Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

I was wondering if there are any known viruses for the n900?

Just out of curiosity....

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

No, there aren't any.

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

For almost a year, i have stumbled only upon one...
the USER

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

go to xterm
type in¹:

lol..

¹ I'm not responsable for any damage....

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

is cooler

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

I rather call that an easter egg :p

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

Fair enough

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

afaik i m the biggest and dangerous virus for my n900... :p

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

The most dangerous virus goes by the name of Elop!

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

haha! nice one, didn't know that

Anyway, my therory is that people who program viruses just for fun can have more fun today by scratching up something for themselves. Then polishing it and sharing it with the community, to get admired/feel valued. This is even more fun than creating a virus I can imagine. Plus you get more in return. If I could program thourougly I would do that.

And those who program malware for commercial reasons have more economically valuable targets.

That would explain why there are no viruses for Maemo.
Though I find it strange how there are no Linux viruses since allmost all of the intertubes run on Linux... Probably because it's a good OS.

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

vi_ had posted in one some months ago as a pretty crude joke, it wiped some N900 clean, but it needed a big human-based security flaw. I think he still has it as a signature. :)

PS: do NOT run the command. It WILL wipe your N900 1 out of 6 times. True story :)

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

sh**...i run the first post and no my device doesnt boot anymore!..HELP!!!!!

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

http://wiki.maemo.org/Updating_the_tablet_firmware

I have no words.

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

:(...putting this stupid codes without warnings...

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

Why the heck would you type in a "virus command"?

The command wipes out your whole phone...

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

It is pretty obvious that the first command just delete all the non-hidden files on maemo.

I am wondering does a "sudo gainroot" necessary before the command ?

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

Yes, because it will also f*ck the root :p
otherwise, you wont get rights to delete the root files...

As a result that the phone doesn't boot anymore, which means you have to flash it. (see it as a simple virus script)

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

Good one, but the said script is for bash, while if you are a true noob, you have the default ash installed so I doubt you really wiped your phone. Or you can go great lengths to brick your N900 in which case I suspect you are S. Elop in disguise and ending the world one N900 at a time.

PS: If you break the USB with a screwdriver, your mom will give you candy!

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

Who says it's for bash?

cd and rm are certainly implemented in busybox.

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

Lol i didnt start the thread to disable peoples phones xD

So I guess there aren't any real viruses. ah well, all for the better anyway ;)

-or should i program one with turns the phone in a big fireball and crashes the 40" plasma of the wall-

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

Yes, but [ % ] is not implmented, therefore you always "live".

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

He's talking about the 4th post from this thread :p

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

Obvious..maybe, if we were all coders..i am not, as many other members..unbelievable...it should be explicit that was dangerous:(
I am not so pissed off just because:
1.backupmenu rocks
2.what you made me do to my phone yesterday i did the same to your mom and your sis the day before!

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

Pasting or typing this code (singular), or any code for that matter, in your n900 terminal, without checking first what it actually does... And next blaming others for that omission... Priceless... :D

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

The only virus that will harm the N900 (afaik) is the manual virus: Delete all your files. Then convince all your friends to do the same.

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

dude, you are being a prick. there were warnings all over the place not to do what you said you did. also the code was flawed and could not work in your case because it was for bash, not ash, so stop whining.

i understand i you tried to make your point pretending you bricked your device, but when you start talking about family members i might get offended.

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

dont know anything about these warnings but i appologise, i was pissed off and rude.

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

It is very unlikely that N900 can be infected with viruses. Remember that N900 runs on an ARM architecture which is not the same as x86 that you have on desktops. It also comes with linux kernel (when using the default OS known as maemo) which is really unlikely to be targeted.

There are however worms, trojans and maybe even viruses written for other OS such as android for instance but it is unlikely those entities are able to target maemo due to the way maemo is not designed in the same way. In saying so it does not mean that running nitdroid (android for N900) means that you won't be infected either, well you can be if you happen to stumble upon such entities.

To put it frankly, people who develop such malicious programs would not be willing to target niche platforms like N900 or maemo itself. They would be targeting major platforms like iOS (on Apple iPod/iPhone), android (many manufacturers rely on android), symbian (quite rare considering that symbian has tightened itself up upon first instance ages ago).

Viruses, trojans, worms, etc are almost non-existent on maemo platform. The probable most fearsome attack would be user executed commands. maemo does not come with `self-protection' mechanisms. When I meant `self-protection' mechanism is such commands or programs that the user is unsure of what it could do to the system could actually have a detrimental impact. Other platforms would generally have such protection in place so should you unwisely tried to destroy your critical files whilst the operating system is running, it will most likely prevent you from doing so. Remember, maemo is more or less a proper linux being shoehorned into a handheld device, There's not many linux distributions out there that would by default come with an adequate enough protection to counteract let alone be configured properly by the end user.

Thus this is also more or less the same reasons as using developmental programs such as from extras-{testing,devel}. When you were warned that it may cause instability or otherwise undesired operations on your device it does not mean anything else but just that.

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

in short, only microsoft platform get viruses due the fact they focus on features and colorful interfaces rather than security.

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

Viruses can be done in Python, no? Wouldn't such viruses ( or is it "virii"? I never remember) essentially be crossplatform even across different processor architectures?

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

good question, does anyone know?

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

Depends on what you mean by "virus". You can write a "malicious" program in any language, including Python. But that doesn't qualify it to be a virus.

Normally a virus has to infect programs by attaching itself to them, so that they can further infect other programs. Attaching a cross-platform python script to a random executable program is, I submit, not an easy task.

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

It could attach itself to other python scripts, which would make it a cross-platform virus. Spreading to other computers would be more problematic though - you'd be relying on users running random python scripts they get mailed (though the equivalent seems to work fine on Windows users). Even then, a user could only infect any scripts they have write access to.

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

Exactly. That is (or was) the most fundamental difference between Unix/Linux and Windows. You run as user, so only your files can be infected or damaged. In Windows you were (almost) always "administrator".

Now with UAC the situation is different, but there is still another fundamental difference: in Windows it's relatively easy to "get root" whereas in Linux it's not so easy (or at least not so widespread).

Plus in Windows you normally have a standard set of libraries and programs that the "virus" can use, but every Linux is different, so this makes it also harder (hmm, perhaps a debian virus would use apt-get, oh well.. :)

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

If someone was intent on making a working cross platform Python virus, i would expect it should be just a matter of adding a few conditional switches to execute the different infection approaches depending on which system it is running on (and to give it a polish, check the effectiveness and try different approaches when the most commonly successful one for the system in question fails; and of course before the actual attack on the OS spread a bunch of modified and obfuscated copies as backup in case the original one gets caught)

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

phone is stuck in u-boot and do not load and the battery is discharged. can someone help me? please. Thanks to

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

charge it, flash it and sell it!
lol

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

Did it work with u-boot before, or you just installed it and now it stuck? Maybe you wanted to boot from sd? If so do you have the intended system on the sd?

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

Yes, but this still leaves you with the problem of getting your virus executed on the system.

Windows, and Windows programs, have a tendency to execute anything that looks like it could be executed (see autorun, Word macros, Outlook, IE, ...).

Linux, and linux programs, tend to execute only what is meant to be executed. Unfortunately with the Windows-ification of Linux (modern Linux'es seem to be only concentrated in imitating Windows features, including its flaws) it may well happen that a text editor might decide to execute a script ("it appears that you are editing a bash script, shall I execute it for you?"), not to mention "sophisticated" e-mail programs, etc.

In any case, going back to the thread title. A "virus" for the N900 would be very easy to make, especially in view of the number of people who install just about anything from extras-devel or even random .deb's they find.

Luckily Maemo is not a widespread platform, and most people around here are either nice guys or not competent enough to write a simple program. Which is a good thing in this case :)

Re: Are there any known viruses for the n900?
 

Don't tempt them!