ZDEE699@ELM.CC.KCL.AC.UK (11/27/89)
I have just read "The complete Computer Virus Handbook" (issue 1) written by David Frost. In it, is described a virus called 2600 VAX virus. Basically a programm which replicates itself and sends job requests to the batch queue, which is a list of jobs awaiting execution. The so-called "virus" caused the queue to overflow... This was reported in a 1986 edition of the magazine 2600, a hacker journal. Well, to me it looks just like a recursive batch program. A two-liner. We've often had students at our site writing this simple piece of code, and submitting it to the queue. It surely wastes a lot of paper (when printing the log files of the program), especially if run at night, with no operator finding-out that the whole stack of paper feeding the printer will be printed with garbage ! But does this simple piece of code really need to be mentioned in a "Virus handbook" ? Did the next issues of this manual still mention this ? Olivier Crepin-Leblond, Computer Systems & Electronics, Electrical & Electronic Eng., King's College London, UK.