eldar@lomi.spb.su (Eldar A. Musaev) (03/21/91)
Approx. a week ago I was invited to a computer to find a virus. Accidental symbols were appearing on the screen every minute or two ones. The original reason was NOT connected with any virus and lay in the incompatability between time characteristics of video RAM and processor plus(?) magnetic anomalies in the athmosphere. I am very often disturbed by users who takes hardware failures for a virus. And some time a hardware problems managed someone to note the presense of a virus. I think the similar situation was in the case noted by Adam M. Gaffin last month. What could we do to help users to distinct viruses and failures ? Except scanners, of course. Eldar A. Musaev lomi.spb.su!eldar@fuug.fi researcher, Ph.D., Mathem.Inst., Acad. of Sci., Leningrad
p1@arkham.wimsey.bc.ca (Rob Slade) (03/29/91)
eldar@lomi.spb.su (Eldar A. Musaev) writes: > often disturbed by users who takes hardware failures for a virus. And > some time a hardware problems managed someone to note the presense of > a virus. I think the similar situation was in the case noted by Adam > M. Gaffin last month. What could we do to help users to distinct > viruses and failures ? Except scanners, of course. I think Padgett's plan has considerable merit, but I suggest that we are going to see a lot of this type of confusion for a long time to come. Computer users, even very skilled and experienced computer users, have very little understanding of what a computer viral type program is, and what it is not. I still find that I have to begin all presentations, whether to clerical staff or computer support experts, with a definition of a virus, and a number of instances of "things" that are not viri. The AIDS "trojan" extortion program was described in a major write-up in a major journal as a virus. McAfee's book speak's of the existence of various viri that damage hardware, even though we have yet to received an authentic account of one doing so. I cringe at some of the advice given out on local bulletin boards by some of the self-styled "experts". Viral programs are now at least acknowledged by the general population, and the media is probably over the worst of the "errors" that have been published. But there is still a looonng way to got in educating the general computer using populace. ============= Vancouver p1@arkham.wimsey.bc.ca | You realize, of Institute for Robert_Slade@mtsg.sfu.ca | course, that these Research into (SUZY) INtegrity | new facts do not User Canada V7K 2G6 | coincide with my Security | preconceived ideas