Welcome to the World of (semi-)Intelligent Computer Worms

This is an amazing piece of programming. Horrible, no-good, nasty, unethical, illegal, inconsiderate, and rude. But amazing.

A new worm that targets users of America Online's AOL Instant Messenger is believed to be the first that actually chats with the intended victim to dupe the target into activating a malicious payload, IM security vendor IMlogic warned Tuesday.
According to IMlogic, the worm, dubbed IM.Myspace04.AIM, has arrived in instant messages that state: "lol thats cool" and included a URL to a malicious file "clarissa17.pif." When unsuspecting users have responded, perhaps asking if the attachment contained a virus, the worm has replied: "lol no its not its a virus", IMlogic said.
The malicious file disables security software, installs a backdoor and tweaks system files, the company said. Then it starts sending itself to contacts on the victim's buddy list.

Please tell your AOL friends (preferably NOT thru Instant Messenger!) about this. The file that it downloads is a PIF file, which has NO EFFECT on Apple or Linux computers, but can do some serious damage on a Windows machine.

Proof that evil has as many brilliant engineers on its side as good.