Could Linux sympathisers be behind the latest cyberattack?

an update here --------------- from The Economist A virus with a motive Jan 29th 2004 | SAN FRANCISCO From The Economist print edition Could Linux sympathisers be behind the latest cyberattack? A NEW computer virus, the fastest-spreading ever, was this week making the rounds among unprotected computers running on Microsoft Windows. Such incidents of online vandalism by what are often presumed to be geeky teenage hackers are, sadly, routine. But this virus, called MyDoom by some and Novarg by others, seems to be of a different nature-conspiratorial and political. That is because its main feature, besides humiliating Microsoft, is to turn infected machines into weapons against a controversial company called SCO. SCO, a tiny software firm in Utah, and Microsoft, the world's largest software firm, have only one thing in common. Both are passionately hated by "open-source" software programmers, who typically believe that computer code should be freely shared instead of sold as property. Microsoft is hated chiefly because it represents the opposite model, proprietary software, and because its operating system, Windows, is the main rival to Linux, the best-known open-source software today. SCO is hated even more intensely. That is because it claims-vaguely, so far-that Linux contains stolen code from an older operating system, called UNIX, the copyright for which SCO owns. So SCO has sued firms that distribute Linux, such as IBM, and intends soon to start to sue those that use Linux. Google, the popular search engine and a heavy user of Linux, is one potential target. As a result, malicious hackers have declared open season on SCO. MyDoom is the fourth attack against SCO's website so far. The code, upon infecting a computer, is designed to wait until the Superbowl on February 1st and then deluge SCO's website with so much internet traffic that it breaks down. Darl McBride, SCO's chief executive, says he will pay a reward of $250,000 to anybody who provides information to track the perpetrators down, and that the FBI is also on the case. "We believe it is somebody sympathetic to the Linux cause," he says. Linux leaders are outraged by suggestions that a member of their community could be behind MyDoom. Bruce Perens, an open-source evangelist, reminds sympathisers that Linux has been trouncing SCO in the public-relations battle, and urges his fellow open-sourcers "to deplore the attacks" and "always take the high road". As to who the perpetrators might be, Mr Perens thinks that SCO "would not balk at attacking their own site in order to paint their opponents in a bad light." As the war enters its second year, the gloves are clearly off.