In article ,
Arrow146 wrote:

Who writes VIRUS programs ?
Who makes a profit from it ?

Any chance it could be those who sell the ANTI VIRUS software ?
Just a thought!!

That thought has been raised by numerous people, over the past couple
of decades (ever since MS-DOS viruses began to be a significant
problem).

I've never heard anyone put forth *any* credible evidence at all,
which indicated that the commercial anti-virus-software companies or
programmers had had anything to do with writing or releasing the
viruses.

Based on what I can see, the motives behind virus and trojanwriting a

- Ego and bragging rights. Releasing a virus which spreads widely and
gets a lot of visibility in the press provides the author(s) with a
sense of importance.

At the moment, there seems to be an ongoing battle between the
authors of two or three of the currently-most-active virus/worm
families. They're actually releasing viruses or worms which [1]
contain code to identify, and remove their rivals' viruses, and [2]
contain bragging "We're the best, they're all losers!" statements
embedded in the code.

- Spamming ability. Quite a few of the more recent viruses, worms,
and trojan horses contain software which installs specialized
email-processing software and web/email/TCP proxy servers. A large
percentage (half or more, I've heard) of the spam flooding the
Internet is now being sent through home PCs on DSL and cable-modem
networks, which have been compromised by these viruses. Previous
spam-fighting efforts had succeeded in shutting down many of the
open email relays, and poorly-installed open proxy servers that the
spammers had been abusing, and it's widely believed that major
spam-gangs have commissioned virus-authors to implement these viral
mail relays. The motive, in this case, is profit: spammers can
flood millions of people with spam at almost no cost, and even a
handful of sales can earn them enough money to be worth the effort.


--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!