Modern hw-killing virus feasible

[Pavel Machek <pavel () SUSE CZ>]

 Hi!

 Current DVD-regioning system provides *very* easy possibility for
 virus to render hardware unusable. Current DVD-roms allow setting
 DVD region for limited number of times.

 Imagine virus, that switches DVD between japan-region and asia-region
 as many times as it can. It would leave DVD locked either to japan or
 asia, effectively making it unusable for european/us citizen.

 Long time ago, rumors went that it is possible to kill harddrive by
 software. Then, old monitors could be damaged by software by
 missprograming them (but damage would take lot of time). Now DVDs
 provide effective way for software making them unusable. Pretty sad.

                                                               Pavel

--
I'm pavel () ucw cz. "In my country we have almost anarchy and I don't care."
Panos Katsaloulis describing me w.r.t. patents at discuss () linmodems org