Virii

[neta1o]

I just got out of a C++ test and I was thinking about something that I thought I'd run by everyone. What if someone who really didn't like the IRS (Not me, I'm a poor college student and appreciate every penny I get back from the IRS) where to write a virus and e-mail it to a bunch of irs.gov e-mails that attached itself to .exe's when executed. Anytime an .exe is executed on the infected system, the virus would add itself to other .exe's and e-mail itself to all e-mail addresses in the victims address book with @irs.gov extension. Then the virus would randomly search through the system for a thousand numbers and change them to a randomly generated number.

~might cause a few problems for the online submittal of tax returns~

[oldguy]

Carefull there lets not give the script kiddies any ideas

[neta1o]

I agree with ya oldguy, but it takes a lot more knowledge to actually be able to code the concept listed above. ASM is not exactly one of the easiest languages and most of the other languages don't give you much control. Gotta go back to class, grr.

[mayhem991]

The IRS uses mainframes, mostly IBM from what I've heard. I don't know of anyone who has sucessfuly written a virus that would run on a mainframe. The next problem would be how to get it on a mainframe and that would be a great problem. Next and probably the most difficult is how do you get your program executed. Going in through an internal reader would require installation specific data and getting a program to run is system state (key 0) is next to impossible without being a system programmer in the specific installation.