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Well, April Fools Day is upon us, and therefore so is the newest internet Armageddon media darling, the Conficker worm.aka Win32 Conficker.A or Downadup. Discovered back in October of 2008, the Conficker worm has been notoriously hard to eradicate, can jump from computer to computer via such innocent dupes as flash drives and SD cards, is thought to be have silently infected massive numbers of PCs (between 9 and 15 million, give or take a few) and as of April 1 2009 is expected to change it’s behavior.

What is that behavior supposed to become? Well, from what people who are able to figure these things out have to say, all the computers that have been infected with Conficker will begin to communicate with one another. Sppoookkkyyyyy. Why? Well, nobody knows that part. Some experts say it is just a proof of concept or test, others say it will be some kind of zany hacker April Fools prank, while others say it may be best to stay away from strategic targets on April 1 and await commands from our new cybernetic overlords.

Personally, if I were you I would be on the look out for any of the following unusual occurrences on April 1, and keep the number for the National Online Conficker Response Team (NO-CRT) on speed dial.

• Your notebook computer tries to assimilate your household pet and/or children while SMSing REDRUMREDRUMREDRUM to everyone in your Skype phonebook.
• Your netbook and/or smartphone suddenly displays a strange dialog box saying your installation of Windows is being contacted by aliens, and more women are needed on Mars..PRONTO!
• All computers in your home suddenly change into squirrels. Big ones, too.
• Steve Jobs appears at your family dinner and demands more mashed potatoes and that jello shaped like a fish with the fruit in it your Aunt Phyllis makes.
• Nothing whatsoever happens on April 1, trying to lure us into a Y2K style sense of false security…then on April 3 it POUNCES! RAWR!!!

Remember..the price of running Windows is eternal vigilance…so keep your eyes open…and enjoy your April Fool (and if you DO have any trouble with Conficker, go HERE for info…seriously).

Zealot (468 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

By day a department manager and writer for a major network device vendor...by night Zealot stalks the mean magnetic streets, striking fear into the hearts of bandwidth abusers and theme park mascots. Zealot has been involved with mobile devices for more than a decade now, starting off with dumb phones, moving to PDAs and then to smartphones, notebooks and netbooks with the odd PMP thrown in. Most of his mobile time currently is spent on a Treo Pro, Zune HD, Thinkpad T61, Gigabyte M912M or a Hackintoshed Compaq Mini 704. He proudly groks the Geek community and considers himself a Neo Maxi Zune Dweebie (thanks Will Wheaton!).