From the AP (thanks to BNA’s Internet Law News for the pointer):
The law firm representing a Santa Barbara company that sued China for allegedly pirating its Internet content filtering software says it has been the target of cyber attacks from within China.Los Angeles-based Gipson Hoffman & Pancione says its attorneys received emails starting Monday containing Trojans, which can allow outside access to the target’s computer….
Sounds like a substantively interesting and possibly important story. But because I know nothing about the substance, let me just ask: Shouldn’t it be “containing Greeks”?
Dave N. says:
And here I was marveling that someone figured a way to send condoms over the internet.
January 15, 2010, 2:08 pmAndrew Myers says:
“Trojans” is short for “Trojan horses”, of course.
January 15, 2010, 2:10 pmDennis N says:
Beware of Geeks bearing gifts.
January 15, 2010, 2:10 pmEugene Volokh says:
Andrew Myers: Of course.
January 15, 2010, 2:12 pmThe Unbeliever says:
Sending Trojan horse viruses in e-mails constitutes a “cyberattack”? Yeesh, standards have become low. It’s like saying the act of ringing a doorbell constitutes breaking and entering, even if no one answered the door and the visitor just walked away afterwards.
Technology jargon is always Greek to someone.
January 15, 2010, 2:14 pmMr. Bingley says:
I always get emails for Viagra, never for condoms.
January 15, 2010, 2:16 pmChris Travers says:
dog bites man….
January 15, 2010, 2:32 pmSmooth, like a Rhapsody says:
does the “condom” angle have the most comedic potential or is it the USC angle?…inquiring minds want to know
January 15, 2010, 2:32 pmAnderson says:
Oh, condom, definitely.
As in: some girls won’t allow outside access unless it’s via Trojan.
January 15, 2010, 2:37 pmegd says:
Does this apply to girls at UCLA?
January 15, 2010, 2:51 pmDarel Finkbeiner says:
Well, if all the UCLA girls were laid end to end… I wouldn’t be surprised.
January 15, 2010, 2:55 pmCrunchy Frog says:
Were they ribbed for her pleasure?
January 15, 2010, 2:55 pmRPT says:
It’s another Lane Kiffin joke.
January 15, 2010, 2:57 pmChris Travers says:
Do sending Trojans by email create a workplace sufficiently hostile to women that it is covered by sexual harassment law?
January 15, 2010, 3:00 pmMr. Bingley says:
If you send a Trojan via your cell phone have you practiced safe text?
January 15, 2010, 3:09 pmPeter says:
China is governed by criminals for criminals. Routine and rampant copyright violations; currency pegging is theft; protectionist in the extreme in a world that embraces, to some degree, free trade, protector of tyrannies throughout the world. So what if we are in debt to the Communists up to our eyeballs. If we nuked them, as we should, would it be a Trojan War?
January 15, 2010, 3:56 pmAF says:
I never thought about this before, but what a strange name for a brand of condoms. Is the idea that you use the condom to trick someone into having sex with you, and then take it off?
January 15, 2010, 4:09 pmEugene Volokh says:
AF: Fortunately, some of had thought about this before, though your approach isn’t the one mentioned in that article.
January 15, 2010, 4:38 pmChris Travers says:
BTW, a few years ago many TB’s of controlled but apparently unclassified data relating to the F-35 JSF program was stolen by very capable hackers. the most probable working theory at the moment is that these schematics were stolen by the Chinese.
The only thing is, with military secrets the governmental interest is clear. the only ones who have an interest in the law firm’s computer content in this case seem to be organized criminals.
January 15, 2010, 4:46 pmA, says:
EV at 4:38: Bravo!
January 15, 2010, 5:10 pmegd says:
I’m sorry…I’m not seeing the distinction that you’re trying to make.
/Rand
January 15, 2010, 5:45 pmChris Travers says:
That’s pretty good.
As an amateur pre-historian, I would suggest that Volsa Thattr in Old Norse strengthens your argument because between this and the Asvamedha, it becomes fairly clear that the horse in early Indo-European thought was associated with sexual intercourse between humans.
January 15, 2010, 6:39 pmLior says:
@Unbeliever: Sending Trojan horse viruses in e-mails constitutes a “cyberattack”? Yeesh, standards have become low. It’s like saying the act of ringing a doorbell constitutes breaking and entering, even if no one answered the door and the visitor just walked away afterwards.
I think you are confusing the dime-a-dozen worm emails you get with these kind of attacks where the emails are written by hand and tailored to a specific targeted individual in the specific firm (e.g. pretending to come from the actual technical support person, referring to internal policies etc). Such messages cannot be simply deleted and ignored because the recipient must first determine whether they are genuine. Say I send you a letter phrased as a credit-card offer and made to look like an offer from a respectable bank, except that the return address on the application form is different. The goal is for you to mail back the fake registration form and thus give me your personal data. This would be an act of fraud even you never responded to the offer.
January 15, 2010, 6:55 pmOpher Banarie says:
There are ways that a virus properly configured in an email could attack the recipients computer without any action taken, in terms of clicking on a link or downloading an attachment. This would be more like dropping a Molotov cocktail through the mail slot.
January 15, 2010, 7:01 pmDan Lavatan says:
I think the use is correct as the email contains a program proported to be useful (The Trojan), but containing additional malicious content (The Greeks, which are implied).
Of course, more than 70% of emails are malicious and some will always come from China, so I’m suprised they noticed. Unless something is very wrong with their IT organization, they would be automatically supressed and the originating systems blacklisted.
January 15, 2010, 7:27 pmRelic says:
Chris Travers:
January 16, 2010, 2:33 amJust another good reason we shouldn’t be funding the F-35
readery says:
On the facts as stated there’s no proof there’s any relation between the attacks and the case — the originators of the Trojan emails might be ordinary cybergrifters phishing for marks in the ordinary way from somewhere in China, and not necessarily connected to the legal case the law firm is involved in — although if the malware was crafted to steal case details or similar, the inference would be stronger.
January 16, 2010, 9:28 pmJohnKT says:
Trojan Horse is computer security jargon. The earliest use I know about is by Donn Parker at SRI in the late 70s. I don’t know if he invented the term, or just adopted it.
Used in connection with email, it usually means an attachment or a link which if clicked on installs a malicious program on your machine.
January 17, 2010, 8:24 amnumeral says:
A trojan horse is a very specific piece of software, what it does is run a server on your computer giving the sender of the trojan access to your computer. It’s not the same as a worm or a virus that are made to simply destroy data or cause havoc. Only reason I point this out is because “malicious program” is a pretty loose and non-specific term. Trojans have a very specific use, either illegal data gathering or using the host’s computer for other reasons.
January 17, 2010, 2:28 pmchiMaxx says:
Don’t send Trojans via email. All that latex clogs up the intertubes, and those Internet plumbers charge a LOT to get them out. And then they wave them around the office to embarrass you.
January 18, 2010, 12:59 pm