Xref: utzoo comp.misc:2163 comp.sys.ibm.pc:13685 misc.legal:4339
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!amdahl!bnrmtv!hawkins
From: hawkins@bnrmtv.UUCP (Peter Hawkins)
Newsgroups: comp.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc,misc.legal
Subject: Re: Commercial liability for distributing a virus
Message-ID: <3480@bnrmtv.UUCP>
Date: 24 Mar 88 21:42:38 GMT
References: <500@xios.XIOS.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Northern Research, Mtn. View, CA
Lines: 61

In article <500@xios.XIOS.UUCP>, dont@xios.XIOS.UUCP (Don Taylor) writes:
 
 [deleted stuff]

> I thought at the time that this made (a sad sort of) sense, but an
> article in this morning's Toronto Globe and Mail has started me thinking
> that ANY sort of binary is a risk.  Apparantly, a Montreal magazine (MacMag)
> released a virus that simply (we hope) displayed a pop-up message of peace.
> This virus has travelled the world and infected many sites, including a
> system at Aldus Corp.  It has appeared in software sold by Aldus.  This is
> really scary stuff.  If this had been a malicious virus, then Aldus would
> have distributed it on to their customers.
 
 [deleted stuff]

> 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.
> Apparantly, this message would be triggered if a copied version of Word
> is used without the key disk that was required at that time.  It did not
> actually wipe your hard disk, just scare you a little.  What bothered me

    [deleted stuff]
 
> I sure hope that someone can give me some good reasons for not being
> so pessimistic about this issue.

    [deleted stuff]

> PS.  I just heard about a virus generator called OSIRIS. (Cute etymology).
> Now you don't have to be even moderately competent technically to create
> and distribute a new virus, anybody with a PC and a modem can start an
> infection.  I should be interested to hear anything about this program.  I
> should like to have my hands around the neck of jerk who wrote it...





Wow!!  All this talk about software viruses...  I'm not quite sure just what
the definition of virus is in this context.  Obviously, it has a negative
effect that is spread from one computer to another, but what I don't understand
is by what means it is spread.  The talk about trojan horse programs and things
like what you discussed with MS Word sound like either just bugs in the software
or in the case of the MS Word thing (if it were actually carried out) as being
a *very* stupid way of trying to punish *assumed* pirates (I say assumed because
many people try installing their software a little different than the manual 
suggests in order to suit their needs or disk organization better).  On the
other hand though, it sounds kind of like you are talking about some code that
causes some sort of damage (or peace message in the case you mentioned) that
mysteriously works itself into other programs and accross phone lines on it's
own.  I can not concieve of this being possible.  Please, this topic sounds
very interesting, describe a "virus" in more detail.

Pete

   ...hplabs!bnrmtv!hawkins    until April 8th
   ...csun!polyslo!phawkin     after April 8th