Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!spies!citasim!agray
From: agray@citasim.UUCP (andrew gray)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: .COM and .EXE files
Message-ID: <00092@citasim.UUCP>
Date: 13 Oct 89 03:42:29 GMT
Organization: Spies in the wire, PUBLIC ACCESS UNIX
Lines: 17


 
 I was just thinking about trojans and such that infect the COMMAND.COM
file, and I got a weird idea:
  I renamed COMMAND.COM to FIZZGIGG.FOO and placed a 'shelll=c:\fizzgigg.foo
/p' statement in my CONFIG.SYS file.
 
  My system booted exactly like normal.
 
 This got me to wondering about COM and EXE files, and whether there
would be any way to fool MS-DOS (or command.com) into using other extenders
for executable files, and ignoring COM and EXE altogether.  
 Seems to me that this would add a small modicum of protection against
trojans or other programs that corrupt executable files.
 
 Has this been done?  Is it possible?
 

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"...in the spirit of hobbyist computing"        ...apple!spies!citasim!%s

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