W8SDZ@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL (Keith Petersen) (12/16/88)
Posting-number: Volume 01 Issue 058
Originally-from: Eric Newhouse <no email address>
Submitted-by: Keith Petersen <W8SDZ@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL>
Archive-name: dirtyd8b/part01
[
This is the April 1988 edition of the famous Dirty Dozen list that was
originally created by Tom Neff (who occasionally posts in
comp.sys.ibm.pc) and later taken over by Eric Newhouse. It is a fairly
comprehensive list of known harmful or pirated software that has been
seen on bulletin boards. Please note that for almost every such
program, there is usually a perfectly harmless and useful one by the
same or a similar name. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.
As a courtesy to Tom, who favors text postings where appropriate, I'm
posting this in two parts as plain text files. For BBS use, put into a
file called dd.8 and store that in an archive called dirtyd8b.arc.
Thanks to Keith Petersen, who relayed it here.
CUT BETWEEN CUT LINES AND CONCATENATE BOTH PARTS. DO NOT UUDECODE.
checksum size (bytes) file (between BEGIN--cut and END--cut lines)
35595 40648 plain text part01
8280 38238 plain text part02
-- R.D.
]
part01/02
BEGIN--cut here--cut here
------------------------------------------------------------------
| |
| THE DIRTY DOZEN -- An Uploaded Program Alert List |
| |
------------------------------------------------------------------
| Issue #8: April 4, 1988 |
| |
| Revision stage 'B' |
| |
| Maintained by Eric Newhouse |
| Originally by Tom Neff |
------------------------------------------------------------------
Recently, many unlawfully copied or modified programs have
appeared on various IBM bulletin boards across the country.
THE DIRTY DOZEN lists known examples.
The author takes no responsibility for the validity or
completeness of this list. Many sources contribute to the list,
and it is very possible that one of the reported 'dirty' files
works perfectly and is in the Public Domain.
Also, users upload bad software to bulletin boards daily, and
often times that bad software is not yet in this list. In other
words, if you run a trojan horse that is not listed in here,
please don't call my board to complain; rather, leave me a message
so that I can place the destructive program in the next issue. If
you are unsure whether a file is trojan, and it's not listed in
here, then I recommend using a utility like BOMBSQAD.COM to
prevent any mishaps. Bombsqad, available on my board, catches
most trojan horses before they can damage your equipment.
There are five major categories of bad software: commercial
pirate jobs, unauthorized copies of otherwise legitimate freeware
programs, malicious "TROJAN" programs which damage your system,
"VIRII," which damage your and your friends' systems, and
miscellaneous illegal software. Please look in the definitions
section of this document for a more detailed explanation of these
terms.
SysOps: Please be careful with the files you post in your
download libraries! A professional quality program should arouse
your suspicions, especially if it doesn't include the author's
name, address, and distribution policy. Such programs are
probably NOT public domain! The BBS community is already under
legislative threat at the State and Federal level. We cannot
fight this trend effectively while our directories sit stocked
with cracked games, virii, and malicious "trojan horses!" Let's
demonstrate a little social responsibility by cleaning up our
download libraries. If you as a SysOp have any of these files on
your system, please delete them and post "blocking" dummy file
entries like this one:
ZAXXON.COM DELETED!! NOT PUBLIC DOMAIN!!
By working together to fight this new brand of software,
perhaps we can eliminate BBS pirates, trojan horse writers,
and legislation aimed at regulating BBS's.
The "Dirty Dozen" aims to bring this important issue to the
attention of more SysOps and users - to act as an information
"clearing-house" for the latest known examples of "bogusware."
Using information gleaned from the Dirty Dozen, an educated public
can fight effectively for safe downloadable files.
The Dirty Dozen needs your help to succeed! Please call in any
updates of bad software that you know of, but DO NOT modify this
article yourself. If everyone who discovers a pirated program
starts modifying the DD, there would be hundreds of issues in
circulation. If you have an update, please see the end of this
article for information on how to reach me with new information.
In addition, I would like to publicly apologize to Mr. Gerhard
Barth. In previous issues, I criticized him for distributing a
modified version of the dirty dozen. Thanks to a few messages
from Karl Brendel, I now know that Gerhard runs a fine well
maintained bulletin board that maintains copies of the true dirty
dozen. Gerhard, I'm sorry for any hassles I may have caused you.
One can be sure of only one thing about hard disks, and that is
that they will crash. Often times a user will blame a program for
a hard disk failure when in fact his problem lies in his/her
hardware. Remember, a Trojan rumor is much easier to START than
it is to STOP. Some people have accused legitimate *joke*
programs, such as DRAIN.COM (which pretends to be gurgling excess
water out of your A drive) of erasing their hard drive. If a
program locks up your system, it isn't necessarily Trojan; it
might not like co-residing with your graphics card or some TSR's.
Ask other users about the program in question before you dennounce
it as Trojan. Run the program again (on your empty drive) to
confirm its malicious intent. In short, make 100% sure that the
program is trojan before ruining the author's reputation. Also, I
would appreciate a bagged specimen of any real Trojan program that
you might have the (un)luck to find.
A user of mine has notified me that some pirates have patched
HARDHAT.COM and PANGO.COM to read "cracked by Eric Newhouse."
This is ridiculous! Please disregard any programs that you may
come across in the future advertising "copy protection busted by
Eric Newhouse." Pirates are simply trying to discourage me
from publishing this list.
Recently someone asked me why pirates don't rename commercial
files inorder to fool SysOps. They do! For example, AUTODEX
circulates under many different names. Although I will try to
keep all of these names current in the DD, the best way to check
for piracy in a file is to run that file yourself. Check for
(C)opyright notices of commercial manufactures, similarities in
the cosmetics and operations of commercial programs, and of course
whether the name or filesize is in this list.
Finally I want to thank all BBS SysOps and users that sent
updates, additions, and/or corrections to DIRTYDOZ.007. It's
great to see so much support! In this issue more people than ever
called in with updates. Everyone else who reads this list, along
with myself, really appreciates the effort!
DEFINITIONS:
*VIRUS* (V) BEWARE!! Especially prevalent in universities
and corporal computers, computer virii can wreak
havoc. They, like biological virii, attack
slowly, originating on one computer and
proliferating with time. Virii infect a
portion of a computer, usually the operating
system. Most virii modify floppy disks
(that may or may not be transported to other
computers), adding diabolical code that
instruct other computers to replicate the virii
for still more computers. In other words, the
floppies become virii themselves; they can be
passed around to other people to create more
virii.
Virii can be programmed to sit dormant for
months before acting, just like some biological
virii (AIDS comes to mind). Users can
unwittingly replicate a virus many times. If
people know how to spot virii, however, they
can usually prevent damage.
Virii generally add their code to COMMAND.COM,
IBMBIO.COM, or IBMSYS.COM. These three files,
which DOS places on every system disk, are the
only files copied to other disks and run on
other machines often enough to do any damage.
If you see the filesizes on these files change,
beware a virus!
Your computer provides a small line of defense
against Virii already! IBMBIO.COM and
IBMSYS.COM are READ-ONLY files; that is, only a
very sophisticated virus can add code to them.
COMMAND.COM, however, is NOT read only.
Therefore, I advise that EVERYONE make their
COMMAND.COM read-only using a utility program
such as FILEATTR.COM (available on my board in
ARC format), or PC-Tools. This will give
COMMAND.COM some basic protection, and since
few people ever write to their command
processor, this process should not cause any
undue hassles. Keep in mind, though, that if
you ever want to upgrade your version of DOS
you will have to change COMMAND.COM back to a
regular (not read-only) file.
For further information on Virii, everyone may
download VIRUS.ARC from my board.
*TROJAN* (T) These programs PURPOSEFULLY damage a user's
system upon their invokation. They almost
always will shoot to disable hard disks,
although they can destroy other equipment too.
It is IMPERATIVE that you let me know about any
new examples of these that you find.
There are more than one way a TROJAN can
disable your hard disk. For a comprehensive
list of examples, please skip to "What to do if
you run a trojan horse" later in this document.
HACKED (H) An unlawfully modified copy of an otherwise
legitimate public domain or user-supported
program. It is illegal to distribute a
modified copy of someone else's work without
their permission! All modified programs must
contain this permission, either in the
program's display or documentation.
*CAUTION* (C) Programs labeled in this manner may or may not
be trojans; the question is unresolved. Use
caution when running these programs!
PIRATED (P) This is an illegal copy of a commercial,
copyrighted program. Examples: a cracked
(de-protected) game, a compiler, editor or
other utility, or a Beta test copy of a program
under development. In the latter case, the
program in question may never make it to market
due to the piracy! In the case of games,
there's a tendency for the pirate to patch a
clumsy "PUBLIC DOMAIN" notice over top of the
original copyright. ZAXXON.COM is a prime
example.
MISC (M) This is miscellaneous illegal software and/or
text. The best definition, aside from that,
that I can think of is that it's NOT pirated
software.
NOTE: If I do not supply a file extension, that means that the
file circulates under many different extensions. For instance,
users commonly upload with extensions of either: .EXE, .COM,
.EQE, .CQM, .LBR, .LQR, and .ARC.
------------------------------------------------------------------
| VIRII |
------------------------------------------------------------------
Name Size Category Notes
------------- ------ - -----------------------------------------
CHRISTMAS.EXEC ??? V This is the famous Bitnet virus. Around
Christmas time, this program sent mail to
every bitnet user with a defined "nickname"
(Bitnet users use short nicknames to
avoid typing long user ID's) with a
picture of a christmas tree. The mail
eventually reached so many people that it
overloaded the system, creating a lot of
yuletide headaches.
PC Users do not need to worry about the
Bitnet virus. The program is written in
REXX, a mainframe only language, and it
can only run on mainframes that use
Bitnet's nickname technique. This entry,
in fact, is here primarily to help clear
up the confusion prevalent when talking
about this virus.
*.EXE, *.COM ANY V Any of your executable files may
contain a virus in it. Don't Panic,
though; this virus is detectable! If you
have an infected file, it will increase
the size of all other .EXE files run
thereafter by 1808 bytes and all .COM
files by 1813 bytes upon invocation.
Now you know how to recognize this
virus. Be sure to look out for it,
because the symptoms it creates are very
nasty. The virus increases the size
of .EXE files repeatedly - not just once.
While this is a boon in recognizing the
virus, it also means that eventually all
affected .EXE files will become to large
to fit in memory. The virus also slows
down computers by as much as 500% after
it has spread. Watch for this symptom!
Perhaps most deadly, on any Friday the
13th, this virus will erase AT LEAST all
.EXE and .COM files that you run, and AT
WORST your whole disk. The next Friday
the 13th is May 13, 1988.
COMMAND.COM ????? V This is a traditional Virus. Originating
in colleges and universities accross the
nation, this virus will embed itself in
COMMAND.COM. Once there it will copy
itself onto FOUR floppies before
scrambling your FAT and initiating a
format. Beware! In one known instance,
the virus does NOT change the filesize
of COMMAND.COM, but it does change
the date.
QMDM31B.ARC ?????? V The latest official release of Qmodem,
as of this writing, is 3.1a. This
version, which is less than 1 KB bigger
than the Archive for 3.1a, will add 17
bytes to your IBMBIO.COM file. Beware;
while I don't know how this virus works,
I do know that there's NEVER any reason
to add 17 bytes to IBMBIO.COM.
Note: IBMBIO.COM is a READONLY file.
In other words, here is the first trojan
that can write past a "write protect;"
this virus acts when it theoretically
shouldn't be able to.
------------------------------------------------------------------
| TROJAN HORSE PROGRAMS: |
------------------------------------------------------------------
Name Size Category Notes
------------- ------ - -----------------------------------------
123JOKE T This so-called utility for Lotus 123
rewrites [hard] disk directories.
ANTI-PCB T The story behind this trojan horse is
sickening. Apparently one RBBS-PC sysop
and one PC-BOARD sysop started feuding
about which BBS system is better, and in
the end the PC-BOARD sysop wrote a trojan
and uploaded it to the rbbs SysOp under
ANTI-PCB.COM. Of course the RBBS-PC
SysOp ran it, and that led to quite a few
accusations and a big mess in general.
Let's grow up! Every SysOp has the right
to run the type of BBS that they please,
and the fact that a SysOp actually wrote
a trojan intended for another simply
blows my mind.
ALTCTRL.ARC T This program reputedly trashes boot
records. Other than that, I know nothing
about it.
ARC513.EXE T This hacked version of SEA's ARC.EXE
appears normal. However, it writes
over track 0 of your [hard] disk upon
usage, destroying the disk's boot sector.
ARC514.COM T This is completely similar to arc
version 5.13 in that it will overwrite
track 0 (boot sector) of your hard disk.
Also, I have yet to see an .EXE version
of this program..
BACKALLY.COM 64512 T This sophisticated trojan will axe your
FAT table after a couple of months of
usage. Beware the delayed trojan!
Backally MAY only work on floppy disks,
but that sounds unlikely. Debug has
shown that BACKALLY formats a track at
one point as well as reading in the
amount of freespace on your disk. It may
only wipe out full disks, like NOTROJ.
Please, be wary! An included .BAT file
comes with a request for donations to
"SomeWare" located in Frederickburg, VA.
Look out for other products from
SomeWare!
BACKTALK T This once beneficial utility will
write/destroy sectors on your [hard] disk
drive. Use this with caution if you
acquire it, because it's more than likely
that you got a bad copy.
BXD.ARC 20480 T This disk killer warns users that "your
disk will be trashed in 5 seconds" on
sector 17 on the included BXD.COM file.
Watch out for this FAT killer!
CDIR.COM T This program supposedly gives you a
color directory of files on disk, but it
in fact scrambles your disks FAT
table.
CHUNKER.EXE TC A part of QEDIT v. 2.02, this program
writes five apparently harmless files to
disk. Chunker, which is supposed to
split large text files into more
manageable, smaller ones, may also
scramble FAT's.
COMPRESS.ARC T This trojan, dated April 1, 1987,
destroys FAT tables. COMPRESS is
executed from a file named RUN-ME.BAT and
is advertised as a 'Shareware 'ARC' from
Borland!'
DANCERS.BAS T This trojan shows some animated dancers
in color, and then proceeds to wipe out
your [hard] disk's FAT table. There is
another perfectly good copy of
DANCERS.BAS on BBS's around the country;
apparently the author altered a
legitimate program to do his dirty work.
DEFENDER.ARC T This trojan both writes to ROM bios and
formats [hard] disks. The Duplicators
claim credit for this trojan; be ware of
other products by them. Also, do not
confuse this trojan with DEFENDER by
Atari. The latter is a pirated program.
DISCACHE.EXE TC This program uses direct BIOS routines
to write to disk. Apparently, those BIOS
routines will scramble your FAT table.
Please see DISCACHE.WNG, a file that I'm
looking for myself, for more information.
There is at least one legitimate
DISCACHE.EXE file circulating, so
not all DISCACHE programs are trojan.
DISKSCAN.EXE T This was a PC Magazine program to scan a
[hard] disk for bad sectors, but then a
joker edited it to WRITE bad sectors.
Also look for this under other names such
as SCANBAD.EXE and BADDISK.EXE...
DMASTER T This is yet another FAT scrambler..
DOSKNOWS.EXE 6144 TC I'm still tracking this one down --
apparently someone wrote a FAT killer and
renamed it DOSKNOWS.EXE, so it would be
confused with the real, harmless DOSKNOWS
system-status utility. I'm pretty sure
that sure is that the REAL DOSKNOWS.EXE
is 5376 bytes long. If you see something
called DOSKNOWS that isn't close to that
size, sound the alarm. More info on this
one is welcomed -- a bagged specimen
especially. The malicious DOSKNOWS
contains the string: "Ouch! Dos refused
to tell me! Sob, sob, sob." Be careful;
there may be a legitimate 6144 byte
DOSKNOWS floating around too.
DPROTECT T Apparently someone tampered with the
original, legitimate version of DPROTECT
and turned it into a FAT table eater.
DROID.EXE 54272 T This trojan appears under the guise of a
game. You are supposably an architech
that controls futuristic droids in search
of relics. In fact, the program copies
C:\PCBOARD\PCBOARD.DAT to
C:\PCBOARD\HELP\HLPX if PC-Board SysOps
run it from C:\PCBOARD
EGABTR T BEWARE! Description says something like
"improve your EGA display," but when run
it deletes everything in sight and prints
"Arf! Arf! Got you!"
ELEVATOR.ARC T This poorly written trojan suggests in
the documentation that you run it on a
floppy. If you do not run it on a
floppy, Elevator chastises you for not
reading the documentation. Regardless of
what disk you run it on, Elevator will
erase your files. It MAY format disks
too; be careful. One more interesting
point to note: my name is plastered all
over this program; the writers attempt to
lay the blame for this trojan on me.
EMMCACHE ???? T This program is not exactly a trojan,
V. 1.0 but it may havethe capability of
destroying hard disks by:
A) Scrambling every file modified after
running the program,
B) Destroying boot sectors.
This program has damaged at least two
hard disks, yet there is a base of
happily registered users. Therefore, I
advise extreme caution if you decide to
use this program.
FILER.EXE T One SysOp complained a while ago that
this program wiped out his 20 Megabyte
HD. I'm not so sure that he was correct
and/or telling the truth any more. I
have personally tested an excellent file
manager also named FILER.EXE, and it
worked perfectly. Also, many other
SysOp's have written to tell me that they
have like me used a FILER.EXE with no
problems. If you get a program named
FILER.EXE, it is probably allright, but
better to test it first using some
security measures.
FINANCE4.ARC ?????? TC This program is not a verified trojan,
but there is a file going around BBS's
warning that it may be trojan. In any
case, execute extreme care with it.
FUTURE.BAS T This "program" starts out with a very
nice color picture (of what I don't know)
and then proceeds to tell you that you
should be using your computer for better
things than games and graphics. After
making that point it trashes your all of
your disk drives, starting with disk A:.
Not only does Future scramble FATs, but
it also erases files. As far as I know,
however, it erases only one sub-directory
tree level deep, thus hard disk users
should only be seriously affected if they
are in the "root" directory. More
information about this is especially
welcome.
MAP T This is another trojan horse written by
the infamous Dorn W. Stickle. I believe
that there are legitimate MAP.EXEs
floating around.
NOTROJ.COM T This "program" is the most sophisticated
trojan horse that I've seen to date. All
outward appearances indicate that the
program is a useful utility used to FIGHT
other trojan horses. Actually, it is a
time bomb that erases any hard disk FAT
table that IT can find, and at the same
time it warns: "another program is
attempting a format, can't abort!" After
erasing the FAT(s), NOTROJ then proceeds
to start a low level format. One extra
thing to note: NOTROJ only damages FULL
hard drives; if a hard disk is under 50%
filled, this program won't touch it! If
you are interested in reading a thorough
report on NOTROJ.COM, James H. Coombes
has written an excellent text file on the
matter named NOTROJ.TXT. If you have
trouble finding it, you can get it from
my board.
TIRED T Another scramble the FAT trojan by Dorn
W. Stickle.
TSRMAP T This program does what it's supposed to
do: give a map outlining the location (in
RAM) of all TSR programs, but it also
erases the boot sector of drive "C:".
PACKDIR T This utility is supposed to "pack" (sort
and optimize) the files on a [hard] disk,
but apparently it scrambles FAT tables.
PCLOCK TC This program reputedly destroys FAT
tables! Be careful! Also, please bear
in mind that there are more than one
PCLOCK programs in circulation, so please
don't confuse the trojan program with a
legitimate one. Simply excercise EXTREME
caution when running a NEW PCLOCK
program.
PCW271xx.ARC T A modified version of the popular
PC-WRITE word processor (v. 2.71) has now
scrambled at least 10 FAT tables that I
know of. If you want to download
version 2.71 of PC-WRITE be very careful!
The bogus version can be identified by
its size; it uses 98,274 bytes wheras the
good version uses 98,644. For reference,
version 2.7 of PC-WRITE occupies 98,242
bytes.
PKX35B35.EXE T As of this writing, Phil Katz (author of
PKXARC) has verified that version 35A35
is the latest version of his ARChive
extractor. This phony PKXARC scrambles
FAT tables.
QUIKRBBS.COM T This Trojan horse claims that it can
load RBBS-PC's message file into memory
200% faster than normal. What it really
does is copy RBBS-PC.DEF into an ASCII
file named HISCORES.DAT...
QUIKREF T Little is known about this trojan, other
than it scrambles FATS
RCKVIDEO T This is another trojan that does what
it's supposed to do, then wipes out hard
disks. After showing some simple
animation of a rock star ("Madonna," I
think), the program erases every file it
can lay it's hands on. After about a
minute of this, it will create 3 ascii
files that say "You are stupid to
download a video about rock stars," or
something of the like.
SCRNSAVE.COM TC I know nothing about this program, but a
user of mine reports that it erases HD's.
SECRET.BAS T BEWARE!! This may be posted with a note
saying it doesn't seem to work, and would
someone please try it. If you do try it,
however, it will format your disks.
SEX-SNOW.ARC T This trojan deletes all of the files
in your directory and creates a gloating
message using those filenames. Ugly.
SIDEWAYS.COM T Be careful with this trojan; there is a
perfectly legitimate version of
SIDEWAYS.EXE circulating. Both the trojan
and the good SIDEWAYS advertise that they
can print sideways, but SIDEWAYS.COM will
trash a [hard] disk's boot sector
instead. The trojan .COM file is about 3
KB, whereas the legitimate .EXE file is
about 30 KB large.
STAR.EXE T Beware RBBS-PC SysOps! This file puts
some stars on the screen while copying
RBBS-PC.DEF to another name that can be
downloaded later!
STRIPES.EXE T Similar to STAR.EXE, this one draws an
American flag (nice touch), while it's
busy copying your RBBS-PC.DEF to another
file (STRIPES.BQS) so Bozo can log in
later, download STRIPES.BQS, and steal
all your passwords. Nice, huh!
SUG.ARC T Words can not express my feelings about
this trojan. SUG.ARC advertises that it
can break SOFTGUARD copy protection, but
upon invocation, it will scramble the
FAT's on drive A, B, C, and onwards to
your higest drive. While this is
certainly a nasty trojan, it is
particularly repulsive because Softguard
Corp, the creators of Softguard
copy-protection, wrote it - perhaps in
response to declining business. They
claim that anyone who runs SUG is
breaking an original license agreement;
therefore they may legally destroy data.
I don't credit this, and neither does an
attorney I know, so I eagerly anticipate
Softguard's day in court.
TOPDOS T This is a simple high level [hard] disk
formatter. Do not confuse this with the
pirated TOPDOS.COM.
VDIR.COM T This is a disk killer that Jerry
Pournelle wrote about in BYTE Magazine.
I have never seen it, but two users of
mine have.
VISIWORD.ARC TC A user of mine called this trojan in
complaining that it destroyed his hard
disk. Other than that, I know nothing
about this program.
WARDIAL1.ARC TC This Wardialer may scramble FAT tables
------------------------------------------------------------------
| HACKED PROGRAMS: |
------------------------------------------------------------------
| |
| '*' = not verified by program's author |
| |
------------------------------------------------------------------
ARC.COM H Someone keeps running SPACEMAKER or a
similar EXE squeezer on SEA, Inc.'s ARC
archive program, then uploading the
resulting COM file to BBS's without the
author's permission. SEA will NOT
support the COM version, for they
definately do not allow modifying ARC.EXE
in their license agreement.
AUTOMAXX.ARC C This DOS menu-making program comes with
documentation that Marshall Magee, author
of the popular AUTOMENU program, contends
is plagiarized. Marshall believes that
the AUTOMAXX documentation uses exact
phrases from his documentation, and if
this is the case, AUTOMAXX is clearly
illegal. However, as I understand it,
the courts are currently deliberating on
the case, so AUTOMAXX is not currently
illegal. of today. For more information,
please contact Marshall Magee at (404)
446-6611.
DOG101A.COM * C This may be hacked; keep an eye out
for it as well as DOG102A.COM.
DOG102A.COM * H Apparently this is a renamed early
version of DP102A.ARC, a disk optimizer.
One person has reports that it trashes
hard disks that use DOS 3.1 (2KB
clusters).
LIST60 H Vern Buerg's LIST 5.1, patched to read
6.0. Mr. Buerg has released a legitimate
version 6.0 of LIST. Every legit.
version will have a letter in the
filename (e.g. LIST60H.ARC)
LIST799 H Vern Buerg's LIST 5.1, patched to read
7.99.
QMDM110.ARC H This is version 1.09 of Qmodem patched
to read 1.10. There have been rumors of
a worm in 1.10, but I have seen no
evidence of it. Other versions are OK.
------------------------------------------------------------------
| PIRATED PROGRAMS: |
| |
| |
| TYPES: |
| Game (G) -- Recreational Software, usually high Quality |
| Util (U) -- a disk, screen, or general utility |
| Misc (M) -- Miscellaneous (not a game or utility) |
------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: While close to 98%-99% of BBS's that I've seen do NOT
distribute pirated files, the small minority that do slander the
reputations of honest SysOp's nationwide. Unfortunately, 1%-2% of
thousands of BBS's is a sizable number. Over the last couple of
years this 1%-2% has distributed so many files that even the most
conscientious SysOp can hardly hope to recognize all commercial
software.
You may ask: "How can we fight piracy, then?"
SysOp's and users alike must search ALL programs for signals
that can reveal a program as commercial. Look for Copyright
signs. Suspect good games with sparse if any documentation. If
you notice that a program is pirated, calmly inform your local
SysOp's of the menace. In order to beat piracy, we must
communicate!
Name Size Category Notes
------------- ------ -- -----------------------------------------
1DIR.COM PU "The ONE Dir": DOS shell.
21C.EXE PG Blackjack, copyright by IBM
3DCHESS PG Psion's 3D Chess program
400KDISK.ARC 8192 PU Qdrive by Tall Tree Systems: allows
floppy disks to be formatted to 400 KB.
ACUPAINT.ARC 148221 PM PC Paint
AFOX.ARC PG Artic Fox by Electronic Arts
ALLEYCAT.COM PU "Alley Cat" - CGA
ALTEREGO.ARC 45???? PG Alter Ego game from Activision
ARCHON.COM PG Electronic Art's Archon.
ARTOFWAR PG Ancient Art of War by Broderbund
AUTODEX PU AUTODEX, file manager
AXX.EXE PU Also AUTODEX
B1-BOMB PG Avalon Hill's B1 Bomber
BATTLE PG Battle Zone
BBCHESS PG Blues Box Chess
BC-QUEST PG Bc's Quest for Tires
BIGMAC.ARC PU Borland's Superkey
BORDERZO.ARC 205824 PG Infocom's Borderzone
BORROWED.ARC PG Borrowed Time
BRUCELEE PG Bruce Lee
BUCK PG Buck Rogers on Planet Zoom
BURGER PG Burgertime
BUSHIDO PG Karate Game by a manufacturer in Canada.
BUZZBAIT PG Buzzard Bait
CALL2ARM PG Call to Arms
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