Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!tikal!hplsla!hpubvwa!g!sean
From: sean@g
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Viruses are here to stay (long)
Message-ID: <7976@g>
Date: 4 Jan 88 18:52:00 GMT
References: <5996@oberon>
Lines: 33

In article <5998@oberon.USC.EDU> papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes:
>...massive network shutdown -- Ross Patterson, Rutgers University
>... virtually paralized IBMs internal network --
>
>The perpetrator was indeed found. Sorry but I read comp.sys.amiga BEFORE
>comp.risks :-) Too much news backlog after a week's vacation.  The virus
>came from EARN node in Germany and then spread to other networks (BITNET
>and VNET).  The guy who did it was a student.

I got bit by some IBM virus that's been propagating.  It is an exec
file that prints a chistmas tree, gifts, etc. on your screen.  It also
sends copies of itself to everyone in your NAMES file (a file of
mailing addresses and aliases).  It keeps looping through the file and
sending mail over and over again until the exec is manually stopped.  I
got 6 copies of an very strange looking file from a friend of mine (I
am on a uVaX II running 4.3).  Of course, since we don't have exec :-),
it didn't propagate from the vax.  When I asked my friend about it, he
said the system administrators were having quite a fun time trying to
track down and squash all copies.  It seems that new copies kept coming
in from bitnet sites daily!

This is an example of a "harmless" virus.  Like the Switzerland virus,
it's sole purpose was to propagate as widely as possible.
Unfortunately, it ate a lot of network bandwidth, and both system and
user disk space.  It also annoyed a lot of people.

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
--  "My feet are wet."