bill@cbmvax.UUCP (Bill Koester CATS) (01/05/88)
After being away for 3 days (New Years and all!) I was amazed to find
my mailbox full of messages regarding the virus. Well, I am glad people
are showing this kind of interest and concern. Let me try to answer some
of the big questions.
DO/DON't distribute the SCA VIRUS PROTECTOR:
I will not distribute ANY virus protector unless
(a) I wrote it!
(b) I have the source.
In the case of the SCA VIRUS PROTECTOR even the source might not
help since it only checks for the original SCA virus.
DO/DON't distrubute the VIRUS source:
I will NEVER distrubute the source to ANY virus or anything
that could be harmfull to the Amiga or it's users.
DON't endorse the VIRUS as helping to thwart pirating:
I never endorsed this or any virus. My comment a while back
< Good Point! > may have been misunderstood. I meant simply
that, yes, there may indeed be people out there that will
think twice about pirating software for fear of infection.
That is all I meant!
AIDS is not a good thing either but I think it has made many
people aware of the risks of casual sex. The virus has made
users aware of the risks of pirating or accepting pirated
software.
REMOVE BOOTSTRAP CAPABILITIES / HARDWARE PROTECTION:
George Robbins covered this in detail in a recent posting
and I agree!
DO THIS THAT THE OTHER THING IN VCheck:
All V1.x versions of VCheck where quick and dirty hacks to
get a detector into the user community. VCheck2.0 is now
in the works and will be much smarter than its predecessors
it will have the ability to learn about new virus's and restore
life to some infected disks. I hate to make comments about
software that is yet to be completed, but, I believe VCheck2.0
will effectively neutralize the current strains as well as any
others that crop up.
COMMODORE SHOULD TAKE THE INITIATIVE WITH THIS:
We are doing everything possible to correct/eliminate this problem.
You, yes you can help us with this. If you think you have found
a new virus, one that VCheck1.2 will not recognize PLEASE send
an infected disk (CLEARLY MARKED) to:
Bill Koester (CATS)
Commodore International Ltd.
1200 Wilson Drive
West Chester, PA 19380
or call (215) 431-9355
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Bill Koester (CATS) >>Commodore Amiga Technical Support<<
Commodore International Ltd. UUCP ..{allegra|burdvax|rutgers|ihnp4}!cbmvax!bill
PHONE (215) 431-9355john13@garfield.UUCP (John Russell) (01/05/88)
In article <3081@cbmvax.UUCP> bill@cbmvax.UUCP (Bill Koester CATS) writes: >DO THIS THAT THE OTHER THING IN VCheck: > > All V1.x versions of VCheck where quick and dirty hacks to > get a detector into the user community. VCheck2.0 is now > in the works and will be much smarter than its predecessors Another thing that would be good (especially in light of people saying "I never boot except off a write-protected Workbench after cold starting my machine while wearing a condom" :-) would be a program called "reboot" that would tell you if your WarmStart vector had been altered, and force your machine through the normal C-A-A procedure. Maybe it could also check all romtags or whatever methods people use to preserve information across boots. BTW, I was unable to find a change-Kickstart program around here so I tried to write one using a function called "ColdReset" which is documented in one book I have. But it doesn't seem to exist. Is/was there such a system call anywhere? John -- "I hate to be the one to tell you this, Bryce, but there's more to life than interactive systems analysis." "I know. It also involves number crunching!" -- Max Headroom