Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!bath63!pes
From: pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Smee)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Virus--  suggestion!
Message-ID: <2409@bath63.ux63.bath.ac.uk>
Date: 6 Apr 88 20:29:47 GMT
References: <1288@uop.edu> <2377@bath63.ux63.bath.ac.uk> <428@mks.UUCP>
Reply-To: pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Smee)
Organization: AUCC c/o University of Bath
Lines: 33
Keywords: virus, GEMDOS, atari

In article <428@mks.UUCP> wheels@mks.UUCP (Gerry Wheeler) writes:
>In article <2377@bath63.ux63.bath.ac.uk>, pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Smee) writes:
>> In article <1288@uop.edu> exodus@uop.edu (EXODUS) writes:
>> >
>> >What if someone wrote a 'friendly' virus.  One that fixed the bugs in the
>> >Operating System.  One that multiplied so everyone's bugs were fixed. 
>> 
>> No, no, a million times no.  There is NO SUCH THING as a 'friendly' virus.
>> [much venom deleted]
>
>Umm, I think the posting about the friendly virus was a joke, tongue-in-
>cheek, not serious.
>
>Maybe exodus should have put a couple of smileys in it, but I think it
>was fairly obivous that no virus can fix bugs in an operating system. 

Um.  Sorry, my reply was not meant to be 'venomous'.  I was merely tryiongng to   
to come up with a more-or-less complete list of what sorts of things can
be wrong with even a nice idea; plus a personal statement that I don't 
like things being done under-the-table.  (Someday I *will* have to organize
my thoughts for a misc.misc Q&A period about why it is so hard to write a
piece of electronic communication which does not risk being taken badly
regardless of how it's meant.  Please, if anyone else wants to tell me,
either do it by mail, or in misc.misc, not here (wrong place).)

As to the other bit, if you can take over the O/S vectors (which you can
on the ST) and selectively pre-empt particular system functions (trivial)
then in principle you *can* write a 'Virus-like' program to work around
O/S bugs -- though with problems as noted in my original, which boil down
to 'any program which steps outside the O/S interface (as a lot of
commercial stuff does) might break'.  Of course, it would of necessity be
bigger than the normal virus, and so probably easier to spot; but it's
not at all impossible.