Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sunybcs!bingvaxu!leah!uwmcsd1!bbn!oberon!skat.usc.edu!bishop
From: bishop@skat.usc.edu (Brian Bishop)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: virus, ARRRG! (really a virus-eating-virus)
Keywords: Don't waste your time.
Message-ID: <6395@oberon.USC.EDU>
Date: 22 Jan 88 08:33:17 GMT
References: <10081@ufcsv.cis.ufl.EDU> <4361@garfield.UUCP> <4763@pyr.gatech.EDU>
Sender: nobody@oberon.USC.EDU
Reply-To: bishop@skat.usc.edu (Brian Bishop)
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Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
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In article <4763@pyr.gatech.EDU> ccasttd@pyr.UUCP (Thomas M. Dixon Jr.) writes:
>We need a program that "hangs out" all the time and randomly checks for
>system corruption.  Something that follows certain criterion for check   
>intervals but also checks willy-nilly to make it hard to defeat.  This way
>you all of a sudden get a system window saying "System Corruption Detected:
>DF0: Boot Block Corruption." or the like.  I think this config would be the
>superior option.

 While I applaud the idea of virus-detectors, I think this idea is akin to
taking a certain antibiotic once a day that kills a known (flu) bug. If
you put it into general distributioon you will just be that much more
susceptible to the next generation. The more 'automatic' we make these
innoculations, the less prepared we will be. I think the parallels to human
virii are very strong.


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.