Alleged worm authors arrested

War-waging worms

Skynet is a reference to a group of virus writers who have embarked on a worm war with the authors of MyDoom and Bagle. Since the first of this year, over 28 variants of Netsky have been discovered. The battle may have encouraged the Bagle author to churn out new variants of that worm. Currently, 28 variants of the Bagle worm have also been released since the 18th of January. The first copy of Netsky was discovered barely a month later, on February 16, 2004. Included in the text strings of the various worms are a series of insults and badgering. Bagle.J includes: "Hey,NetSky, f*ck off you b*tch, don't ruine our bussiness, wanna start a war?" This is apparently in response to a string contained in Netsky.C that reads, "<-<- we are the skynet - you can't hide yourself! - we kill malware writers (they have no chance!) - [LaMeRz-->]MyDoom.F is a thief of our idea! - -< SkyNet AV vs. Malware >". Netsky.D also contains a targeted string, "be aware! Skynet.cz - -->AntiHacker Crew<--". MyDoom.G brings up the third flank, carting the 'message': "to netsky's creator(s): imho, skynet is a decentralized peer-to-peer neural network. we have seen P2P in Slapper in Sinit only. they may be called skynets, but not your sh*tty app."

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