Scientist Infects Self With Computer Virus 393
superapecommando writes "A British scientist claims to have become the first human to be infected by a computer virus, in an experiment he says has important implications for the future of implantable technology. Dr Mark Gasson from the University of Reading infected a computer chip with the virus, then implanted it in his hand and transmitted the virus to a PC to prove that malware can move between human and computer."
stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
just plain stupid
Re:stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Agree. Transmitting from a chip to PC or vice-versa, is no big deal. The fact he put it inside his body doesn't alter that ability.
Re:stupid (Score:5, Funny)
Exactly..
Look I cut open a cat and inserted a wifi router... CATS CAN CONNECT TO WIFI!!!!
Can I be a scientist? It seems I meet the qualifications.
Re:stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:stupid (Score:5, Informative)
It's the University of Reading. So, yes.
This dude works directly under Captain Cyborg himself.
Re:stupid (Score:5, Funny)
Re:stupid (Score:5, Funny)
Look I cut open a cat and inserted a wifi router... CATS CAN CONNECT TO WIFI!!!! Can I be a scientist? It seems I meet the qualifications.
Hell, with that sort of ingenuity, you should be able to get tenure.
Re:stupid (Score:5, Funny)
Well, at least he didn't put it on a USB drive and shove it up as anus. It would have been the exact same principal, but would have seemed less scientific.
Re:stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
He caught a computer virus, as evidenced from the ability to infect another computer. However, he is far from the first. I sneezed on a keyboard, my friend used the keyboard, and later he sneezed on his keyboard. Using the scientist's criteria, that makes it a computer virus (can transmit from one computer to another). I was infected with my cold over two decades ago, and I doubt I was the first.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Let's just look on the bright side. He could have infected a small flash drive, taped it to has schlong, went to the computer, infected it, and claimed to have found the first sexually transmitted computer virus.
Re:stupid (Score:5, Funny)
He should have just stuck a USB stick up his ass.
Re:stupid (Score:5, Funny)
Re:stupid (Score:5, Funny)
But did you follow scientific method?
Clearly this gentleman is much more learned and qualified than you, so is infinitely more suitable to have large storage devices anally inserted.
Now, where did I put my 30MB "full height" 5.25" drive...
Re:stupid (Score:5, Funny)
Now, where did I put my 30MB "full height" 5.25" drive...
You're "sitting" on it...
Re: (Score:2)
It's just performance art.
Re:stupid (Score:4, Funny)
"Mom, I know I said I'd try and call more often, but if you keep
bugging me at work I'm going to have to downgrade your firmware..."
Let's see how feisty she is with her pulse reduced by 35%!
Re:stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
Ye gods, I've got one even scarier.
Let's assume, for a moment, that we will one day see an implantable device that acts as a "mechanical kidney". What I'm imagining is something similar to my cousin's ileostomy (he has Crohn's Disease), in which one kidney is replaced with a filtering device that either dumps waste into an externally connected bag, or holds it in a surgically implanted reservoir until it can be emptied. Something that complicated would almost certainly need some level of control, and I'm sure there are a thousand and one things that could be analyzed in real time.
"Mr. Pratt, this is Packmonger Insurance calling to inform you that your payment is officially past due. Per the terms of your plan's contract, we are reducing your blood filtration rate by 10%. This is enough of a decrease to cause low-risk symptoms of renal failure, without irreparably damaging your other major organs. Please consider your impending itching, joint aches, and/or increased urination an incentive to pay on time in the future. Thank you, and have a wonderful day."
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I have a programable biomedical device, a Medtronics PrimeAdvanced Neurostimulator and it can be accessed remotely and "hacked" too.
But here is the reality of accessing it or a programable pacemaker, you have to be within inches of the device to get a sync signal. For me, my neurostim is in my left chest, to get it to sync I have to get the PDA or PDA's lead within a half inch of my skin, a thick sweater will block it and make the sync turn into a trial and error shuffle trying to get it in the right spot.
epic fail (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:epic fail (Score:5, Informative)
Do you mean Kevin Warwick [wikipedia.org]? Funnily enough he's also from the University of Reading.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Oh my god! He's got the virus too!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Ah, I thought Captain Cyborg was from the University of Writing, or possible Aithmetic.
Re:epic fail (Score:5, Interesting)
I recall reading an article by an actual academic who described Warwick and Reading as an "embarrassing distraction". Mind you, I can't remember his name, but everybody knows about Captain Cyborg, so I guess Warwick has achieving his primary goal: self promotion.
I do object to calling anyone associated with Warwick a "scientist" though. The level of their (published) research isn't even up to Mythbusters standards. Playing around with £10 of gubbins from Maplin then injecting it under your skin does not make you a cyborg, just a cretin.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:stupid (Score:5, Funny)
It is quite scary actually. This proves many things.
1. Flesh is not a valid software firewall. We need upgrades.
2. The human body can't fight off computer viruses with our immune system.
3. His body didn't alert him of the virus. No fever or any symptom.
I, for one, am quite scared of these recent events. How can you discount him so easily? If I get a pace maker and someone is able to root it - how will I know?
Re: (Score:2)
If I get a pace maker and someone is able to root it - how will I know?
Easy answer: You probably will be dead or receive a threat letter :)
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Aren't point 1, 2 and 3 pretty obvious? I just don't see the point of performing this experiment, except as a way to satisfy one's gadget fetish.
Re:stupid (Score:5, Funny)
Re:stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
So he takes a computer that can accept new software, inserts it in his hand, and puts new software on it. How novel.
Re: (Score:2)
I did see this wonderful piece of "news" being submitted to Slashdot about ten times in three hours.
I did feel better seing it wasn't finally accepted.
Now here we are, commenting on the amazing breakthrough it means for the human race.
No, really (Score:4, Insightful)
What a fscking moron
Or a show-off.
Or better, a fscking show-off moron
I couldn't think of anything more irrelevant, like, REALLY
I mean, this is Uri Geller type of BS
The mind boggles.
Re:No, really (Score:5, Funny)
Geller (Score:2)
It won't surprise you to learn that Dr. Gasson's Lab at Whiteknights is only a few miles from Mr. Geller's residence in Sonning. If you want to find out what other idiocy the cybernetics department of the University of Reading have been up to, do a quick search for "Kevin Warwick".
No, not really (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, no, this fails to be even Uri Geller kind of BS. Uri Geller was a fraud, but he knew how to put on a good show and sell an illusion that was actually quite appealing. In fact, a notion that many people wanted desperately to believe in.
And even if you didn't believe in magic, it was at least very interesting as in trying to figure out "where's the trick"? Before Randi went and showed how it's done, it wasn't obvious at all to us non-trained in the conjuror arts. It was a good trick.
But this guy and Captain Cyborg... words fail me. Really.
I'm a SF fan. I like the idea of cyborgs and all. I like the idea of transferring information directly from a machine to a human and viceversa, though I must qualify it there: to a human brain. I'm even willing to entertain the notion of human consciousness transferred to a machine -- though not to the extent of being a techno-rapture cultist or anything. Etc.
I should be exactly the market target for this kind of stuff. Except not _this_ kind of retarded stuff.
Someone thinking that implanting an RFID chip under the skin makes him Captain Cyborg, or this guy thinking that storing a computer virus on a chip under his skin makes him "infected"... isn't even funny. It's ridiculous, stupid, and just a complete non-sequitur for the actual topic of cyborgs. A guy with a pacemaker or hearing aid is actually more of a "cyborg" because those actually interface with the living tissue and perform a function. A chip that's under the skin but not actually connected to anything biological just is not it.
It doesn't even leave you thinking "what is the trick" or "good trick", because there is no trick. It's just a bad case of equivocation. It's transfer from PC to human only by virtue of the vagueness of the phrase, rather than any useful sense or interesting sense.
If we're to talk Uri Geller comparison, guys like these are more like the equivalent of some guy claiming he's the first guy to eat with his arse. So he shoves a spoon's handle up his arse, takes it out, and then eats something with that spoon.
It's freaking sad, that's what it is.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
While he may not have called himself a captain, I'm pretty sure he called himself a cyborg and has been lecturing about the ethics and rights in relation to cyborgs.
I'm also pretty sure that he's been calling himself a cyborg long before that chip was connected to anything. The phase one of his experiment literally involved nothing more than an RFID chip under the skin, and that didn't stop him from presenting himself as becoming a cyborg and other such attention whoring. The only things that he could contr
Implications... (Score:2, Funny)
I can see it now....
Can new RFID technology lead to making you or your families ZOMBIES of the federal government? TONIGHT on Glenn Beck!
Re: (Score:2)
Cardiologist has a portable device to report back on the state of a pacemaker like device.
Scans over skin, gets device to report back data.
Portable device gets a "net update" - pretty graphs and a new portable e record interface.
Families find out grandparents over a set age under federal government care get a little extra c
How is this human to computer? (Score:4, Insightful)
Infect chip.
Implant chip.
Get chip to infect computer.
How was it ever contracted, let alone transmitted by the human? You could wear the chip as a necklace, tie it to a paper airplane, or just throw it and get the same results.
Re: (Score:2)
"Scientist" is retard. Loosing his funding would be the best thing that could happen to him.
Re:How is this human to computer? (Score:5, Funny)
"Scientist" is retard. Loosing his funding would be the best thing that could happen to him.
One would think if his funding were loosed, he'd be quite happy.
Re:How is this human to computer? (Score:5, Funny)
"Scientist" is retard. Loosing his funding would be the best thing that could happen to him.
One would think if his funding were loosed, he'd be quite happy.
"Dear Research Councils, I am very happy to be acquainted with you, and as a humble scientist, wish to loose my funding to the cash sum of 7 HUNDRED THOUSAND dollars..." Sorry, not sure where I'm going with this.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but he's running a fever now. Explain THAT.
Re:How is this human to computer? (Score:5, Funny)
Tie it to a paper plane?
Are you mad?
That would mean the virus is airborne!
Proves nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Proves nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
As Tyler Durden said, "Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken."
-Peter
Re: (Score:2)
a computer virus can be transmitted from an implanted computer to an external computer.
He infected "something" external to a computer, like floppies (during the 70s and 80s), USB keys and CD-Roms (90s and now), and even other computers on the internet. But it's in his own skin, therefore it must be new and scary.
Re: (Score:2)
Where is Funny modifier for a straightest face, deadliest pan?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it's better to view this as two distinct discoveries:
1) He showed that a computer virus can be transmitted from one computer to another.
So, something even the most computer illiterate person has known for decades.
2) He showed that having one of the computers inside a living organism doesn't grant it magic anti-virus powers and somehow prevent (1).
Something only the remarkably and creatively crazy ever thought wouldn't be the case.
I'm pretty impressed at the banality.
Next up for the illustrious Unive
I infected a computer with a virus (Score:5, Funny)
I once had a cold and sneezed on my keyboard.
Does that make me the first human to infect a computer???
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Most keyboards are infected with muffin crumbs.
Re: (Score:2)
You probably were not the first to infect a computer by sneezing on a keyboard... but you may have destroyed the internet when you did that. ... why are you so sure?
What exactly was this meant to demonstrate? (Score:5, Insightful)
More "Research" Firsts! (Score:5, Funny)
*puts Linux ISO on USB flash drive and drops his pants*
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The goatse guy has prior art, and he used a 5 1/4 inch hard drive as opposed to a wimpy USB flash. I'm sure theres someone out there whom can fit a whole NAS rack in.
Re: (Score:2)
It is meant to get him in the news to promote his latest book. It's a publicity stunt.
Not quite an infection yet (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
But then again a passcard is something external.
Still, if he wants the viruses inside him so bad I'd go for shoving a USB drive full of viruses up his rectum - bonus points if he uses a 3 1/2" hard drive instead.
Re: (Score:2)
He wins the whole internet if he uses THIS instead of a floppy drive:
http://www.crunchgear.com/2007/09/24/1gb-then-and-now/ [crunchgear.com]
So he has... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
SPAM coming from his ass? Literally?
Yuck,
is that where they get it from?
Re: (Score:2)
No, you get worms from fecal matter not spam. Although a remarkable amount of factoryfarmed "meat" contains fecal matter, its mostly from the bowels of the slaughtered animals as opposed to human, as far as I know.
Re: (Score:2)
Although a remarkable amount of factoryfarmed "meat" contains fecal matter
So does the do-it-yourself butchered meat. Except, that you don't have government standards for that group to give you the oooh they have a minimum value that is greater than zero which means they WANT it in there, scare factor.
It's as if there wasn't a high temperature process that helps us kill off the harmful microbes prior to consuming the food.
concept already well-proven (Score:3, Insightful)
How is this different from transmitting a virus via floppy diskette, other than the fact that he carried it on the inside of his hand, and the read/write mechanism was RF instead of magnetic?
No (Score:2)
No (Score:2)
"A British scientist claims to have become the first human to be infected by a computer virus, in an experiment he says has important implications for the future of implantable technology. Dr Mark Gasson from the University of Reading infected a computer chip which was then implanted in his hand with the virus and then transmitted it to a PC to prove that malware can move between human and computer."
This is the first time a computer chip implanted in a human has passed a virus onto a PC.
And did we really need a proof of concept of this? File it under 'Fucking-Duh'
The only Irony Appropriate(tm) result... (Score:3, Funny)
What an idiot (Score:2)
What a fucking idiot. Seriously.
Now, if, and I mean -if- he had a chip that was actually wired to his nerves and he got that infected with a virus then maybe I could see the point.
Personally, I think we should wire something up to his eyes so we can tell him how fucking stupid he is in scrolling, blinking text.
Profound (Score:2)
In other news, chimpanzee learns sign language by listening to Metallica. To achieve this, researchers simply taught the chimpanzee sign language while playing Metallica.
Worded poorly, and not news (Score:3, Insightful)
All he really did was just implant a chip in his hand that had a virus on it. Then he demonstrated that the chip would actually transmit the virus. Which isn't really a huge shock, since he was using it to communicate with other devices in the first place. According TFA, he used it for security passes and his phone.
So, at some point, he turned this into: "Pacemakers are at risk"....which, since they're not communication devices...no, no they're not.
Sounds to me like someone lost their grant money or something, and was trying to justify eating doughnuts for 3 years and doing nothing else.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Sometimes... (Score:2)
Bigger implications... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Epic fail. (Score:4, Interesting)
So..... (Score:2)
If i'd eat an infected USB disk, id get the same result?
If I'd cough some influenza on my keyboard id get the same (yet reciprocal) result?
Idle is indeed the word.
/. needs a policy in Captain Cyorg news (Score:4, Insightful)
http://www.google.com/search?q=captain+cyborg [google.com]
Ah, without clicking on any links (we have to stop feeding that fraud), google let me know this was the work of his sidekick, not him directly. Now, I demand that this fraud be fully identified in all future slashdot posts about him or his minions (an addendum to this thread would be wise, too), because HE'S A FUCKING CHARLATAN!
Seriously, he called himself the "first cyborg" for putting an RFID chip in his skin years after people have had pacemakers, cochlear implants, and fucking wires in their brains (for vision to the blind and computer communications for the paralyzed). All reporters who called him "the first cyborg" should be fired, all "news" outlet that published that crap should be fined and stripped of all journalistic-perks (press passes, immunity from certain police procedures, etc). He's an attention whore who pulls these stupid publicity stunts to promote his books, stop helping him with his frauds.
Re: (Score:2)
So... (Score:3, Funny)
Good grief (Score:2)
So, what, you proved that flesh can't block radio signals? Good job there moron, we've only known that for about 100 years or so.
God, I can't wait until the mainstream media gets wind of this one. The stupid, it will burn.
need improvement (Score:2)
It would be fun to design a chip in your throat (think auto-tuning for voice cords' diseases), that has the ability to emit chemicals (to offset the hypothetical disease) and detect the current level of chemicals in the throat (for the purposes of negative feedback in order to control the normal level of drugs in the throat).
The chip is run by the software of course.
The virus would modulate chemical release with the ability to kill the host or send a digital virus sequence via modulated chemical signal to a
I think i'm safe (Score:4, Insightful)
Ingest (Score:2)
Simple carrier (Score:3, Insightful)
No he didn't. (Score:2)
Get back to me when he infects his pacemaker, or muscle controller, or drug release system, etc etc.
So... ...What happens now? (Score:2, Funny)
He has a useless computer chip in his body. That has got to suck.
Imagine him trying to brag to people about it:
"I have a computer chip implanted in me." "Cool, what does it do?" "Nothing, it is infected with a computer virus."
FAIL
Next SciFi Channel movie of the week ? (Score:3, Funny)
What is it with implanting things? (Score:3, Interesting)
What is it with nerds and implanting technology into their bodies? It doesn't seem to have much to do with practical use. Is it some kind of power fantasy?
All Time Low (Score:2, Interesting)
For me, this post and summary is an all time low for Slashdot.
Maybe if the summary had said "check out how stupid this is..."
Geeze. C'mon. What if somebody has their abdomen opened up and puts an entire laptop in there? What's the difference?
2-D bar code tattoo (Score:2)
Are there any 2-D bar codes with enough capacity, and a bar code reader system with enough security holes, that I could get a tattoo on my arm that could infect random windows boxes?
And for his next trick... (Score:5, Funny)
And for his next trick, Dr Mark Gasson will insert an Atari 2600 controller into his anus, and proceed to control a Windows PC's mouse cursor with it. This is the first time a human has ever taken over control of a computer with the twitching of their rectal wall, and demonstrates the need for anal computer security.
All hail scientific achievement.
BS-level "science" (Score:3, Insightful)
What we do not need in the IT security field is stupid publicity stunts.
OK, gone too far. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not one to complain about /. editors; but, come on!
This is "News for Nerds - Stuff That Matters." Did CN just hire some recent college grads that majored in Type-Writer Maintenance and wouldn't know the difference between HD Memory and computer memory?
Just....plain....stupid.
No.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm never going to infect my computer with a rhinovirus, or a common cold, or polio. It's not going to get smallpox (even in the lab), chickenpox, or herpes.
When we start making computers out of biological components, then we can have this discussion. In the meantime, I could implant an infected chip in my shoe and make a claim.
Stupid.
I swallowed a usb disk (Score:5, Funny)
and then i proved Man can core dump.
Idiot.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
One that's wasting tax payer money on Dr. Who toys.