bskendig@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig) (12/09/89)
The WDEF virus is real. The only tool currently available to combat
it is `Eradicator!'.
First off, I'd like to thank all the people who sent me mail
concerning my earlier questions about the virus. I at first doubted
the validity of the posting, given that the facts surrounding it
seemed a bit suspicious. And forged posts are not a new thing to
UseNet...
However, I did *not* appreciate the people who insinuated that I was
somehow responsible for any ill effects of the virus simply by posting
about it. UseNet is a public forum; anyone is free to post whatever
he or she feels is proper (within reason, of course). In the same
vein, one should never take anything seen here as gospel. I doubted,
and substantiated my claims, yet I was criticised for doubting. Is
this right?
I will admit that I have not programmed the Macintosh extensively; I
am learning at the fastest rate that my other duties here at school
will allow. I still consider myself fairly knowledgeable about it,
and I know that while a virus may be damaging, an ambiguous threat of
a virus can also do damage - we saw that with the IBM's DataCrime
(`Columbus Day') virus. The panic and confusion of a good great
number of concerned people in circumventing that virus greatly
outweighed the work done to recover from what damage it actually did,
according to the reports I've heard.
If the people involved in diagnosing and curing the virus would please
post more information concerning the known effects of the virus (I
received private mail containing more information than that given in
the posts here) and updates on any work being done to prevent it from
spreading, many of us would be thankful. I do not want to post what I
have received yet because I do not want to be held responsible for
inadvertently revealing any of the `secrets' used in creating the
virus, for fear that we might see several new strains of this pop up,
and I caution any knowledgeable posters in the future to watch out for
this as well.
Thank you for your attention.
<< Brian >>
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| Brian S. Kendig ^ Macintosh | /\ _||_ | bskendig |
| Computer Engineering |\ Thought | /__\ \ / | @phoenix.Princeton.EDU |
| Princeton University | \ Police | || \/ | @PUCC.BITNET |
| Systems Engineering, NASA Space Station Freedom / General Electric WP3 |