TMPLee@DOCKMASTER.ARPA (07/22/89)
The Apple II GS OS is about to incorporate resource forks, something I understand has been in the MAC OS forever. I also note from all the traffic that almost all the MAC viruses seem to have something to do with resource forks. (sounds to me like the virus writers aren't very inventive; any bad guy worth his salt would bypass ALL the vendor's software and play with the bare metal -- but since the IBM crowd ain't much smarter I guess we just don't have the hackers like we used to) Anyway, could someone summarize for me what the MAC resource forks are used for (since I know essentially nothing about MAC-land) and how they are or are not more vulnerable to virus/trojan horse penetration than "conventional" file structures as found in IBM-land or the more earlier Apple II DOS and ProDos-land? TMPLee@dockmaster.ncsc.mil
davewt@NCoast.ORG (David Wright) (07/28/89)
Maybe it's not that there aren't any good programmers any more, maybe it's that theu moved off IBM and Apple Machines. Take Cap'n Crunch... Now a big Amiga hacker... All the Amiga virus programs "get down to the metal", and use direct patches to the CPU vectors to protect themselves. In fact, the Amiga virus showed up long before the Mac and PC viruses (that have been in the news recently), yet got almost no publicity...