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From: erickson@lclark.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: Antivirus viruses
Message-ID: <0004.9008151251.AA12488@ubu.cert.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 14 Aug 90 17:39:33 GMT
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        I am a sophomore here at Lewis & Clark College in Portland,
and I work in the campus computer support services.  I have been
subsribing to the comp.virus journal for a few months now, mainly to
keep an eye out for any information about viruses that we may have to
brace for out here.  Up until now I have never felt inclined to submit
anything to this journal.
        However, this new discussion on the ethics of producing
viruses to kill harmful viruses is a fascinating one.  Peter Ukra from
somewhere or another (I am not yet Unix-path fluent) posed an
interesting argument against the use of antiviruses.  If antiviruses
become an accepted phenomena, there is nothing to stop those perverts
who write the viruses from writing new ones that will initially
convince the user that they are a "good" virus before turning around
and doing some form of damage.
        The scenerio Ukra uses is one where a virus pops up on a
user's screen, identifying itself as a "virus that hunts down others"
and gives the user a choice -- press "A" to proceed with the hunt, or
"B" to delete this virus.  If the user presses "A," the virus may show
its true colors and inform the user that it has just erased his hard
disk.  Thus, there is an apparent danger in producing two kinds of
viruses (good and bad).
        My point is this: How many "bad" viruses do you know of that
ask the user if he wants to delete it before it does anything?  None.
        Let's examine that scenerio and a couple of different
possibilities for it:
        #1) The virus really DOES turn out to be a "good," virus-killing
        virus.  The user wins if he choose either "A" (begin hunt) or "B"
        (delete virus).

        #2) The virus only says that it's a good virus, but it is really
        a badnastyevilugly virus.  There is no guarantee, and in fact it
        would be naive to assume, that the virus would actually delete
        itself if the user chose "B."  Seeing as how most if not all of
        today's badnastyevilugly viruses don't give any options at all --
        they just erase a disk, etc. -- I don't see where the new and
        urgent danger is.

        My point is I don't see any additional danger the average user
is put into with the innovation of antiviruses.  Yes, it gives the
virus perverts another way to make fools out of computer users.  But
the only difference between, say, a WDEF virus and this "Virus Hunter"
virus in the scenerio is that a little more text is dumped on the
screen and the user feels a bit more foolish when the virus erases his
hard disk.  Any other virus would have done the same thing and would
never have given him the cute little option greeting in the first
place.
        Viruses don't have to ask for user permission to infect files.
Viruses do not spread by beguiling computer users; they simply hide in
the shadows and slither from disk to disk.  I see no new dangers users
could find themselves in if antiviruses do in fact make an appearance
in the computer world.

- -- Scott Erickson
(I have no idea what Lewis & Clark's opinions on this subject are, but
it's safe to say that I probably don't represent them.)