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SCO 10K Filing Discusses MyDoom: Misattribution To Linux Community

Another odd thing. The 10K, which is for the fiscal year ending October 31, 2003 and which was signed and filed on January 28, 2004, mentions the MyDoom virus, which happened January 26, 2004. It puts it in the context of adverse results from their litigation strategy and seems to pin the blame on the Linux community, which as it now turns out is inaccurate . . .. The new SCO 10K is available. There are some interesting exhibits, as well. What is missing in the long list of exhibits are the Sun and Microsoft licenses. The Morgan Keegan letters are attached as exhibits, and there is an Independent Contractor Agreement with S2 Strategic Consulting. So where are the Sun and Microsoft licenses? Shouldn't they be listed in the SEC filing also? The 10K refers to limitations on the Microsoft license, but it doesn't explain what limitations it is referring to. Another odd thing. The 10K, which is for the fiscal year ending October 31, 2003 and which was signed and filed on January 28, 2004, mentions the MyDoom virus, which happened January 26, 2004. It puts it in the context of adverse results from their litigation strategy and seems to pin the blame on the Linux community, which as it now turns out is inaccurate: "As a result of our action against IBM and our SCOsource initiatives to protect our intellectual property rights, several participants in the Linux industry and others affiliated with IBM or sympathetic to the Linux movement have taken actions attempting to negatively affect our business and our SCOsource efforts. Linux proponents have taken a broad range of actions against us, including, for example, attempting to influence participants in the markets in which we sell our products to reduce or eliminate the amount of our products and services they purchase from us. We expect that similar efforts likely will continue. There is a risk that participants in our marketplace will negatively view our action against IBM and our SCOsource initiatives, and we may lose support from such participants. Any of theforegoing could adversely affect our position in the marketplace, our results of operations and our stock price. "We have also experienced several denial-of-service attacks on our website, which have prevented web users from accessing our website and doing business with us for a period of time. Additionally, we have recently experienced a distributed denial-of-service attack as a result of the "Mydoom" worm virus. It is reported that the effects of this virus will continue into February 2004. If such attacks continue or if our customers and strategic partners are also subjected to similar attacks, our business and results of operations could be materially harmed." This gives the decided impression of tremendous eagerness on the part of SCO to include this information and to make it seem the Linux community or sympathizers were responsible. MyDoom, experts now say, was done by professional spammers in Russia. It also leaves out the date of this virus, which misleadingly makes it seem like it happened during the fiscal year ending October 31, 2003. So what does SCO have to do now? Are they supposed to correct this SEC filing to make it factually accurate? Speaking of attacks, what about the last one? Was that by the same criminal spammer group? The link for this article located at groklaw.net is no longer available. . SCO's recent 10K filing has sparked notable debate, particularly its implications regarding MyDoom and the Linux community. This reflects a strategy to shift focus from their decline.. SCO 10K Filing, MyDoom Virus, Linux Community, Denial of Service, Security Flaws. . LinuxSecurity.com Team

Jan 30, 2004 • LinuxSecurity.com Team Vendors/Products