For those with a techie/geeky bent, the article in The Atlantic on the Conflicker Worm is a fascinating - and scary - insight into the world of the virus-creator.

When the Conficker computer “worm” was unleashed on the world in November 2008, cyber-security experts didn’t know what to make of it. It infiltrated millions of computers around the globe. It constantly checks in with its unknown creators. It uses an encryption code so sophisticated that only a very few people could have deployed it. For the first time ever, the cyber-security elites of the world have joined forces in a high-tech game of cops and robbers, trying to find Conficker’s creators and defeat them. The cops are failing. And now the worm lies there, waiting …

Read the whole article, it shows how the good guys catch up with the bad guys, to only find that the bad guys have moved on. I found the section on encryption is the scariest part.

So when the new version of Conficker appeared, and its new method of encrypting its communication employed MD-6, Rivest’s proposal for SHA-3, the cabal’s collective mind was blown.

MD-6 is/was the proposed new "highest-level standard" for public-key encryption - the bad guys already were using it.

If the worm is ever activated in a nefarious way the innnertubes could be in for some real trouble.