• csm (unregistered)

    duuuude...that story was awesooooome...heh heh

  • Tables Turned (unregistered)

    Without even a hint of sarcasm, Greg said ever-so-sweetly, “actually, I don’t think I’ve ever had a conflict with anyone.”

  • The Nerve (unregistered)

    This doesn't seem possible.

  • by (unregistered)

    This commenter is now stoned.

  • Ronald M (unregistered)

    The system must have virtualized the drive over RS232 which led to the repeated boot sector writes.

    But, Re: QA retest - Antivirus for embedded systems back then?

  • lolcat (unregistered)

    im in ur talibanz, stonin ur adultressorz

  • helix (unregistered)

    Not a WTF - this is normal for an embedded system without a file system

  • WilliamF (unregistered)

    "Once deactivated, the solder was ‘dead’" I didn't know you could kill an amalgam of tin and lead,

    or if you want to be RoHS compliant just the tin would be dead

    although a description of "dead" solder would be solder that doesnt form a shiny joint when cooled off.

  • (cs)

    Painfully bureaucratic development procedures aside (of which most government/military testing is full of), the idea of having viruses in government kit is hardly a surprise. These are the ones who still use IE 6 and friends. Trying to get up to date software is like swimming against the tide, due to yet more painful bureaucratic procedures.

    It's impressive that they actually managed to get a firmware update - actually updating after the initial software distribution? No way!

  • (cs)
    The Article:
    a few enterprising soldiers managed to get their hands on and started selling tester keys (also known as “God Keys”) that allowed soldiers to resurrect themselves and get back into the battle.

    I'm not sure why anyone would want to do this. Every warrior knows that getting "killed" during training is the best thing that can happen to you in the field. When I was in the Marine Corps, a couple of my friends got "killed" according to their MILES gear (that's the name of the "laser tag" vests). While we went on a 48-hour no sleep foot patrol, they got to hang out in the rear, eating hot food and sleeping on cots.

  • I Can't Wait (unregistered)

    Oh no... The magic word "embedded" makes an appearance. I can't wait.

  • EngleBart (unregistered)

    I have a friend in the defense industry that was working as a sub contractor on some project. Their software module had to fit into the build process of the general contractor which was using a build toolset that was about 5 years out of date.

    Short answer: Have the 5 year old toolset launch a newer toolset as a sub process to build their module. Worked fine, passed integration.

    P.S. My friend would have had to kill me if they told me any more.

  • (cs) in reply to csm
    csm:
    duuuude...that story was awesooooome...heh heh

    Yeah, it started out kinda mild. But about ten minutes after reading it... ...What were we talking about? Doritos?

  • (cs)

    Reminds me of the boxes of pre-formatted floppy disks (remember them?) that hit the shops in the 90s, bazillions of them, all pre-formatted with the Form virus...

  • The Nerve (unregistered)
    The Article:
    This virus was more than just a dumb program. It discovered that it couldn't write itself to a disk, and as computers have a survival need it adapted, somehow realizing that it could periodically sent itself out through the RS-232 port in hopes of infecting another computer. The program chose 5 seconds because 101 in binary reminded it of its mother.
    Nope. Still not buying it.
  • spelling b (unregistered)
    Your PC is now Stoned!

    FFS, it's "You're PC is now stoned!".

    Does no one understand basic English grammar these days?

  • Bill's kid (unregistered)

    Nice; And probably very true. When I worked at Big Giant Software Corp. that makes operating systems and office software, the government effectively put an end to Easter eggs by threatening not to buy any software where they could be found. The government reasoned that if the people in charge of QA at BGS Corp. could not detect and remove Easter eggs, they probably couldn't detect malicious code either.

  • Keenan Anselmo (unregistered)

    Don't regret the rules I broke When I die, bury me in smoke!

  • Scott (unregistered)

    So the WTF is that a company actually thoroughly tested a product?

  • RainyRat (unregistered) in reply to spelling b
    spelling b:
    Your PC is now Stoned!

    FFS, it's "You're PC is now stoned!".

    Does no one understand basic English grammar these days?

    Not you, apparently.

  • qunr (unregistered)

    there's a commented disassembly of the stoned virus here: http://computerarcheology.com/stoned/stoned.html - is that rs-232 output possibly just what would've been output in teletype mode? if i understand it correctly teletype must be something like a serial terminal, isn't it?

  • (cs)

    Mac: Hello, I'm a Mac. PC: And I'm stoned!

  • (cs) in reply to qunr
    qunr:
    there's a commented disassembly of the stoned virus here: http://computerarcheology.com/stoned/stoned.html - is that rs-232 output possibly just what would've been output in teletype mode? if i understand it correctly teletype must be something like a serial terminal, isn't it?

    I'm not really familiar with the virus, but most likely it's just whatever was being sent to standard output, rather than the virus trying to replicate itself. I've worked with embedded systems (Yes, without file systems), and have directed stdout over RS-232, so it seems feasible.

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    Hey, I remember Stoned! Good times, good times. Back then we wrote viruses just because we could, not to fu*k people over. We'd regularly have competitions to see who could write the "best" viruses but we championed subterfuge over vandalism. The "best" viruses would be the hardest to detect and the fastest to spread; needless to say, a virus that zero filled your hard disk was not going to win you any prizes.

    I'll forward this on to the guy who wrote Stoned, we still keep in touch and he'll just love to hear that one of his creations is still out there in the wild. If you're reading this just let me say well done, you obviously won that round you sly Aussie waster!

  • (cs) in reply to spelling b
    spelling b:
    Your PC is now Stoned!

    FFS, it's "You're PC is now stoned!".

    Does no one understand basic English grammar these days?

    Wasn't funny the first time.

  • Jessi Slaughter (unregistered)

    YOU DUN STONED!

  • (cs)

    Greg's harsh introduction to the realities of QA is the same one lots of folks in the computer game industry go through. "Online game tester" sounds like a cool job, but it's 95% testing mundane crud like the game install/uninstall process, 4% completely scripted in-game tests ("go here and see if you can still walk through the wall"), and about 1% (or less) anything that resembles "playing video games".

  • (cs) in reply to WilliamF
    WilliamF:
    a description of "dead" solder would be solder that doesnt form a shiny joint when cooled off.

    That would be a cold joint. Of course you are usually stoned by the time the joint gets cold...

  • (cs) in reply to The Nerve
    The Nerve:
    This doesn't seem possible.

    It seems plausible to me. The details are historically consistent.

    Wikipedia:
    MILES 2 was released in 1991 - 92, and the SAWE (Simulated Area Weapons Effects) add-on was first fielded in 1992 using GPS and RF messages so that vehicles and individual soldiers can be killed from a central location due to artillery strikes, or Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical weapons strikes. Implementation in the Summer and Fall of 1992 was at Hohenfels, Germany at the Combat Maneuver Training Center. In 1993, the range at Fort Polk was installed and tested. At the time, there were plans to add SAWE at the NTC at Fort Irwin, although instead this was implemented by using SAWE-like features via the DCI radio network.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_Integrated_Laser_Engagement_System

    The stoned virus appeared in 1987.

  • Mr E (unregistered)
    As he painstakingly translated the hexadecimal into ASCII

    Not heard of hexdump or hexedit then?

  • Jessi's Dad (unregistered) in reply to Jessi Slaughter
    Jessi Slaughter:
    YOU DUN STONED!
    Embedded systems will never be the same!!! The cyber-police have been notified!!!
  • (cs) in reply to Mr E
    Mr E:
    As he painstakingly translated the hexadecimal into ASCII

    Not heard of hexdump or hexedit then?

    Besides, if you're minimally good at ASCII at all, you know that 0x30 - 0x39 are the digits, 0x41 - 0x5A are uppercase A-Z, and 0x61 - 0x7A are lowercase a-z. (And 0x20 is a space.)

  • Eaten by a Grue (unregistered)

    Every box must get stoned!

  • (cs) in reply to powerlord
    powerlord:
    Mac: Hello, I'm a Mac. PC: And I'm stoned!
    I would love to see THAT commercial; it would be ironic to see Justin Long playing the straight man to a nerdy guy in a suit hittin' a bong.
  • Yorknoken (unregistered)

    Ahh, miles gear. How I don't pity you.

  • (cs)

    "It's ... it's not a virus. It's...it's an undocumented feature!"

  • INT 10 (unregistered)
    Since this virus couldn't write itself to a disk, as there were no floppy drives on the GPS card, it instead sent itself out through the RS-232 port once every 5 seconds in hopes of infecting another computer.

    This seems unlikely.

    My reading of http://computerarcheology.com/stoned/stoned.html suggests that during 1 in 8 boots, the virus will output "Your PC is now STONED!\a\r\n\n" using INT 10. A system without a GUI may well implement INT 10 output by writing to the serial port.

  • DysgraphicProgrammer (unregistered)

    I saw "Your PC is now Stoned" and expected the story to be that the code had gotten mixed in with some RPG code. PC as in player character", Stoned as in "Medusa".

  • Intransitive Verb Nazi (unregistered)

    You can't swoon someone any more than you can faint them, which is to say not at all.

  • Tom (unregistered) in reply to spelling b
    spelling b:
    Your PC is now Stoned!

    FFS, it's "You're PC is now stoned!".

    Does no one understand basic English grammar these days?

    You're a very tedious troll.

  • Pinch The Nerve (unregistered) in reply to The Nerve
    The Nerve:
    The Article:
    This virus was more than just a dumb program. It discovered that it couldn't write itself to a disk, and as computers have a survival need it adapted, somehow realizing that it could periodically sent itself out through the RS-232 port in hopes of infecting another computer. The program chose 5 seconds because 101 in binary reminded it of its mother.
    Nope. Still not buying it.

    I find your lack of faith disturbing.

  • (cs) in reply to Intransitive Verb Nazi
    Intransitive Verb Nazi:
    You can't swoon someone any more than you can faint them, which is to say not at all.
    Thank you! He probably meant "woo" there.

    Once again, the daily WTF is the authors' grasp of the English language.

  • ping floyd (unregistered)

    Ahh, brings back memories. That's the first virus I ever had on my PC way back when...

  • jsls1976 (unregistered)

    Any programmer that doesn't know how to read hex by heart isn't a real programmer.

  • Politically Correct (unregistered) in reply to spelling b
    spelling b:
    Your PC is now Stoned!
    FFS, it's "You're PC is now stoned!".
    I thought it was "You're PC because you're stoned!"
  • North Shore Beach Bum (unregistered) in reply to helix
    helix:
    Not a WTF - this is normal for an embedded system without a file system
    FTW!
  • Ben (unregistered)

    The system is called MILES... you can look up the acronym. Some of us actually got to use it. Being in an OPFOR unit, I got to use it a lot. There's really nothing like watching people scatter from your RPG or being chased by tanks and choppers.

    The idea is good: a microphone detects the sound of the blank firing, and the laser sends a coded burst to the target's sensors. So you actually have to have a working rifle, and not get shot. It also really is integrated, in that vehicles use the same system.

    The original implementation (which is the one with the "keys") was shit. The sensors couldn't get wet, of course, so we'd sometimes try to wrap them in plastic. And, as per standard Army ergonomics, there was a big metal box jamming into the small of your back.

    The laser was a big heavy box mounted at the end of the rifle. You had to zero (make everything point in the same direction) your laser to the rifle, and zeroing a platoon's rifles was an all day affair. Someone had to wear the sensors and stand out and be "shot" at.

    The worst part was the mounting system for the laser. The (fairly heavy) box mounted just a few inches behind the muzzle. Without a fairly complicated arrangement of duct tape and zip ties, you'd lose your zero.

    This was great for us. Once you got used to zeroing, it was just a hassle, but BLUFOR usually had no clue and knew none of the tricks. So they usually couldn't hit shit.

    MILES 2000 changed most of that, (in 2007) the much smaller laser clamped down on the muzzle with a torque wrench and a finicky but workable device that made zeroing take about 5 minutes.

  • (cs)
    The way the existing setup worked was that sensors on a soldier’s body vest would detect a “hit” during the simulation, and would then set off an annoying alarm that could only be turned off with a special key. Once deactivated, the solder was ‘dead’ for the rest of the training scenario. It all worked, but one big problem with the whole setup was that, to the displeasure of many, a few enterprising soldiers managed to get their hands on and started selling tester keys (also known as “God Keys”) that allowed soldiers to resurrect themselves and get back into the battle.

    This is actually a good thing. The military can use it to develop plans for warding off attacks by zombies.

  • Breakhazard (unregistered) in reply to The Nerve

    Actually, a lot of old 386 chips are being used in embedded solutions all the time.

  • Dave (unregistered) in reply to Steve The Cynic
    Steve The Cynic:
    Reminds me of the boxes of pre-formatted floppy disks (remember them?) that hit the shops in the 90s, bazillions of them, all pre-formatted with the Form virus...
    The only virus I ever got was the Form virus. It came on a factory-made software CD I purchased from the computer store. (Grumble...)

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