Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!ukma!sean
From: sean@ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: The REAL virus problem
Message-ID: <7967@g.ms.uky.edu>
Date: 3 Jan 88 18:33:52 GMT
Reply-To: sean@ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey)
Organization: The Leaning Tower of Patterson Office @ The Univ. of KY
Lines: 27
Summary: Is the design of the Amiga


The designers at Commodore Amiga should have never made it possible to
install a virus in such a way.  One *cannot* rely on ignorance as
protection against programmers with bad intentions.

This is another example of where some behaviour of a machine has been
kept secret, and people have suffered for it.  If something is well
documented, it is subject to more scrutiny, and is more likely to be
noticed as a problem or security bug.

I suggest to the CATS people that a future version of kickstart specifically
clear out the auto-boot vector or whatever it is you call that magic memory
location that can give the machine to a program after warm boot and
before workbench.

I suggest that people stop flaming the virus people.  It's a waste of
bandwidth, and it makes them happy because they know they did their job
right.  It's not going to help one bit.  As a matter of fact, it's just
showing potential virus writers how infamous their programs can be.

Sean

-- 
--  Sean Casey               sean@ms.uky.edu,  sean@UKMA.BITNET
--  (the Empire guy)         {rutgers,uunet,cbosgd}!ukma!sean
--  University of Kentucky in Lexington Kentucky, USA
--  "Inconceivable!"