********************************************** Interview with genetix by Second Part To Hell ********************************************** genetix is a viruswriter who appeared someday in 2005. After a longer break, recently she started to write several first-time infectors for new programming languages, so I thought its the perfect time to make an interview with her. The interview has been done via e-mail and IRC, in june 2013. You can reach her via kels@kittymail.com or at https://twitter.com/MitterAngel. Have fun :) ############################## ## hey genetix! Thanks for agreeing to answere a few questions. First, could you ## please tell us a bit about yourself - like where you are from, how old you ## are, whats your favorite music/movie, how you usually spend your day, ... Greetings!! my real name is Kelsey I'm 21 years young and I'm living in finland (although it's not my origin) and I have blue Hair. I don't exactly have a favourite music genre I like all sorts but recently I've been listening to a lot of Celine Dion. As for movies my favourite is "note book". I don't have much spare time but my usually activity is just going to the library, visiting coffee shops, getting drunk on saturday nights with my friends (if i can afford). I often get confused as a scene or emo girl but i'm neither, I'm just myself. I don't even enjoy reading I just go to the library because it's quiet and I can also have coffee there.. and may be look sothisticated. ############################## ## Where are you from originally any why did you go to finland? Did you want to ## meet Mikko Hypponen? :) Or do you like when its cold, and you can stroke ## Reindeers? :) Do you speek finnish? Originally USA I'm still in finland and I honestly have no interest meeting that person^^ I've not got close enough to a reindeer. I moved here because I had some friends here and I like the country, it has a very hot summer, but a very cold winter! ############################## ## When was your first contact to computer viruses? Why and when did you write ## your first virus? I remember someone telling me something stupid about how a pixel could contain a virus.. I wasn't sure what a virus was but that info alone kinda intrigued me enough to seek viruses using my schools library computer (because I had no internet) anyway I finally after many failed attempts come across herm1ts site and began downloading lots of viruses, I remember the Anti-Virus (McAfee) was going crazy I thought it was so cool! But I was shortly pulled from the computer by the admin who didn't look very happy and suspended me from the library. It was months after that, that I finally had internet access at home and began my search again. I tried contacting virus writers using the email addresses I'd gotten from tutorials but little did I know they were all retired, people like VicodinES and jackie. I ended up sending a mail to someone called kefi and about a week later I had a reply I was amazed I had finally gotten contact with a REAL VIRUS WRITER OMG!!! i'm sure you know the feeling^^ I was actually talking with him on MSN while he was writing the first virus for a language called kixstart, I'm pretty sure he was showing off! I got his source and was so amazed although I understood nothing at-all I just thought it was totally amazing! He even challenged me to write a virus better than his.. kinda unfair at the time but if you are reading this now I will accept your challenge^^ I can't remember in what order but I contacted a few others through him. I wrote my first virus because.. well.. viruses are kewl! I think it was just a vbs overwriter.. nothing special. ############################## ## Very nice story :) In which year was that? I can't remember exactly^^ but probably like 6-7 years ago may be? it was at the very beginning. ############################## ## Do some of your friends or family know that you have this "special hobby"? :) Some friends do and my parents did too but most people don't understand what it really is all about so they don't have much to say about it plus it's an uninteresting topic to them.. although there are some added complications when both of your parents work for the police (such a twist!) all they know is that it's morally wrong to write viruses and we have had many arguments over it, I even walked out a few times slamming the door behind me. The worst thing they ever did was insult my virus writer friends.. And we still don't talk anymore. It's a long story, basically they made me choose. ############################## ## You have been active several years ago, then stopped writing codes. Why did ## you stopp and why did you decide to code self-replicators again? I got bored of it for a while, I guess we all do.. but now I have a lot of work to do and I cant fit virus writing in with my current life style, I'm also not really interested about it.. or at least not right now. ############################## ## You have been memeber of Doom Riderz, can you tell us something about this ## group? Have you been active in other joined projects aswell? I was in EOF but that was very short lived, I quit within a few days to join DoomRiderz because I was closer friends with the founder and he asked if I wanted to join so.. I did. There was a lot of drama in that group But I really enjoyed my time there, free0n left and the group died. ############################## ## Do you have contact to many other viruswriters? I have contact to all of them I guess, we all know or at least know of eachother but the only active virus writer I have somewhat regular contact with is you. ############################## ## Have you ever met viruswriters in real life? I made plans to meet Belial once in berlin with a friend but there was some emotional wreck involved and.. yea.. long story so I ended up not going, I visited a hospital instead but I'm sure berlin would have been much more fun!^^ ############################## ## Do you have contact to people from antivirus companies, or security ## researchers? No, I have no reason to contact them, mutual I suppose. (OMG ITS THUNDERING NOW!) ############################## ## Can you tell about some of your best creations? What was your favorite ## project, which one was most challanging? I think that would be my recent OCaml virus, it was my first time using a functional language and it was also the first time that this language had been infected, we know how challenging functional languages are^^ ############################## ## What is your favorite virus of all times? Melissa macro virus^^ it was also the first virus I had ever seen. ############################## ## Which techniques do you like most in selfreplications? EPO (Entry Point Obscurring) I always try to adopt this method in to my viruses. I first come across the method by reading your tutorials a long time ago. I also like cavity infection.. i just think its kewl..old but still kewl! ############################## ## Consider the coolest self-replicator that you can imagine, how would it look ## like (be creative and visionary ;) )? Whats the perfect virus of the future? ## How do you imagine computer viruses in near future, lets say in 3 years? ## What is your longterm prognosis for 2020 and 2050? A futue virus.. So many possibilities! Well first we have to think about the size of the binary before we come up with crazy new ideas because size does matter (no pun intended) and also the fact that although in theory a technique or a set of techniques can be used and a programmer has the right skills for it, there does come a point when the source gets so massive and complicated that you simply cannot follow it anymore, not to mention the inevitable bugs you'll come across that will be harder and harder to solve. I think in this case a whole new language is needed but I'm probably jumping to far ahead with this^^ anyway I think a basic answer to a future virus would be (TEAMWORK) and I don't see much of it. We have 1 person who is good at mutating code and another who is good with pe infection, but no combined projects? strange. I bet AV are hoping virus writers don't start working as a team like AV companies do when writing AV software.. you think just one guy sits there writing these programs? And that reminds me, what exactly is the point in VX-Teams when there is no teamwork going on? Also a nice idea would be for a virus to be aware of it's detection status and communicate with other infected computers, they can let each other know when it's time for a change and send some metacode to them so that the virus can mutate to a new varient using the details in the metacode.. for some of this we can follow botnet examples, how they communicate with eachother. It would also be nice to infect mobile devices and employ rootkit-like techniques. Computers are becomming more and more paranoid these days and we can't ignore it and avoid it.. it's a problem that must be faced and defeated. We can't send someone an EXE file anymore and expect them to run it and infect everything, now we get all sorts of popups warning us of strange activity. I see that many viruses ignore this.. it can't be ignored! ############################## ## You are a main participant for the "language infection project" - so far you ## infected more than 10 (!) untouched languages. Can you tell a bit about ## your experience on infecting new languages? Which projects were the most ## challanging? Well the languages I chose were pretty simple^^ once you write a few viruses and know how a virus looks and what it has to do you can write a virus in nearly any language, it's as complicated as you want it to be and mine wernt very complicated or advanced.. the most difficult to write was the OCaml virus, functional languages were totally new to me, I so wasn't prepared for what I was getting my self in to!^^ But I managed to finish it in 3-4 days. Virus writing is as easy as you want it to be. Although the chosen language may be difficult to learn, the virus itself could still be something primitive. Does any of that even make sense? I'm tired. ############################## ## Yes, makes sense :) Do you plan to continue to hit new languages for the ## first time? There seems to be still alot of languages on the LIP-list. But I ## guess the projects become more difficult, as the simplest things have been ## infected already. Many functional languages are yet to be touched, wanna give ## it a try? :) It's not about the difficulty level, I'm not interested enough to attempt it and have very little time. So for now the answer would be no. ############################## ## Do you have plans for the future as a viruswriter? Something that you want to ## look into? Not yet, at the moment I'm a little more focused on my personal life and real life stuff than writing viruses. ############################## ## Since 2010, we have been surprised several times by high-tech cyber weapons ## like the self-replicator Stuxnet. What were your thoughts about those ## kitties? It was like dropping the first atomic bomb again. ############################## ## Next comes a word-rap, it has been done via IRC. I say a phrase, and genetix ## says the first that comes to her mind... - favorite tv series simpsons, dr house, ummm - favorite place on earth germany! - favorite food indian, thia - school got in the way of my education - OCaml a nightmare! - Wikileaks it.. leaks.. wiki stuff... THEY EXPOSE THE TRUTH - cats they smell .. and piss everywhere, one day they will take over the world i'm sure of it! - Kurt Cobain he doesnt exist in my common knowledge database^^ - Jesus Christ He can walk on water.. - Neil Amstrong trains space monkeys - Death death.. death is ok - VX Heavens needs to be re-established! and the law can go fuck themselfs with a wooden spoon! - Metamorphism crazy stuff.. there was this insane guy who made a metamorphic javascript... that's just... whaaat??? - Linux vs. Windows I think linux users are big headed assholes. I love linux. Windows is lame. wait.. I love linux but window is.. ok too - USA Not somewhere i'm proud to say I'm from - Europe No, fellow americans it is NOT a country! - China That however, is a country^^ - Russia They are insane, If I ever go there I will book my funeral in advance. - drugs (marihuana, cocaine, heroine, ...) Your parents were wrong, it's totally worth it! - favorite alcohol long drink - mathematics 1+1=10 - astronomy/NASA/ESA I actually adore space stuff, I think little grey people exist! - nullsecurity a hacking group - twitter a place where I can spam and get followers for it - facebook can't remember my password - police they work for the law. although they like to think they are the law - year 2030 I will have 3 children, christmia, hanna, kira and a dog named ronja , I will own a coffee shop and be happily married - three things you want to do/see/visit before you die I want to marry a nice guy and start my own family a little less screwed up than the one I come from, I want to visit germany again, and I want to swim with sharks.. shark swimming is the last one because knowing my luck i'll be eaten by them. ############################## ## What is your plan for the future? Are you planning to become a famous ## scientist, politician, moviestar, singer? :) I really Don't know what I want in life.. all I know is that by the end I want to feel that I have lived a good life. ############################## ## Thanks alot for the short interview! Feel free to fill the rest of the doc ## with whatever you like! :) TEAMWORK! And the ever famous greetings: spth belial vxf Metal dref hh86 slagehammer skier kefi MikeAce herm1t rembrandt retro cl0wn - the only turkish person I know who i actually enjoyed talking to! and everyone in #virus & #nullsecurity, I know I forgot a few but does it really matter?