Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!hao!gatech!bloom-beacon!think!ephraim
From: ephraim@think.COM (ephraim vishniac)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Virus on the Mac?
Message-ID: <17438@think.UUCP>
Date: 3 Mar 88 13:49:46 GMT
References: <1056@hubcap.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@think.UUCP
Reply-To: ephraim@vidar.think.com.UUCP (ephraim vishniac)
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 30
Keywords: Virus Sumex

In article <1056@hubcap.UUCP> mmccann@hubcap.UUCP (Mike McCann) writes:
>I recently downloaded a file from sumex which after running for a few
>seconds, crashed on me.  The mouse was frozen, so when I reset the Mac
>the hard drive wouldnt come up and it was treated as an non-mac disk.
>Was this a freak accident or are there virus programs out there which
>attack macs?  If so, is there a program that can successfully detect
>virus programs?  Help...........

Fear of viruses is a bit overdone these days.  Consider the more
likely possibilities:

Much of the software on sumex was written by hobbyists.  Much of it
has problems, even when run under the exact environment it was written
for.  Lots of it has *severe* problems when run under different
environments.

How old was the particular item you ran?  Was it written for a 128K
Mac? 512K Mac?  512e?  Mac Plus?  SE or II (not likely!)?  Was it
written for Finder 1.0?  1.1g?  4.1?  5.5?  6.0?  Did it expect MFS or
HFS?

I recently pulled out a demo from the distant past (the "Windows Demo"
program, with variant WDEFs) which used to run fine on my Fat Mac.  On
my Mac II, it bombed instantly.  A slightly different crash could
easily have sent my hard disk out to lunch, but not through any malice
on the author's part.
Ephraim Vishniac					  ephraim@think.com
Thinking Machines Corporation / 245 First Street / Cambridge, MA 02142-1214

     On two occasions I have been asked, "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put
     into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?"