Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!cmcl2!husc6!bbn!oberon!skat.usc.edu!bishop
From: bishop@skat.usc.edu (Brian Bishop)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Virus via PD programs
Message-ID: <6094@oberon.USC.EDU>
Date: 10 Jan 88 06:21:12 GMT
References: <2310@crash.cts.com>
Sender: nobody@oberon.USC.EDU
Reply-To: bishop@skat.usc.edu (Brian Bishop)
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 53

In article <2310@crash.cts.com> haitex@pnet01.cts.com (Wade Bickel) writes:
>rouaix@inria.UUCP (Francois Rouaix) writes:
>>Some guys here suggest that the viruses may come from some PD program and
>>not from a bootable disk.
>>Let think about it: 

   .... stuff deleted about making virii tougher & fighting them....

>        Suggested solution:  a monitoring program, lets call it Vcheck3.0,
>might maintain a list of programs and relative checksums.  This program would
>confirm the checksum of a program before running it and ALERT when spores are
>found.  Of course this assumes the list is correct, but would protect the
>user from spores.  If an "VInstall" program were written, users could add 
>any program they wished to the executable list.  If an infectious program were
>added, its spores would be noticed in their first generation, and the
>dangerous code would (hopefully) be identifyable.

 ..... details omitted for brevity and to save filler lines at end ...

>        Of course a virus could still be snuck in, but it would be much more
>difficult with this kind of protection.  There are a number of additional 
>things which could be done to improve this system, and not disclosing exactly
>what it does would give additional protection.
>
>        Have I goofed, or would this work?  Would the over-head be excessive?
>


  I think this a good idea but that is would be bad in the long wrong. It
would make it harder for Joe Blow to hack up a cheap virus, since the easy
routes would be blocked, but it would make much more of a *challenge* for the
good (as in 'talented') hackers. I think the end result would be fewer viruses
(I don't like using 'virii', bleh.) around, but those that did emerge would be
that much worse.

 I love the analogies to real viruses here - develop better antibiotics, and
what will you get? More virulent antibiotic-resistant viruses. I wonder if
you could mak a virus for the game of life that would infect self-reproducing
patterns and get them to reproduce the virus? It'd have to big a BIG matrix.
Could the organism eventually develop antibodies???? Wow.


brian bishop                            ---> bishop@usc-ecl.ARPA               
(uscvax,sdcvdef,engvax,scgvaxd,smeagol) ---> usc-skat!bishop.UUCP

"You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic
condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time,
every creature that lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat
of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life.
Everywhere in the universe." 
                             - Wilbur Mercer, founder of Mercerism

have a nice day fnord.