Comments on: “Is your PC virus-free? Get it infected here!” http://blog.didierstevens.com/2007/05/07/is-your-pc-virus-free-get-it-infected-here/ (blog 'DidierStevens) Sat, 11 Feb 2012 16:16:49 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Didier Stevens http://blog.didierstevens.com/2007/05/07/is-your-pc-virus-free-get-it-infected-here/#comment-44220 Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:38:30 +0000 http://didierstevens.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/is-your-pc-virus-free-get-it-infected-here/#comment-44220 @pinkgothic Thanks! And thank you for your valuable comments.

]]> By: pinkgothic http://blog.didierstevens.com/2007/05/07/is-your-pc-virus-free-get-it-infected-here/#comment-44219 Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:32:46 +0000 http://didierstevens.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/is-your-pc-virus-free-get-it-infected-here/#comment-44219 @Didier: Yeah, I see what you mean – and that’s valuable! :) Honestly, I just felt some of the comments could use responding to, seeing as they took the psychological bend (and with how it was being piled on I of course promptly mistook it as its purpose – which, you know, speaking of gullible and psychology… :D ). *tips hat to for excellent blog in general*

]]> By: Didier Stevens http://blog.didierstevens.com/2007/05/07/is-your-pc-virus-free-get-it-infected-here/#comment-44218 Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:18:16 +0000 http://didierstevens.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/is-your-pc-virus-free-get-it-infected-here/#comment-44218 @pinkgothic Back in the time when I did this experiment, it taught us something about Google, and that was the point.

]]> By: pinkgothic http://blog.didierstevens.com/2007/05/07/is-your-pc-virus-free-get-it-infected-here/#comment-44210 Fri, 08 Jul 2011 13:02:20 +0000 http://didierstevens.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/is-your-pc-virus-free-get-it-infected-here/#comment-44210 Sorry, one more thought:

Gullible isn’t clicking on the link, gullible is not clicking on it. Gullible is believing it will actually infect your machine and taking the words at face value. (Frankly I would go as far to consider that far more dangerous than clicking it and challenging the words presented, since I imagine the type of person not to click the link because they believe it’ll give them a virus will be the same type of person who will click another link that promises to be virus-free. But that’s getting very off-topic and hypothetical – though I hope a point can be distilled from this ramble, regardless.)

]]> By: pinkgothic http://blog.didierstevens.com/2007/05/07/is-your-pc-virus-free-get-it-infected-here/#comment-44209 Fri, 08 Jul 2011 12:54:11 +0000 http://didierstevens.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/is-your-pc-virus-free-get-it-infected-here/#comment-44209 “I am amazed by how many people left comments proudly admitting that they would have clicked on the link. Curiosity does not exonerate one from foolishness.”

I’ve got a different theory:

Clicking a link like that is no more foolish than clicking any other link you haven’t cross-checked, actually.

The reason people click on it is because it looks like it’s satire / humourous. As has been stated before, you don’t usually advertise your malware as, well, malware – so I’d reckon you’re more likely to get malware from a link that pretends it has *nothing* to do with malware than one that pretends it *does*. If you’re smart enough to understand that logic, very frankly, it’s not gullible to click the link since you are actually -more- safe, statistically seen, than you would be clicking various other links. Even if that weren’t true, it would still be the -same- chance of malware infection, because words do not matter.

That’s the complexity of human psychology for you.

(Yes, that does mean I don’t think this experiment teaches us anything – but I still enjoy it! ^_^)

]]> By: Anonymous http://blog.didierstevens.com/2007/05/07/is-your-pc-virus-free-get-it-infected-here/#comment-43417 Sat, 04 Jun 2011 20:30:58 +0000 http://didierstevens.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/is-your-pc-virus-free-get-it-infected-here/#comment-43417 @Didier The ad seems vaguely familiar. If I remember correctly, I may have clicked it for a laugh thinking it was a joke :)

]]> By: Anonymous http://blog.didierstevens.com/2007/05/07/is-your-pc-virus-free-get-it-infected-here/#comment-42593 Fri, 29 Apr 2011 11:55:37 +0000 http://didierstevens.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/is-your-pc-virus-free-get-it-infected-here/#comment-42593 thanks man great idea

]]> By: Didier Stevens http://blog.didierstevens.com/2007/05/07/is-your-pc-virus-free-get-it-infected-here/#comment-41613 Tue, 25 Jan 2011 19:41:30 +0000 http://didierstevens.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/is-your-pc-virus-free-get-it-infected-here/#comment-41613 @AJ Mihalic I don’t have that data. Don’t forget that this is 5 years old, maybe GoogleAds offers this data now, but it didn’t back then.

]]> By: AJ Mihalic http://blog.didierstevens.com/2007/05/07/is-your-pc-virus-free-get-it-infected-here/#comment-41598 Mon, 24 Jan 2011 22:07:11 +0000 http://didierstevens.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/is-your-pc-virus-free-get-it-infected-here/#comment-41598 I wonder how many users are real users, and if there are many bots that click on ads?
Did you filter your traffic for bounces on visits that were less than 1 (or maybe 2) seconds to filter for likely non-human traffic? Interested in the results

]]> By: Ebob101 http://blog.didierstevens.com/2007/05/07/is-your-pc-virus-free-get-it-infected-here/#comment-40345 Wed, 20 Oct 2010 22:30:04 +0000 http://didierstevens.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/is-your-pc-virus-free-get-it-infected-here/#comment-40345 lol, This made it into the guineas book of world records for most deliberate virus downloads.
This is some awesome stuff here. I love the slogan.

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