sean@ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey) (01/09/88)
I think I'm being misunderstood here. Allow my to explain after I reply to the following: In article <sVtGK7y00WAKdH80MF@andrew.cmu.edu> mp1u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi) writes: >> If what was described in "THE BOOT PROCESS" was all there was to it, then >> warm booting with a secure disk would be safe. >So, if you boot with a foreign disk, make sure you cold start the >machine before you insert your normal boot material. I don't *want* to coldstart my machine!!!! I want to be able to warmstart with a secure disk and know that nothing can clobber it. >But don't blame the people at Commodore for making it "easy" >to produce a virus. As other members of the net have pointed out, >there are other possible schemes for making an Amiga virus, and >designing the system to be safe from every conceivable scheme is >about equivalent to solving the halting problem (something I *don't* >expect the Commodore engineers to do). I'm not blaming Commodore for making it easy to produce virus programs. I am blaming them for making it easy to produce a very specific type of virus program, one that can survive a warm boot. *attention people* I am fully aware that there are a zillion ways to do a virus. The *only* type I have ever discussed, or am interested in discussing at this point is the kind that survives a warm boot and corrupts secure disks. This kind of virus can be prevented with modifications to kickstart, which it looks like I may end up doing myself :-(. If I think something funny is going on, I want to warm boot with a secure disk and have a clean machine. That's all, and I don't think it's a lot to ask. Sean -- -- Sean Casey sean@ms.uky.edu, sean@ukma.bitneT -- (the Empire guy) {rutgers,uunet,cbosgd}!ukma!sean -- University of Kentucky in Lexington Kentucky, USA -- "If something can go will, it wrong."