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From: vaps0de@prism.gatech.EDU (Dustin Emhart)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: computer security
Message-ID: <17589@hydra.gatech.EDU>
Date: 27 Nov 90 02:25:55 GMT
References: <1990Nov20.221333.4619@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <36124@cup.portal.com> <1990Nov21.190134.19749@uncecs.edu> <36149@cup.portal.com> <1990Nov25.101038.17650@world.std.com> <FRANCIS.90Nov26105225@wolfman.cis.ohio-state.edu>
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Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
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In article <FRANCIS.90Nov26105225@wolfman.cis.ohio-state.edu> francis@wolfman.cis.ohio-state.edu (RD Francis) writes:
>
>There was a reason, however:  consistency.  Despite the fact that
>each of us had a Mac on our desk (most of the time at least), there
>would come occasions where we would need to use someone else's Mac.
>Also, there were a few Macs set up for demonstration purposes, that
>were frequently used by various staff members, and tended to
>accumulate every init/cdev/driver/whatever in the known universe.
>There was a desire to keep these machines clean.  Finally, viruses
>were a major concern.  Risking a virus on your own machine is bad
>enough, but when you consider that you could spread that virus to a
>client's machine trivially, or to other machine in the company (and
>then on to clients), it was a risk to the company itself.  Even with
>the precautions we took, it likely that on one occasion, a virus was
>picked up from a customer, and spread to two others before it was
>noticed, and that we gave our new customers WDEF for a month or so
>before it was discovered.  If any significant damage had been done in

Where I worked this summer, most of the people had Macs on their desks; there
were 2 Macs for public use (for us temps who didn't even have desks).  The
public Macs stayed free of inits; however, most people had loads of inits on
their personal machines.

We also picked up the WDEF virus (from a client, we think) and didn't catch it
until somebody started passing around a new anti-virus program!

(Talk about computer security:  one of the Macs for public use had a 80 M hard
disk.  I say had, because one afternoon between 3:30 and 4:30--DURING THE
MIDDLE OF THE DAY--somebody walked off with the hard disk.  We called a 
repairman in to say, "Here's why your hard disk won't work--there's no hard
disk!"

But when the new disk drive was put in, its System Folder included Kolor and
Soundmeister and Color Arrow and . . . . . . . . . . )
-- 
Dustin Emhart
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
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