March 28, 2024

Register: Massive P2P Worm

Here’s one from the Don’t Believe Everything You Read Department.

The Register credulously reports that an anonymous group called “Gobbles” was hired by the RIAA to create and release a worm that infects peer-to-peer networks. The story says that 95% of peer-to-peer connected hosts are infected, and that the worm reports back the contents of infected computers to the RIAA. The story is based on a Bugtraq posting.

If this were true it would be an outrage. But it is almost certainly a hoax. The story is pretty thinly sourced. More to the point, there’s just no way the RIAA could be dumb enough to try a stunt like this. I would have thought the Register was too smart to fall for this kind of tall tale.