Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!uwvax!uwslh!lishka
From: lishka@uwslh.UUCP (Christopher Lishka)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: THIS VIRUS IS A CRISIS!
Message-ID: <297@uwslh.UUCP>
Date: 5 Jan 88 14:08:15 GMT
References: <9659@udenva.cair.du.edu> <483@auvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: lishka@uwslh.UUCP (Christopher Lishka)
Organization: U of Wisconsin-Madison, State Hygiene Lab
Lines: 38

In article <483@auvax.UUCP> rwa@auvax.UUCP (Ross Alexander) writes:
>All you need is a virus scrubber.  CATS ought to be able to build one
>with their eyes shut.  In the Un*x world, these sorts of things have
>been seen before, and dealt with.  I'm sure you clever Amigans can
>do it as well as anyone else.
>
>In the mean time, put your shirt back on and do a little constructive
>reasoning.  This thing can only be spread by receiving and booting an
>infected flop, right?  So DON'T BOOT ANY FOREIGN FLOPS; copy them
>onto known clean flops, the boot sector isn't copied in a
>file-system-oriented copy (as opposed to a track-oriented copy).  
>Consider this the software equivalent of condoms ;-).

	I've got a question at this point.  Can't one thwart the virus
in the following manner?

	1) Never NEVER boot from anything but an uninfected disk that
has its write-switch on the "can't-write-to-this-disk" position.

	2) When one gets a new non-commercial disk, *always* use
INSTALL to overwrite anything in the boot-block, thereby killing off
the virus.

I may be missing something here...I am not sure.  I haven't personally
been infected YET, but then again I've only had my Amiga for a week now!

>--
>Ross Alexander,
>Sr Systems Programmer & Bottlewasher @ Athabasca University
>alberta!auvax!rwa

						-Chris


-- 
Chris Lishka                    /lishka@uwslh.uucp
Wisconsin State Lab of Hygiene <-lishka%uwslh.uucp@rsch.wisc.edu
"What, me, serious? Get real!"  \{seismo, harvard,topaz,...}!uwvax!uwslh!lishka