p1@arkham.wimsey.bc.ca (Rob Slade) (02/05/91)
The following messages are crossposted from the SUZY network, in the
Religion/INspiration section. The original infection was at a Bible
school in Three Hills, Alberta, which managed to get the "Stoned" virus
onto a network of computers in teh Library. The response of the school
was to ship all the computers to Calgary to be reformatted. All data
entered on the system to that point had to be re-entered manually ...
> GrapeVine > Computers in Ministry > Slade, Greg ======
Subject: Nobody is safe
The January 8th issue of ChristianWeek carries a news item from
Wesern Report that Prairie Bible Institute in Three Hills,
Alberta, was hit by the "Stoned" virus this winter. I find this
story doubly frustrating: not only is it added evidence that
churches and other Christian organizations need to pay more
attention to issues of computer security (see INtegrity for the
tools you need), it is a glaring example of the failure of
Christians to communicate with one another. I have been trying
for 3 years now to give Christian computer users they need to do
their tasks effectively through various channels (Christian Info,
CAMsoc, Church Bytes, CITC_NET, and Suzy), including warnings
about computer viri, yet despite my best efforts, an institution
which I visited *last Spring* gets hit by a virus, and spends way
too much time and money dealing with it. When are we
Christians going to learn to network?
Date: 28 Jan 91 20:55
From: Lyle Smith on 7501/0 Unlisted node
To: Greg Slade on 7501/132 Unlisted node
Hi Greg:
I regret to inform you that I will be pulling the plug on
Prairie BBS as of Jan.31/91. I hope its not too late to cancel my
listing in the article you were preparing. One of the key reasons for
going down is lack of usership. Although Three Hills is a small town by
city standards it probably has as high a computer user ratio per capita
as anywhere due to the college. A significant number of those do not
have modems but a good number do have modems. However not enough were
interested in the messaging capabilities of the computer medium. On an
average week I saw maybe 4 or 5 users. A busy week might bring 8 or 10.
Yes, that's per week!!! No messages were ever sent out (other than my
own) and the main interest among those who did use the BBS clearly was
downloading files. When my video card fried itself recently, which I
believe was due to the wear and tear of continuous running (heat
mainly), I decided it wasn't worth the expense.
I noted with some chuckles your note in the missions echo re:
the stone virus at Prairie. I have modemed for 5 years and never caught
a virus until I gave a disk to the computer department to format and on
which to store some student scan tron scores. They passed the virus
along to me on that disk but I didn't use it right away and so when I
heard there was a possible virus I ran McAfee's SCAN checker on the disk
and it picked it up instantly and told me exactly what variety virus it
was. When I suggested, after the incident, that they need a security
system and in addition to virus checkers they should limit user access
to some terminals I was told by one individual: "We can't stop trusting
people." To their credit they now have purchased some virus checking
programmes but I am not so sure they have implemented any further
precautions re: users to their terminals. All of this is part and parcel
of the frustration I have struggled with of getting people interested in
the computer/modem communication medium. If people took the time to
avail themselves of what is so easily available to us we likely would
not, as you pointed out, have borne the expense of this incident. The
sad part, from my perspective, is that I cannot say for sure that the
lesson has yet been learned.
=================
Vancouver p1@arkham.wimsey.bc.ca _n_
Insitute for Robert_Slade@mtsg.sfu.ca H
Research into (SUZY) INtegrity /
User Canada V7K 2G6 O=C\
Security Radical Dude | O- /\_
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/ | ` ||/
"A ship in a harbour is safe, but that / ||`----'||
is not what ships are built for." || ||
- John Parks `` ``