W8SDZ@SIMTEL20.ARPA (Keith Petersen) (05/31/88)
Greg, I have forwarded the message addressed to Info-IBMPC reporting the problem with FSP_12 destroying files to Ross Greenberg at his network address: formtek!ditka!ramnet!sysop@pt.cs.cmu.edu (this is an Arpanet path). Hopefully he will send you some communication about the bugs present in FSP_12 and earlier versions, as reported by Sandia National Laboratories. As you know, I have removed that program from the Simtel20 archives. I suggest that Ross' email address be published in Info-IBMPC digest so bug reports can be sent directly to him. I haven't had any luck in getting answers. --Keith Petersen Maintainer of the MSDOS and CP/M archives at SIMTEL20.ARPA
W8SDZ@SIMTEL20.ARPA (Keith Petersen) (05/31/88)
Date: Monday, 30 May 1988 14:59-MDT
From: Gregory Hicks COMFLEACTS <hicks@walker-emh.arpa>
To: kpetersen@simtel20.arpa
Re: FSP_12
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From: Turgut Kalfaoglu <BILTUR@TREARN>
To: PCSERV-L@RPICICGE , IBMPC-L@TAUNIVM
* Important *
The other day, I got an interesting file called FSP_12.ARC in the
Simtel's directory. I was happy to notice that it was a
resident program to detect any access to disk. What the program does
is that it pops open a window asking you to confirm what the running
program 'wishes' to do. Great so far.
I used it for a while, under DOS 3.3, with FastOpen installed, then
I ran a batch program of mine, which cleans out all *.BAK and *.~??
files from my disk. FSP_12 warned me that the batch file was about
to write directly to the disk (as opposed to using services), which
I permitted, since I have used that batch a few thousand times before.
This batch file consisted of:
CLEAN *.BAK
CLEAN *.~?? -- clean, being a global-deletion program.
After the successful completion of the batch, I did a DIR.
and found 64 files, instead of the usual 250. I
went to another dirs, found garbled directory listings. CHKDSK did
not think much of my disk: 'Probably non-DOS disk'
You can guess the rest: FORMAT C: /V/S, and much heartache.
I am not sure why FSP_12 did that, perhaps because of FASTOPEN.
Watch out! It can happen to you too!
PS: If Virus-Protecting programs do this, I wonder what a real virus
can do!
Sincerely,
-turgut
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Keith:
Any Ideas?
Regards,
Gregory Hicksdick@slvblc.UUCP (Dick Flanagan) (06/04/88)
In article <KPETERSEN.12402538780.BABYL@SIMTEL20.ARPA> W8SDZ@SIMTEL20.ARPA (Keith Petersen) writes: > Greg, I have forwarded the message addressed to Info-IBMPC reporting > the problem with FSP_12 destroying files to Ross Greenberg at his > network address: formtek!ditka!ramnet!sysop@pt.cs.cmu.edu (this is an > Arpanet path). I have sent several detailed FSP bug reports to Greenberg at this address, but have never received any response. > Hopefully he will send you some communication about the bugs present > in FSP_12 and earlier versions, as reported by Sandia National > Laboratories. Greenberg's style seems to flame those who report FSP bugs with that arrogant "what do you expect for a lousy ten bucks" attitude of his. > I suggest that Ross' email address be published in Info-IBMPC digest > so bug reports can be sent directly to him. I haven't had any luck in > getting answers. Perhaps his surface mail address should be posted, too, since he doesn't appear to respond to email. It is: Ross Greenberg Software Concepts Design 594 3rd Avenue New York, New York 10016 Personally, when Ross first asked for $10, I sent him a little more than that because I thought his efforts should be rewarded in some small way. I'm sorry now that I did. I dare say his FSP has probably caused more damage than the viruses it was supposed to protect us from. Dick -- Dick Flanagan, W6OLD GEnie: FLANAGAN UUCP: ...!ucbvax!ucscc!slvblc!dick Voice: +1 408 336 3481 Internet: slvblc!dick@ucscc.UCSC.EDU LORAN: N037 04.7 W122 04.6 USPS: PO Box 155, Ben Lomond, CA 95005