USERGSVE@LNCC.BITNET (GEORGE SVETLICHNY) (02/07/90)
In Virus-L v3 issue31, ddb@ns.network.com (David Dyer-Bennet) writes concerning the 4096 and 1260 viruses: >John McAfee writes: >: The strangest part of the virus is that it is also able to >:trap all other disk reads and writes, and whenever an infected file is >:accessed by any program, the virus performs a disinfection of the >:program on the fly. > infected file? > >As a BBS sysop, I find this a particularly amusing feature: it assures >my users that anything downloaded from my BBS is not infected with >this class of virus! The concept of BBS's as *the safest* source of >software (at least in this one regard) is rather amusing. What David forgets to mention is that the BBS is the safest source of virus-free files *as long as the BBS is infected* with these viruses. Will Sysops now start deliberately infecting their boards with these viruses so as to assure the users clean files? Is your BBS infected, Dave? ;-) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- George Svetlichny | Department of Mathematics | Pontificia Universidade Catolica | So it goes..... Rio de Janeiro, Brasil | Kurt Vonnegut Jr. | usergsve@lncc.bitnet Fido 4:4/998 | ----------------------------------------------------------------------
ddb@ns.network.com (David Dyer-Bennet) (02/10/90)
USERGSVE@LNCC.BITNET (GEORGE SVETLICHNY) writes:
:What David forgets to mention is that the BBS is the safest source of
:virus-free files *as long as the BBS is infected* with these viruses.
:Will Sysops now start deliberately infecting their boards with these
:viruses so as to assure the users clean files? Is your BBS infected,
:Dave? ;-)
Not as of last weekend, the last time I ran scanv57. Actually, I've
never *seen* a virus, nor have any other local sysops so far as I'm
aware (it hasn't been mentioned in the fidonet sysops echo, anyway).
Getting serious for half a second, the other problem is that most
software on a bbs is in archived form; if the files are infected
inside the archive wrapper, the virus won't disinfect itself when
reading them even if the bbs *IS* infected. Oh well :-)
- --
David Dyer-Bennet, ddb@terrabit.fidonet.org
or ddb@network.com
or Fidonet 1:282/341.0, (612) 721-8967 9600hst/2400/1200/300
or terrabit!ddb@Lynx.MN.Org, ...{amdahl,hpda}!bungia!viper!terrabit!ddb