wesc@microsoft.UUCP (Wes CHERRY) (11/08/90)
In article <2286@sparko.gwu.edu> you write: >In article <90303.144132LK-AP@finou.oulu.fi> LK-AP@finou.oulu.fi writes: >>Hello netreaders > >[stuff deleted] > >> I read (from NetNews) that there might be (troyan) virus in Curse. >> (I am not sure about the name, but it is mousecursor changer.) >> >> The article said that there was some suspicious stuff in prg code, >> connected with HD partition tables. >> >> Curse will be real curse if it will mix your HD partition table. >> >> I hope i am not right. Have a nice day and sleep well, > >I don't think you are. I've been using the Curses program from cica >for about a month and have had *no* problems with it. My hard disk is >still intact and I do sleep well (well, not after thinking about this >virus thing). > >I ask the author of the original author to please find out which >program was being talked about. As the author of Curse, I can assert that it CONTAINS ABSOLUTELY NO VIRUS CODE. Some other virus may have attached itself to curse.exe, but the program itself is clean. The only version of curse.exe that has been released has a file size of 15232 bytes. If your curse.exe has a different file size, DELETE IT NOW, it's not the same bucket o' bits I compiled. Perhaps the orginal article was in error when it said that it "Locks HD partitition table entries..." -- Curse.exe locks down the global mem- ory objects for the arrow and wait cursor, but does not write to the disk except for modifying win.ini. > >As to Curses modifying WIN.INI: if you think about it, how else would >a program "install" itself to run when Windows starts up? Just think >about it. Sure maybe it should have explicitly said so but come on... Curse is pretty stupid about wiping out the load= line in win.ini -- the release out there is an early version. I have since lost the source code and don't care enough to rewrite it... Curse only writes to the win.ini file if you select "Install" from the FILE menu. You can obviously add curse to your load = line in win.ini yourself... > >Iqbal Sorry to shut down the rumor mill... -Wes