be spending a fair bit of time out there. Other folks, not so much: The garage might just be where they park their cars, and/or have some infrequently-accessed storage. Either way, "garage" by itself doesn't indicate much about the usage of the bulb, but only that the space it is installed in was at one point intended to park a car in.
And it depends on the bulb.
Perhaps some forward-thinking bl
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[citation needed]
Your anecdotes are interesting, but don't really doesn't seem to have anything to do with the fact that the lower the voltage feeding a given bulb, the lower the temperature of the filament will be. And the lower the temperature of the filament, the slower the tungsten evaporates. And the slower the tungsten evaporates, the longer the bulb lasts.
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Wow, what a string of BS.
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2 volts is definitely a major undervolt compared to 120 volts on a 130V lamp.
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That's a remarkable claim. So if you put 2 volts across a 130V lamp it'll no longer work after that?
P=VI. If you attempt to flow the proper wattage through the lamp at 2 volts you're going to burn out the filament. And if it didn't burn out, you'd burn out your wiring. As the lamp approaches its optimum voltage it puts out pure lumens per watt. Undervolting the lamp decreases the number of photons it will produce over its lifetime AND the number of photons expended per watt-hour of energy consumed.
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If you attempt to flow the proper wattage
LOL
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Well maybe the "understanding" I gained from the last explanation I got was all retarded, but the current flow (I do know that it's current that flows, pushed by the potential of voltage through the resistance of the conductor... not sure the proper terminology for wattage occurring) is controlled by the resistance of the filament which rises with temperature.
Re:Planned Obsolescence (Score:4, Informative)
Water pipe analogy for you:
Volts = water pressure
Amps/current = amount of water flowing.
Ohms = resistance to water flow.
Watts = amount of water flowing * pressure.
Bulb = narrow high resistance pipe attached to big pipe.
If you put a low amount of pressure (2V) across a narrow high resistance pipe there is no way a lot of current will flow through that pipe.
The higher the pressure the more current will flow.
A 130V 40W incandescent bulb will have about 420 ohms resistance at operating temperature and voltage, and be carrying 0.3 amps.
If you put 2 volts across a cold 130V 40W incandescent bulb, the bulb will be about 30 ohms (when cold[1]), and carry about 0.07 amps. The bulb certain won't blow up, nor would your wiring start burning up.
A 130 V 40 W bulb running 120 Volts will only be 34 watts (but I believe a smaller percentage of that will be visible light compared to a 120V 40W bulb).
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb#Electrical_characteristics [wikipedia.org]
Re:Planned Obsolescence (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't be silly. A 130-volt bulb has a higher resistance (for the same wattage rating) than a 120-volt bulb therefore at 120 volts pulls less current. It puts out less light, and runs at a lower temperature. And lasts longer. That's what most 'long life' bulbs are. The effect on lifetime is governed by the 12th power of the ratio of voltages, i.e. a 1500hr 130-volt bulb would last almost twice as long at 120 volts (1500e(130/120)).
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Exercise your futility (Score:2)
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That's why so many Americans are obese - they won't even exercise their futility!
Quick, get the surgeon general on the phone! I have an idea for a new school program!
Re:Planned Obsolescence (Score:4, Informative)
Long lasting bulbs use more electricity. ie. It costs you more at the meter than the replacement bulbs.
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Eh? You pay for watts (actually VA) so you pay the same for a bulb of the same wattage.
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It uses the same amount of energy, producing less visible light/more infrared and heat. Sometimes this is a part of the bulb's purpose, but usually it's undesirable.
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True, but it still doesn't mean that long life bulbs use more electricity.
100W, 750 hour bulb -- 1710 lumens
100W, 1500 hour bulb -- 1580 lumens
so not a bad tradeoff
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"Senator, while a reasonable person might think the failure of our 15 trillion dollar company and complete collapse of the world economy was due to criminal incompetence, coke and hookers, and a 0.3% reserve, I must place blame wholly where it is deserved. Bob's Speed Racers did it."
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The agent of the Vendor appeared to him in a flame of fire from within a light bulb. He looked and the bulb was ablaze with fire, but it was not being consumed!
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If, however, he cannot afford two LEDs or two halogens, he is to bring as an offering for his sin ten AAA cells for a sin offering. He must not polish the contacts, because it is a sin offering. He is to bring it to the Senior Electrical Engineer, who shall take a couple of the cells as a memorial portion and insert them in the altar circuit with the offerings made to the Lord by short-circuit. It is a sin offering.
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But ... but ... *shivering lower lip*
First Santa Claus and now that!
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Not really.
The warranty covers material defects and workmanship. It generally lasts as long as the weakest part needed to keep the engine running will last within the normal use cycle that wouldn't void the warranty.
In the case of your engine dieing at 103000 miles, it would be a mechanical fault from wear and tear or perhaps some other failure due explicitly to the normal operation of the engine. If the car company programmed a the car's computer to stop running after 103000 miles, then it would be a malic
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Two words:: "printer cartridges"
Good luck with the criminal lawsuit..
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Bbbbbut printer cartridges have a set life span for your own good! Else the ink coagulates and you have to buy a new printer cartridge!
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You're confusing someone maliciously causing an equipment failure to churn profits for himself with an actuarially-derived lifetime for your car. Yes, most cars make it past 100,000 miles, and half start to fail at 150,000, therefore giving a warranty to 100,000 miles is less risky than giving one to 150,000 miles. It's just math.
Why programmers will never rule the world.... (Score:4, Interesting)
The other reason programmers will never rule the world - eventually the whack-a-person machines will require Marvin to come fix them.
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many just rely on hard to find code in lots of bugs to keep their jobs.....
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Mostly because any good software engineer could put a hard-to-find bug in the code.
Yeah, I do it all the time without even concentrating. I'm that good.
Re:Why programmers will never rule the world.... (Score:4, Funny)
Mostly because any good software engineer could put a hard-to-find bug in the code. Thank goodness it takes a good social engineer to make money off it - and the two skills don't often overlap in real life (as much as software engineers seem to think they do).
The other reason programmers will never rule the world - eventually the whack-a-person machines will require Marvin to come fix them.
Programmers will never rule the world, because by then they have been promoted to software engineers, managers, etc. It's the same with toddlers.
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Programmers already rule the world.
"The Code Is the Law" --Lessig
Some programmers know that they rule the world. Some don't. That's the only difference.
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Where are the mathematical engineers?
The answer is all Engineers are "Mathematical Engineers" and all Engineers are "Science Engineers". There is nothing beyond engineering other than the application of those two things to solve real world techinical problems. If you think building bridges is more prestigious then designing airplanes or designing the software and algorithms to make missiles hit other missiles that's fine and dandy but you don't get to redefine engineering into "only the specific disciplines states bother to license". The fa
Re:Why programmers will never rule the world.... (Score:4, Funny)
I know it costs more, but you just cannot beat fresh baked!
Re:Why programmers will never rule the world.... (Score:5, Interesting)
419 scams depend on finding someone greedy; one original form was to find a house who's owner had left on holiday, bribe the watchman for the keys, and then sell it to another person on the basis of "OK, we've had a few good parties here, you know I'm a great guy, but suddenly I have to leave the country and need $10,000 real quick", at which the mark realizes this is a great opportunity (the house is easily worth ten times that), and offers to buy it.
Houses in Lagos, Nigeria (when I worked there) sometimes had "419! Not for Sale!" painted on their walls, when their owners were away.
However, social engineering depends on decent peoples' trust; head hunted calling the receptionist and asking, "who's your best Java developer?", or emailing the tech support from a hacked account so you look like the boss, and asking, "hey, give me ssh access and a new password, ok?"
What this guy did was more like simple robbery, getting money by force.
Re:Why programmers will never rule the world.... (Score:4, Funny)
both good software engineers and good social engineers are a rare bread anyway
That's a rye observation.
Nitpicking. (Score:3)
Each game, after turning on and off a certain number of times, sometimes 50, sometimes 500, would fail. Wimberly would be paid to fix it, and police reports say, he would insert a new virus with a new countdown.
Does it really qualify as a virus?
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I'm pretty sure they're using "virus" for the layman.
Its a classic logic bomb.
Lies (Score:2)
He's going to have to tell all the other inmates he's in for murder because he'll surely get his ass kicked for telling them he rigged Whack-A-Mole.
There are a lot of preposterous ways of winding up in the clink, and this is in the top 100.
Re:Lies (Score:4, Funny)
He's going to have to tell all the other inmates he's in for murder because he'll surely get his ass kicked for telling them he rigged Whack-A-Mole.
There are a lot of preposterous ways of winding up in the clink, and this is in the top 100.
Can you imagine, that in some states, he'll be sitting next to a guy in prison, who was busted for smoking marijuana.
Marvin: So, what are you in for?
Prisoner B: Smoking a joint while trying to relax at the carnival. You?
Marvin: Rigging whack-a-mole so it'll fail. on purpose.
And suddenly prisoner B is in jail for manslaughter.
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Kill someone?
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I think you are confusing the Klondike bar [youtube.com] with a york peppermint patty [youtube.com].
Oh I couldn't find the one about the top of a mountain I think you were referring to.but I think this is close. [youtube.com]
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Insert logic bombs into slashdot to grant you five modpoints on a regular basis?
If only the "mole" was a "gopher"... (Score:2)
The Caddyshack quotes would be endless...
At Least it Wasn't Boon-Ga Boon-Ga (Score:5, Funny)
Imagine the hilarity that would have ensued had it been Boon-Ga Boon-Ga [wikipedia.org] that was rigged instead of Whack A Mole.
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I've said it before but I'll say it again...
What the FUCK, Japan...
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It's Korean - not Japanese. Get it right.
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This is a japanese phenomenon, that game cabinet was only made by a korean company.
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>>Imagine the hilarity that would have ensued had it been Boon-Ga Boon-Ga that was rigged instead of Whack A Mole.
Berlusconi loves that game!!
He should be working as a government contractor (Score:4, Interesting)
Nice code reviews at whac-a-mole (Score:4, Informative)
When you have a tiny bit of quality, these things couldn't really happen and certainly the programmer could never be blamed.
But any which way I put it, the programmer in this case is a truly sorry character.
Re:Nice code reviews at whac-a-mole (Score:5, Insightful)
Eh, "whac-a-mole" and "code reviews" are probably stretching the realm of probability. I'm pretty sure the "programming staff" required to implement "mole pops up, detect if whacked" could be done by a single programmer in this mostly mechanical-game-oriented company, making useful code reviews a bit tough. Sounds like it really was a mom-and-pop company, and they just put way too much trust in a real douche bag of an employee...
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He was worried about being laid off as a programmer, so they obviously had more than one programmer. Once you start noticing that the machines are breaking down twice as often as normal, and no physical parts are needed to fix them, its gets obvious that it is a software issue. Assuming they pay attention to the breakage rate, which any normal company would. Might have been how they figured it out.
I've seen "computer administrators" that work out for small companies do very similar things. It is typical
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Nice code reviews. Way to go whac-a-mole!!!
Code review for whac a mole?? Are you serious?
The only way for companies that make thinks like whac a mole to make money is to contract hire the programmer, probably the lowest bidder for the job. They would not have a programmer on staff. They would then hire back the programmer when they needed someone to diagnose the issue. Hence the situation where they had to hire him back to figure out what was wrong with the machines. There is no point to having a single full time programmer let alone a team tha
Isn't this just your typical shareware license? (Score:2)
Well it's wrong but... (Score:5, Insightful)
15 years prison time? In comparison to other crimes that's pretty insane. This guy is a bigger danger to society than the numerous fraudsters that pushed the financial crisis? Bah.
Re:Well it's wrong but... (Score:4, Funny)
Presumably whack-a-mole is too big to fail. This guy will be a good scapegoat, but it won't solve the problems inherent in an economy that depends so much on whack-a-mole.
Yeah. Through incompetence or malice, people can leave a national debt that will take generations to deal with, and economic ruin, yet I'd be surprised if any of them end-up doing more than five years. They'll get out even earlier if they're fortunate enough to be struck with a unique form of alzheimer's that mysteriously vanishes shortly after they're released from prison on medical grounds - as experienced by the Earnest Saunders.
Its not about whack-a-mole its fraud (Score:3)
He was committing fraud against honest people for his own benefit. He wasnt doing it as a joke, he was doing it to defraud.
Would you be saying the same thing if someone did the same thing to your laptop or your car.
15 years in prison is excessive but 5 years in prison would be about right.
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In answer to your question, if bankers, property developers and financial regulators came together in a mixture of fraud and reckless hubris, leaving the economy of my laptop or car in tatters, I'd be quite annoyed. Thankfully though my laptop doesn't use a fiat currency - thus rendering it immune to the machinations of international financiers and whack-a-mole.
Don't be naive. Everything is about whack-a-mole. This guy just tried to break the hold that whack-a-mole has on us, and for his trouble he'll spend
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Why is this even a criminal matter? The guy should be fired, and possibly sued by his employer, but that's it. There is no reason to get the police involved.
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...You want to win elections, you bang on the jailable class. You build prisons and fill them with people for selling dime bags and stealing CD players. But for stealing a billion dollars? For fraud that puts a million people into foreclosure? Pass. It's not a crime. Prison is too harsh. Get them to say they're sorry, and move on. Oh, wait — let's not even make them say they're sorry. -- Rolling Stones
.
Re:Well it's wrong but... (Score:5, Insightful)
The key is "up to" 15 years. Unless it has a mandatory minimum sentence, the judge has a lot of leeway in what is handed down. A lot of other crimes have pretty broad sentencing guidelines as well.
In this case, Whac-A-Mole isn't that big of a deal. If an arcade game fails, it's rare someone gets hurt. He'll get off lightly.
If he'd done this with something more mission critical (and it somehow made it past QC) that might warrant more.
Imagine if he'd put a logic bomb in a system controlling a radiation therapy machine for cancer. Even if it hadn't hurt anyone, the potential for harm would be much greater, and the judge would take that into account in setting the sentence.
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Did he even commit this crime [justia.com]? Wasn't he authorized to be in that system altering code? What are the police doing involved? Shouldn't this just be a civil suit in which the company sues him for damages?
subject (Score:3)
FTFA:
" 'If they hadn't of discovered [...]' "
and:
" 'The real key is they need a piece of equipment that works from the Fourth of July, on the busiest day of the year, and it's consistent and they can depend on it,' Mike Lane, Bob's Space Racers."
Are media outlets contracting journalism work to illiterate morons now, or has it always been that way and I'm just now noticing it?
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FTFA:
" 'If they hadn't of discovered [...]' "
and:
" 'The real key is they need a piece of equipment that works from the Fourth of July, on the busiest day of the year, and it's consistent and they can depend on it,' Mike Lane, Bob's Space Racers."
Are media outlets contracting journalism work to illiterate morons now, or has it always been that way and I'm just now noticing it?
I you hadn't of discovered this I am pretty sure that on some point of the future, probably on the busiest day of the year, you'd have the mormons knocking at your door and would of discovered this your self. This thus has always be the way. The journalism writers are correct in there.
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Well then... (Score:3)
It looks like the mole...
(sunglasses)
...got whacked.
YEEEAAAAAHHHHHHH!
And the moral of the story (Score:2)
Pay your programmers sensible rates and show them that they are not just some hire and fire goon to you, so they don't have to resort to shady practices to ensure their job security.
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Why not do a Ronald Harris and make it pay out wit (Score:2)
Why not do a Ronald Harris? and make it pay out with a hidden code / make it payout way more then it should.
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> "If they hadn't of discovered that they had the virus installed > in the equipment, they wouldn't have known why their > machines were failing," said Cpt. Steve Aldrich, Holly Hill > Police Department.
Holly Hill's finest at work. You heard it here folks, if they hadn't of figured it out, they wouldn't have known!
... Actually, the article states that if he hadn't mentioned it, they wouldn't have been looking at a software "feature" at all.
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I'm sure he meant "they wouldn't of known."
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Someday I will be ask my opinion on something, and I'll say "They would've blah blah blah", and I'll be quoted in print as "They would of blah blah blah" and then there will be another article about me killing the reporter.
Re:If they didn't figure it out, they wouldn't hav (Score:4, Funny)
Is being able to read/write now considered 'elistism'{sic}?
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No, but insisting on the strict applications or the rules of writing, even across cultural boundaries, when the parent clearly was poking fun of (or should it be have) the entire situation is a pretty good sign of it.
And yes, I'm poking fun at yous too. Critique my writing.
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[...]when the parent clearly was poking fun of (or should it be have) the entire situation is a pretty good sign of it.
I think it should be, "poking fun at the entire situation is a pretty good sign." I don't see where you would inject 'have' in that sentence.
Critique my writing.
There you go! :c)
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Now, now... let's not loose our temper. For all intensive porpoises, your right.
FTFY
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Unfortunately it is. Ignorance is being portrayed as acceptable, cool and even fashionable.
Yeah - that Zoolander movie really set us back.
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From his mugshot, he looks like a sad character. I kinda feel bad for what he's about to go through on his little vacation to the justice system. There are certainly worse things a person could do.
For Slashdot points, I will now note that what this guy planted was a logic bomb, not a virus.
I will mention that logic bomb is stated in the summary. In the article too, but also in the summary. In order to be commenting here, unless you wildly click on random stories and type random things ... you'd have to have read logic bomb.
For slashdot points, I will tell people to RTF ... summary ... before commenting.
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Re:You gotta feel for this guy. (Score:5, Funny)
What are you talking about? The true Slashdot hardcore do not even read the TITLES, much less the summaries. The articles? Those don't actually exist. Ever tried clicking on one? Don't waste your time, there's never anything at the other end of that link.
That's insane, no rational human being can justify stealing music from content creators. If you want to listen, buy the media - period.
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True Slashdot hardcore does not even involves TITTIES, much less the mammaries.
Re:You gotta feel for this guy. (Score:5, Funny)
For Slashdot points, I will now note that what this guy planted was a logic bomb, not a virus.
I'm guessing Detective Sherlock here didn't read the title.
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For Slashdot points, I will now note that what this guy planted was a logic bomb, not a virus.
I'm guessing Detective Sherlock here didn't read the title.
And I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Watson here didn't RTFA. :)
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No, no! You are all missing the point! This is a red-letter day! For once, Slashdot editors made a change to a summary that actually made it better than the article!
Except that "logic bomb" was already in the submission. Never mind. :c/
Re:It's not a bug... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like normal run of the mill american capitalism. Except I would call it a "Service Bomb".
I would recommend calling it "Forced Service Intervals" and get a pay raise in addition. Laser Printers anybody?
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I know the laser printer designed failure is true the fuser was designed so after a certain amount of use it would stay on overheat and kill the printer.
A friend had a printer with this feature and there was a reset on the printer to stop this happening , he got to find out from a service engineer. Unfortunately I can't remember which printer it was on.
must have been in the mid 90's when he told me about it. Funny thing is I can't find anything about it on google or even snopes. Anyone find any lin
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Our story: "Programmer who visits sites to fix problems introduced the problems himself to make sure he stayed in business!"
The lusers' fear: "Programmers who make anti-virus software introduced viruses into the wild to make sure they stay in business!"
mark-t was not offtopic. If I had not already commented in another thread on this article, I would mod him back up, myself.
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To summarize my train of thought - the guy was deliberately installing a virus so that he would have to be contacted to fix the problem, thereby making money off of it.... which is, near as I can see, not all that dissimilar from the notion that virus companies deliberately manufacture viruses so that they can make money by selling virus scanners.
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Yes, replying to myself... a better article:
http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/local/east-volusia/2011/02/24/worker-charged-after-virus-clubs-whac-a-mole.html [news-journalonline.com]
This semi-answers my questions. This and another article mention that this guy wrote the logic bomb only in 2008, presumably for much more modern incarnations of the hardware (modern microcontrollers almost always have onboard NVRAM of some kind, making this kind of trick easy to pull off with a field-deployed firmware 'upgrade'). For Whac-A-Mole,