I Got My First Beacon!

Hey, who'd have said it? Today I used a public computer powered by Windows Seven (with its updated antivirus); I inserted my USB stick there and in doing so I got my first beacon!!

If you don't know what a beacon is, please read this post: "On Computers, Cookies, and Beacons."

Wow! The computer was infected with a virus that not only created an autorun.inf file pointing to a special folder in which the virus was hidden, but also gave me as a nice Children's Day present a small file with a code...

Surely enough, none of the three elements could be removed because it lacked the corresponding permissions.

What was left for me to do then? Well, changing their permissions with a couple of clicks and then to place all those files together into a compressed folder for my brother's Outstanding USB Virus Collection Version 2.0

What antivirus did I use? None!

How did I find them? Because I was using Linux. Had I used Windows, probably those files would be invisible and both the virus and my first beacon would be right now working together to send I-don't-know what-important-information to I-don't-know-who.

I really don't like that idea. If you use Windows, please be careful. Double check your USB sticks or don't use them in a public computer. Better yet, try Linux to check their contents after using them in another computer.