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From: ctycal!ingoldsb@uunet.UU.NET (Terry Ingoldsby)
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: Re: File tranfser of software--A way to curb commercial infections?
Message-ID: <0014.9005301400.AA10793@ubu.cert.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 28 May 90 18:22:34 GMT
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gary@sci34hub.sci.com (Gary Heston) writes:
> okay@tafs.mitre.org (Okay, S J) writes:
>
> > [ ... ]  So why even
> > bother with removable media? Why not do like a lot of people in the
> > UNIX community do and get it via network distribution.
>
> Networks can be infected, too, which would be regarded as a major
> security risk by most admins. The current children playing with
> forgeries in news.admin shows this, as well as the difficulty of
> tracking down persons causing problems.

I've always felt that networks are less likely to transmit viruses
than floppy disks because it is more likely that the culprit will be
caught.  I grant that games can be played with the signatures, etc.,
but chances are that some sort of log files are kept by the system
administrators about what came in, and when.  Although difficult, in a
crisis there is at least some hope that the dissemination path used by
the virus can be discovered.  Although not foolproof, this should act
as somewhat of a deterrent to virus writers.

Floppy disks are almost untraceable since they carry *no* copy history,
*no* history of what machines they visited and almost no means of
identifying the offender.

- --
  Terry Ingoldsby                ctycal!ingoldsb@calgary.UUCP
  Land Information Services                 or
  The City of Calgary       ...{alberta,ubc-cs,utai}!calgary!ctycal!ingoldsb