Xref: utzoo comp.misc:2153 comp.sys.ibm.pc:13631
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!ncar!ames!umd5!uvaarpa!mcnc!ecsvax!kotlas
From: kotlas@ecsvax.UUCP (Carolyn M. Kotlas)
Newsgroups: comp.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Commercial liability for distributing a virus
Message-ID: <4811@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: 24 Mar 88 14:09:11 GMT
References: <500@xios.XIOS.UUCP>
Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service
Lines: 25

In article <500@xios.XIOS.UUCP>, dont@xios.XIOS.UUCP (Don Taylor) writes:> 
> 
> My confidence in the big manufacturers
> quality control on this sort of thing is pretty low since the day I did
> a 'strings' on MS Word (version 2 I think) and I saw a chilling message 
> that said something to the effect: 'the fruits of evil are bitter, wiping
> your hard disk now...'.  Bill Gates was questioned about this at the time
> and claimed that MS did not authorize the insertion of this message, that
> it was done by a co-op student whose intentions were good, but misguided.

This isn't the only instance of little messages being sprinkled in
Microsoft products.  I was shown a recent one at a demo of MS Bookshelf
last week.  There is a part of the package that contains a list of
wordprocessors and versions that can be selected to use along with this
reference tool.  After a long list of various versions of MS Word, the
non-Microsoft wordprocessors are listed and in parentheses next to
WordPerfect is a exclamation of dismay (OH NO, I think it was).  I guess
the developers thought this was a clever way to take a shot at their
competition, but it struck me as less than professional, and I can't
help wondering what other little gems are secreted in their software and
under what circumstances they'll pop up on the user. 
-- 
Carolyn Kotlas    (kotlas@ecsvax.UUCP  or  kotlas@ecsvax.BITNET)
UNC-Educational Computing Service   P. O. Box 12035      2 Davis Drive
Research Triangle Park, NC  27709   State Courier #315   919/549-0671