Worse scenario: Part of the malware's code is derived from PuTTY?

I suppose it's perfectly possible that malware has used my code in the past. (Which would throw no blame on me – there's no end of infrastructure code in stuff I've written which would be just as useful for nefarious purposes as constructive ones, because the same sort of organisational stuff will always need taking care of no matter what top-level task you're trying to do.)

To put my name in the Windows executable metadata, though, is more sinister; the only way I can think of for that to get there by accident is if they cloned-and-hacked some part of my build scripts, and really, if they're going to copy anyone's build system I doubt they'd pick mine – it's all Unixy and idiosyncratic and weird. So I'm more inclined to think that has to have been done deliberately.

This is the part of the conversation where I express a failing of empathy with malware writers and a bewilderment at why someone would *do* that.

Have you made enemies in bad circles? :)

Not to my knowledge, but then, they wouldn't necessarily tell me if I had!

How dare you be a constructive part of the open source community!

*koff* Well, quite.

I'm tempted to suspect that this might, in fact, be the cause, unfortunately. (If there is an intentional cause, rather than, say, a program scumming Windows registry entries for software authors.)

I'm having flashbacks to schoolyard bullies here. Unfortunately, I have the feeling that there's quite a lot in common there.