Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!uwvax!oddjob!hao!gatech!bloom-beacon!coplex!jim
From: jim@coplex.UUCP (Jim Sewell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Viruses and Stolen Software
Message-ID: <332@coplex.UUCP>
Date: 9 Jan 88 05:50:18 GMT
References: <927@louie.udel.EDU>
Organization: Copper Electronics,  Louisville, Ky.
Lines: 20

In article <927@louie.udel.EDU>, rminnich@udel.EDU (Ron Minnich) writes:
> ... Are people shipping these viruses
> in production software as a way of protecting themselves?

Uhm, does anyone remember early Model 3's from Tandy?  Particularly one version
of TRSDOS (I believe it was 6.x) which would keep an internal counter as to the
number of times you backed up a disk?  Software authors took advantage of this
to make sure you didn't make more than 3 copies of their disk and that none of
those disks was copyable.  Of course this didn't work for long 8-).  It is
conceivable for companies to threaten harm if you pirate their program, but it
is not likely that it is either legal or ethical.  I don't think we will ever
see this implemented, and hope we never have a need to do so!  Viruses are 
simply the product of modern day arsonists.  "Isn't this neat, it can burn down
a whole house with just one match!"  What scares me is what will come next, when
we move out of our current technological plateau and into the next.  Is the next
verison of a virus going to be "Big Brother"?
===============================================================================
Jim Sewell						"Make knowledge free!"
Disclaimer: "Copper Electronics doesn't even know who I am, much less agree
		with me!  [8-)] "