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From: kuhnle@ait.physik.uni-tuebingen.de (Volkmar Kuhnle)
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: VIRUSSUM format
Message-ID: <0006.9105162013.AA02886@ubu.cert.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 16 May 91 16:09:14 GMT
Sender: Virus Discussion List <VIRUS-L@LEHIIBM1>
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Approved: krvw@sei.cmu.edu

For about half a year, I regularly acquired the new VIRUSSUM.DOC by
Patricia Hoffman. Compliments to Mrs. Hoffman for her excellent and
detailed work!

But over the months al lot of new viruses (and strains of existing ones)
have been uncovered, so that VIRUSSUM.DOC grew in size. Since the
current version is about more than 500 K in length, is is getting
harder and harder to find informations about a special virus in
a file of this size, since I have to use a normal editor.

I came to the conclusion that an ASCII file is not appropriate for the
distribution of so much data. Therefore I would suggest to supply
future versions as DBF files (dbase format). Database programs which
are able to read DBF files are very common in the PC world. And it
would be much easier to find information about a virus quick in
an DBF file than in an ASCII file.

Any suggestions? Please e-amil them to this list, because I want to
start a dioscussion about the distribution of virus information.

Volkmar Kuhnle
kuhnle@aitxu2.ait.physik.uni-tuebingen.de