$500 bounty for first OS X virus

Man, people seem to miss the point of my post a lot. I really can't believe it. Here's what I said, boiled down to nice PowerPoint(TM) bullets: 1) The virus has to HAVE EXISTED BEFORE September 25, 2005. That's THE PAST. The virus has to HAVE EXISTED IN THE PAST. 2) New viruses, written after I issued the challenge, DO NOT QUALIFY. 3) I'm not encouraging people to write viruses, because THEY WOULD HAVE TO TRAVEL BACK IN TIME TO QUALIFY. 4) The challenge IS TO FIND a system that was infected with a virus IN THE PAST, NOT to infect a new system. 5) The system has to have been running the latest patches AVAILABLE AT THE TIME THE VIRUS WAS RELEASED. This means 10.0 -10.4 would qualify, as long as the user was up-to-date AT THE TIME. 6) The deadline for people SUBMITTING entries is October 16. The deadline for when the VIRUS has to have DONE ITS WORK was SEPTEMBER 25. 7) New VIRUSES DO NOT QUALIFY. 8) Therefor, I AM NOT ENCOURAGING PEOPLE TO WRITE VIRUSES, UNLESS THEY ALSO INVENT A TIME MACHINE. 9) DUH. -Wil PS: Also, while we're at it, you might notice I say, "I'm not actually issuing a challenge, I'm proposing an idea here, to see what people think." So there actually IS no contest, yet.

i could easily write a virus to effect the unix structure of max os X that appeared to be written before sept 20, but i wouldn't because i just don't want to be that douchebag.

The Mac OS X Virus is in the same category with Flying Cars, Time Machines, and Cloning a Dinosaur. It's nothing but a lot of talk about what is theoretically possible clouding the issue that NONE OF THESE THINGS EXIST TODAY. Smug comments of "how easy it would be to do" followed up by a lot of inaction.

"This is a research project, not a programming project: find one of us who has been infected at some time, and tell the world about it." Yes, let's sully Mac OSX solid reputation and take away some of Delicious Monster's potential customers because they'll perceive DM as wanting a Mac virus. Smucking Fart!

PXLated is so right. The deadline is the 16th of October to find a security hole is a Mac fully patched with no patchs after the 25th of September (which is something very sensible). I am so annoyed with people not just being able to read.

READ THE ARTICLE! (or even the summary!) He's not offering a bounty for someone to MAKE a virus, he's asking someone to prove that one existed IN THE PAST! No one's going to write a virus based on his challenge, idiots. Geez. It's just painful reading comments sometimes.

John, it's 10.0 and above, silly. That includes 10.4. Just checked the site and it appears he's changed the end date. It reads like this: "The challenge ends at 23:59:00, October 16, 2005 (which happens to also be my birthday, and by the way I have a thing for nice shirts)." However, the following paragraph continues on about the date being in the past and not applying toward any new virus written up due to this article. And maybe he added this after all those nay-sayers and doomsdayers were complaining about paying someone to write a new virus for OS X, but his closing comments say, "This is a research project, not a programming project: find one of us who has been infected at some time, and tell the world about it."

You guys should read what he wrote on his blog carefully before critizising... First the dead line is not what you think, but the 16th of October and he has never invited anyone to do something bad (above all to write any virus), but to do some kind of "litterature review".

You guys should read what he wrote on his blog carefully before critizising... First the dead line is not what you think, but the 16th of October and he has never invited anyone to do something bad (above all to write any virus), but to do some kind of "litterature review".

I see that many of the posters here either didn't read the article, contest rules, etc. or have a very real comprehension problem. :-)