Tuesday, February 18, 2014

A preamble to a computer worm

I recently downloaded the source-code for 30 Chinese computer worms and Trojan horses. The code makes for interesting reading, but the comments are all in the GB2312 character set, so I have to convert to UTF-8 in order to read them.

When these things first appeared in the wild, they had a deliberate anonymity. Their original developers had given them names like Golden Pig and Chinese Vampire, and adorned their code with comments to describe and explain their effects. But before releasing them, the developers stripped them of all of their identifying and explanatory information, and sent them out into the world nameless and unexplained.

Those who discovered and analyzed them gave them new names. They disassembled their code, but they couldn't recreate the comments and non-semantic details that the original developers created.

It is interesting to look at the original source code for some of these things, for the subtle details you would not see in disassembled code. In this post, I will just give the preamble that appears at the top of one source file that is part of something the author called the Chinese Vampire, written in 2008. Reading this feels kind of like reading the mummy's curse.

Chinese Vampire Source Code
Author: God of the Black Net
After you buy the source code, please do not casually distribute it. Please treasure the product of the author's labor.
If you get lost in the code, the coding style and comments are not generally to blame. Those that I have already changed are very good, quite clear and easy to understand.

It does not use any C++, just simple C code, but edit it using VC++6.0. Once you edit it, you can use it. It has already passed hundreds of tests, so it is quite perfect, and there is no need to edit it very much.
If you can't get rid of it, contact the author and ask for a special killer.

This comment reveals a couple of interesting details about the Chinese Hacker world, at least as it was in 2008 (six years ago, now). First, the Chinese Vampire was for sale, a stock tool that could be purchased and customized. Second, there was an expectation that the author should be remunerated for his hard work.

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