Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!rochester!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!ucbvax!hplabs!decwrl!labrea!glacier!jbn
From: jbn@glacier.STANFORD.EDU (John B. Nagle)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Guidelines for virus authors
Message-ID: <17301@glacier.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: 8 Feb 88 17:05:54 GMT
References: <8802072054.AA03747@jade.berkeley.edu> <8261@g.ms.uky.edu>
Reply-To: jbn@glacier.UUCP (John B. Nagle)
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 27

In article <8261@g.ms.uky.edu> sean@ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey) writes:
>I have never ever known of a major security bug that lasted long after
>it's (sic) operation was widely publicized.

      I think he's right.  It will cost billions to make personal computers
virus-proof, and may take a whole new generation of machines, yet it will
probably have to happen.  Such an effort is not unprecedented.  The 
reengineering of the AT&T Long Lines system required to make it blue-box
proof was massive, took almost a decade, and cost hundreds of millions.
The old system of tones on the voice circuits was replaced with a separate
data network used to carry the control information between the toll
offices.

     OS/2 is already virus-resistant to some degree, being a protected-mode
operating system.  When the Mac line gets memory-management
units (there's a socket in the Mac II) Apple intends to go to a protected
mode operating system (ref. interview with John Sculley, Computer Currents,
Dec. 87.).  Sun machines are already reasonably tight, running under UNIX
in protected mode.  DEC's VAXstations also have protection.  In each
case, the protection isn't perfect, but the essential parts are there and
with some tightening up, each of these systems should be able to resist
virus programs effectively.

      This leaves the Amiga out in the cold.  Someone at Commodore had
best be thinking very hard about this.

					John Nagle