On Wed, 21 Feb 2001 16:15:30 -0700, Bob George wrote:
>> Well, sure, but how does it get into the system in the first place?
>> With windoz, you can have sabotage software inserted by email. I dont
>> think you can do that with Arachne, or any of the other DOS tools.
> As has been pointed out elsewhere, Windows is not required for boot-sector
> viri to spread, nor is DOS immune.
Agreed. but that still begs the question of how it gets into the system
in the first place. It's been a while since I used a floppy to transfer
anything to or from my system to another. Routinely now, we all use the
net to do this. Routinely as well, it is duck soup for you have a
scanner look at your downloaded and unzipped files. routinely, they
come with anti-virus checksums built in by the author.
The way all the viruses I hear about these days spread... is via email.
I dont see how anyone can infect my system with something that was
designed for Internet Explorer email clients.
FDISK, and IIRC GDISK both not only rewrite an MBR, but store a copy of
the old MBR, so if the data is inaccessable, you can restore the sytem
to the infected state.
Even if stoned monkey will only write to infected drives, will it forbid
using the com port? I dont think so. DR-DOS FILELINK.EXE or similar
could port the user data files out the RS 232 to another system, with no
need whatever to export an executable, which is what the virus needs in
order to spread.
A data or graphic file that is corrupted with a virus may not be usable,
but since it is not _executed_, it cannot corrupt another system. That
is, until windoz and JAVA came out. JAVA works by _running_ on your
system as an executable. No JAVA, no problem.
> I would LOVE to see a reference for that. Everything I've ever heard is
> consistent with references such as
> http://www.vmyths.com/fas/fas_inc/inc1.cfm: "Michelangelo remained an
> obscure threat until January of 1992, when a major U.S. computer
> manufacturer announced it accidentally shipped 500 PCs carrying the virus.
> [...] A few days later, another major company admitted it accidentally
> distributed 900 floppy disks infected with Michelangelo. [... from a
> Symantec statement] The most well-known computer virus in the world is
> officially a non-threat. Worldwide, the Symantec AntiVirus Research Center
> received only two confirmed reports of damage caused by the Michelangelo
> virus this March 6th."
> NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with Windows, angry programmers striking back at
> the Evil Empire or anything even remotely like that.
I did not claim that it had anything to do with windoz. IIRC, it was
even earlier, back in the mid 80's, and I dont recall anything in the
network or press media. My info came from hackers on FIDO, WWIV, and
the other BBS networks which we all ran with DOS termcoms. Part of
our discussions had to do with the obvious absence of pertinent data
on the general public media.
I did suggest that the _REASON_ it happened had to do with corporate
hubris and greed, which I think we all agree, does have to do with
Microsoft Corporation. The recent departure of programmers from
Microsoft in significantly larger numbers suggests that inside info
went with some of them, and that some of them would be perfectly happy
to sell some of that info to any of the numerous enemies which Microsoft
has created, either legally, or otherwise by their business practices.
That is what the virus problem has to do with windoz.
uncopywritten. do what you will with it.
-- Arachne V1.70;rev.3, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/
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