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From: phaedrus@milton.u.washington.edu (Mark Phaedrus)
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: Re: Mac virii & System 7.0 (Mac)
Message-ID: <0002.9101281420.AA16983@ubu.cert.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 24 Jan 91 20:51:09 GMT
Sender: Virus Discussion List <VIRUS-L@LEHIIBM1>
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Approved: krvw@sei.cmu.edu

st871184@pip.cc.brandeis.edu writes:

>     I hope this hasn't been discussed already, but I'm curious about
>the net world's thoughts about what will happen to all the viruses (Virii)
>we know and hate when system 7.0 comes out (in the first quarter of 1991?)

     Based on my limited Mac programming experience, I sincerely doubt
that there will be much change.  System 7 is not going to magically
change all the rules of Mac programming; it adds new features on top
of the existing ones.  If this weren't true, no System 6- programs
would work with System 7.  Therefore, I would speculate that the
existing crop of viruses will do just fine, since they mostly use the
same sorts of file system calls that applications do.  WDEF and the
other "stealth" viruses might run into trouble, if they use any
undocumented file system features to get around virus detection
programs.  Those viruses might stop propagating, or might crash the
machine.  But more conventional viruses (Scores, etc.) should work
under Sys 7.
- --
Internet: phaedrus@u.washington.edu        (University of Washington, Seattle)
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