Virus aquarium

[4th guy]

I've (re)seen this XKCD comic today, http://xkcd.com/350/
Are there any nerds that are interested in building this? I would like to try it out :D

[CJ Master]

Saw it many, many times. While it might be an interesting experimant if you had the time, all it would end up with is a few (almost) completely non-funcitional computers.

[4th guy]

Saw it many, many times. While it might be an interesting experimant if you had the time, all it would end up with is a few (almost) completely non-funcitional computers.
Yeah, I realized that nothing visual would actually happen.

[Methuselah]

lol, I might try.
I suppose a virtual box installation will work.

I once was interested in what would happen if I left a completely unprotected windows machine open to the internet for a while.
I've never really had viruses in all the time I used windows so I'm not sure what it takes.

[Simian Man]

The hard part would be making them download and run crap automatically in a realistic way.

[Thelasko]

The hard part would be making them download and run crap automatically in a realistic way.

Well, in theory, you would only have to set it up once. After that, you just save that setup image and run copies of it.

Lets face it, they will all eventually bluescreen and you would have to restore them from that original image.

As said previously, the biggest challenge is visualization.

[4th guy]

Well, in theory, you would only have to set it up once. After that, you just save that setup image and run copies of it.

Lets face it, they will all eventually bluescreen and you would have to restore them from that original image.

As said previously, the biggest challenge is visualization.
How many copies of Win XP can be run alongside each other at one go? haha

[Thelasko]

Visualization ideas:
TNV (http://tnv.sourceforge.net/)

[Thelasko]

How many copies of Win XP can be run alongside each other at one go? haha

I was actually thinking about running Windows 98 or Me because they have lower overhead.

P.S. I found an article on trimming down XP (http://lifehacker.com/374376/trim-down-windows-to-the-bare-essentials).

[hatten]

Well, in theory, you would only have to set it up once. After that, you just save that setup image and run copies of it.

Lets face it, they will all eventually bluescreen and you would have to restore them from that original image.

As said previously, the biggest challenge is visualization.
i would install linux instead of restoring them!

[arashiko28]

lol, I might try.
I suppose a virtual box installation will work.

I once was interested in what would happen if I left a completely unprotected windows machine open to the internet for a while.
I've never really had viruses in all the time I used windows so I'm not sure what it takes.

Once you do that, you must connect to your msn account and you'll see the virus fly free into it. No? How many stupid messages you get a day from friends that are disconnected and tells you about a picture whose web address ends in .exe?

Other idea is to get into a page for crack and serials, you'll get a blue screen in about 30 mins (I'm being nice to window$) :P

[unoodles]

I think it would be a lot easier than people are saying.
Just get a copy of Windows XP Service Pack 1 with no updates.

Then run a honeypot program on a linux machine to pick up some malware. (Two packages in the repo that would work are nepenthes, and labrea).
Maybe grab some malware from OffensiveComputing.net, and start infecting the machines.

[4th guy]

I think it would be a lot easier than people are saying.
Just get a copy of Windows XP Service Pack 1 with no updates.

Then run a honeypot program on a linux machine to pick up some malware. (Two packages in the repo that would work are nepenthes, and labrea).
Maybe grab some malware from OffensiveComputing.net, and start infecting the machines.
There's vanilla XP (SP0) as well.

[Thelasko]

i would install linux instead of restoring them!

...and have also completely missed the point of this exercise.

[hatten]

after having them all broke down with viruses and getting bored of windows, ofcourse

[00Davo]

Yeah, I realized that nothing visual would actually happen.

That's why you need to find some anti-virus program that detects viruses, but doesn't remove viruses. Set up another program to collect the data from all the AV, then convert it to graphs and stuff.

The other problem is managing to run twelve WinDOS virtual machines simultaneously. You'd need a streamlined WinDOS that pretty much just shares viruses - VirOS?

[Thelasko]

That's why you need to find some anti-virus program that detects viruses, but doesn't remove viruses.

Speaking from personal experience, Avast! does a great job of that. I once had a machine that was infected with a virus, and Avast! managed to scan every since piece of spam it sent out. Every once in a while it told me it found a virus, but never removed it.

[insane_alien]

you could maybe mount the drive on linux and scan it with ClamAV? that can be done over the network can't it?