Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!ukc!strath-cs!glasgow!jack
From: jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Mr Jack Campin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: StuffIt 1.31 and virus paranoia
Message-ID: <1035@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Date: 26 Apr 88 17:43:21 GMT
Organization: Computing Sci, Glasgow Univ, Scotland
Lines: 28

I had not heard about the StuffIt virus rumour till I saw it in this
newsgroup.  I am not ordinarily paranoid about such things, but I just got the
following behaviour: I was using StuffIt 1.31 to unpack a recursively PackIted
file, or rather I had already done the unpacking and was scanning through the
intermediate level files to note down the hierarchical structure. After doing
a few files I got the sort of crash that sounds like your Mac being executed
by firing squad, with an accompanying flurry of dashes on the screen. Now I
find I have two folders, one on a hard disk and the other on a floppy, which
ought to have the same size - the files in them appear identical - but which
actually differ by 1K (the hard disk one being larger).

This suggests to me that something obscure has happened to my DeskTop file.
I believe this is what one of the known viruses does. I have looked around a
bit with Vaccination to no effect; I have Virus Warning INIT and Vaccine but
with no documentation on what either of them does (was there any?) I have no
intention of using them. The version of StuffIt I am using came directly off
the net.

I am running System B1-3.2 (and will not change to a 4.x version until Apple
produces one with a superset of its functionality!) and Finder B1-5.3.

Informed comments, anyone?

-- 
ARPA: jack%cs.glasgow.ac.uk@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk       USENET: jack@cs.glasgow.uucp
JANET:jack@uk.ac.glasgow.cs      useBANGnet: ...mcvax!ukc!cs.glasgow.ac.uk!jack
Mail: Jack Campin, Computing Science Dept., Glasgow Univ., 17 Lilybank Gardens,
      Glasgow G12 8QQ, SCOTLAND     work 041 339 8855 x 6045; home 041 556 1878