"day brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Feb 2001 16:15:30 -0700, Bob George wrote:
> [...]
> > 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.
Whoa! This IS the SurvPC mailing list. Lots of people don't use the 'net for
everything! And boot-sector virusen are dying off largely because of this
very reason. They are NOT being spread via the web in significant numbers
other than in infected binaries which are shipped about (and run by the
unwary).
To blame Windows or the Internet (or multi-tasking etc.) doesn't make sense.
> 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.
On a well-equipped machine, the virus scanner can look at file attachments
as well, making it much more proactive.
> 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.
And I can't catch a Mac virus on my Windows machine. That doesn't mean I'm
somehow immune. IF I reduce my exposure -- regardless of the OS I run -- and
am prudent, I'll probably never have a virus on my system (haven't on mine
since 1986 anyhow). I have had my anti-virus software alert a few times, but
never got infected.
> 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.
Depends on the virus and how evil it is though. The locations of those spare
copies are well known. And if the file system has been screwed with badly
enough, that alone might not be enough. Again, many fixes are available for
most.
> 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.
Or just run the program to remove the virus and quit worrying! :)
> 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.
The dummies that launch file attachments without knowing what they are are
actually launching exectuables -- not graphic images! There is not a virus
in image files in the recent cases (AnnaK etc.).
> JAVA works by _running_ on your
> system as an executable. No JAVA, no problem.
No power, no problem either. Presumably, there's a middle ground somewhere!
Day, I do not understand how you link some of these things. Recently, you've
linked two pre-Windows 95 viruses to Win9x in some way, when both primarily
impacted single-tasking DOS systems. You have also implied that
multi-tasking was somehow related to virus vulnerabilities. And I certainly
can find nothing that even remotely backs your assertions that dis-satisfied
Microsoft employees are sabotaging their products and leaving for the Open
Source commuity en masse.
The only reason this bothers me is that you also imply that DOS and other
OSen are somehow immune to this sort of thing -- or at least that's how I've
interpreted your comments (apologies if that's not what you intended). I
would hate for someone to be lulled into thinking that they are immune to
such problems if they do not run multi-tasking, Java-capable, or Microsoft
software. Someone using either approach might go years with nary a virus
threat. And someone using either approach, along with prudent measures to
protect themselves, might go even longer without ever being infected, even
_while_ using all the bells and whistles their particular OS offers.
Today, e-mail is the most common vector for infection, just as floppies were
before e-mail was widespread. Next year it will be something else. That
doesn't mean something's inherently wrong with floppies or e-mail, just how
people use them.
- Bob
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