Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!bskendig
From: bskendig@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: WDEF Virus and the "Doctors"
Message-ID: <12106@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 10 Dec 89 18:25:20 GMT
References: <1996@accuvax.nwu.edu> <74866@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Reply-To: bskendig@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig)
Organization: Systems Engineering, NASA Space Station Freedom Project
Lines: 42

In article <74866@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Vampire <gaynor@cis.ohio-state.edu> writes:
>	I just wanted to do someting that I haven't seen anyone else do, and
>that is to say "Thank you" to John Norstad, author of Disinfectant, and to
>all the other people involved in the "good fight" against the WDEF virus - and
>all the other viruses that exist in the Macinstosh Community.

Rah!  Rah!  Rah!  Three cheers for them.  Fine job, guys - the
Macintosh world wouldn't be safe without you!

Meanwhile, I have the proverbial egg in my face.  I posted the
original article that doubted the existence of the WDEF virus, and
later was convinced by an overwhelming quantity of E-mail that the
virus was indeed spreading.  I noticed the posts about the string to
add to VirusDetective to check for the new virus, so I made the
necessary addition.  (For those of you who didn't catch it: To make
VirusDetective check for the WDEF virus add the string "Creator=ERIK &
Resource WDEF & Any" to your searches file.)

Well, just to test it, I ran the modified copy of VirusDetective on my
hard drive.  Of course I wouldn't find anything, because I hadn't used
any outside disks in my system, and I always kept my own disks locked
whenever I used them in other systems.  In short, I practice 'safe
hex'...

I'm almost too embarrassed to admit what VirusDetective found.

And I'm also at a loss to figure out *how* it happened.  I
meticulously take all sorts of precautions to see that this sort of
thing won't be possible... it must have happened more than half a
month ago!


Somehow, the WDEF virus got into MY machine!


     << Brian >>

-- 
| Brian S. Kendig      ^ Macintosh |  /\   _||_ | bskendig                   |
| Computer Engineering |\ Thought  | /__\  \  / | @phoenix.Princeton.EDU     |
| Princeton University | \ Police  |  ||    \/  | @PUCC.BITNET               |
| Systems Engineering, NASA Space Station Freedom / General Electric WP3     |