In 1984 computer pioneer Ken Thompson wrote one of the seminal works of computer security, Reflections on Trusting Trust [PDF]. In it he postulated putting a trojan horse inside a compiler as a means of infecting software compiled by it. 25 years later somebody has finally done just that. Researchers at anti-virus house Sophos have discovered a virus that places a backdoor into applications compiled with the Delphi language. They've identified at least 3000 separate Delphi applications that have had this backdoor compiled into them so far, including banking programs and programs used for cellphone programming.
posted by scalefree on Aug 20, 2009 - 52 comments

Antivirus Firms Say They Won't Create FBI Loophole. A free knuckle sandwich to the first person to say, "looks like magic lantern has been extinguised!"
posted by mcsweetie on Dec 10, 2001 - 11 comments

Those British boys at it again. It was like this during the war, y'know. I remember my old mate Alan Turing beating the system in much the same way. Saved the world he did. Tally-ho.
posted by feelinglistless on Apr 24, 2001 - 7 comments

The bastards at Symantec are now charging for virus updates. They've just lost a customer, a hopefully many more. The feedback form is here if you feel the need to bitch at them.
posted by skallas on Aug 12, 2000 - 20 comments