Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!im4u!ut-sally!utah-cs!utah-gr!stride!tahoe!unsvax!tlhingan
From: tlhingan@unsvax.UUCP (Eugene Tramaglino)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: WARNING on FILETEST suite WARNING WARNING
Message-ID: <238@unsvax.UUCP>
Date: 9 Apr 88 06:12:13 GMT
References: <225@unsvax.UUCP> <1069@maynard.BSW.COM>
Reply-To: tlhingan@unsvax.uucp (Eugene Tramaglino)
Organization: University of Nevada System Computing Center
Lines: 66
Keywords: chicken little

This is part of Larry Campbell's (campbell@maynard.BSW.COM) response
to my posting warning about an intercepted write to COMMAND.COM in
a NET PD program I downloaded. 

===== begin edited include =====
Keywords: chicken little
Organization: The Boston Software Works, Inc.

In article <225@unsvax.UUCP> tlhingan@unsvax.uucp (Eugene Tramaglino) writes:
<>I recently downloaded from comp.binaries.ibm.pc a set of programs
<>in Turbo Pascal 3.0 (Source and Executables and Docs) called 
<>FILETEST.ARC in PKARC format.  ...  On running
<>FILEREAD.COM, FluShot3 sent a message that a "write to COMMAND.COM"
<>was being performed.  

Give me a break!  You said you had the SOURCES to this program!!  Are your
eyes broken?  Before wasting net bandwidth and perhaps needlessly alarming
hundreds of people, why don't you just take a look at the source and see
if there's a legitimate reason for what it's doing?  And how about compiling
the source and comparing the result to the binaries that came with it?
-- 
Larry Campbell                                The Boston Software Works, Inc.
Internet: campbell@maynard.bsw.com          120 Fulton Street, Boston MA 02109
uucp: {husc6,mirror,think}!maynard!campbell         +1 617 367 6846
===== end edited include ===== 

1) I cannot instantly read code like English and determine what it does.

2) I don't have Turbo Pascal 3.0, so I cant "compile and compare."

3) How in the world could there be a legitimate WRITE to COMMAND.COM,
posted on the NET, that doesn't say in the DOCs, "by the way, this
program writes to COMMAND.COM??  For that matter, How in the world
could there be a legitimate write to COMMAND.COM? 

4) A WRITE TO COMMAND.COM deserves an immediate scream to the NET.

5) I did not needlessly alarm people.  If I saved one person's hard 
disk, I feel the posting was a net gain.  If I reduced the POTENTIAL 
of a hard disk crash, the posting was justified.  Perhaps someone might
run the program without checking the sources, and without protection like
flushot or trapdisk.   

6) I feel more comfortable sending something like this to the net, where
a lot of people, some of whom are more experienced than I, and all of
whom have different perspectives, can look at it.  I also like the idea
that someone like Ross Greenberg, who has gone out of his way to help
NETters with his flushot programs, and who is apparrently somewhat of a
specialist in VIRUSes, could look at this program.

7) Considering the material that is regularly posted to the NET, I don't
consider this a big "waste of bandwidth."  

8) Finally, the first bloody thing I said was "Excuse me if this posting
is over-alrarming or panicky."  SO GO GET LAID!  MAKE UP WITH YOUR GIRL! 
DON'T TAKE OUT YOUR FRUSTRATIONS ON ME!  YOUR POSTING IS RUDE AND HURT
MY FEELINGS!    
===
These statements are mine and mine only.  I do not represent or speak
for the University of Nevada or any of its branches or divisions. 
#==============================================#=========================#
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