Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!uwvax!oddjob!hao!noao!mcdsun!fnf
From: fnf@mcdsun.UUCP (Fred Fish)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Viruses are here to stay (long)
Message-ID: <630@mcdsun.UUCP>
Date: 4 Jan 88 16:45:05 GMT
References: <5996@oberon.USC.EDU>
Reply-To: fnf@mcdsun.UUCP (Fred Fish)
Organization: Motorola Microcomputer Division
Lines: 30

In article <5996@oberon.USC.EDU> papa@pollux.usc.edu () writes:
>				....  For this reason, I throw away stuff
>from comp.binaries.amiga.  I will only use my OWN compiled version from 
>comp.sources.amiga.  Again, I am playing safe.  I understand that Fred 
>compiles himself most of the sources he gets.  When I do use a binary-only
>from the Fish disks, I make sure that all my disks have write protect tabs
>on them, and shut off the machine afterwards.     ...

Unfortunately I no longer have the luxury of having enough time to recreate
any supplied binaries from the supplied sources.  Without knowing exactly
which version of a compiler was used, and with what patches to the
compiler, it can be almost impossible to duplicate the binary, byte-for-byte.
Since the supplied binary has presumably had more testing by the author
than I could hope to perform on a different binary, I generally include
whatever is supplied, testing it only to the extent of verifying that I
can run it on my machine and that it performs as advertised without any
obvious detrimental side effects.  Now that I have the vcheck program I
also run that occasionally to make sure my memory is still clean.

I'd like to see a version of vcheck that runs in the background, wakes up
periodically to test memory and all accessible disks, and puts up an
alert of some type the first time it finds anything suspicious about a
particular disk.  It would be nice if it could somehow be triggered to
test disks automatically at any diskchange signal.

-Fred

-- 
# Fred Fish    hao!noao!mcdsun!fnf    (602) 438-3614
# Motorola Computer Division, 2900 S. Diablo Way, Tempe, Az 85282  USA