Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!mcvax!philmds!leo
From: leo@philmds.UUCP (Leo de Wit)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: ***HELP*** Floppy gone crazy!?!?!
Message-ID: <571@philmds.UUCP>
Date: 3 Aug 88 07:31:03 GMT
References: <880801064254.135611@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA>
Reply-To: leo@philmds.UUCP (Leo de Wit)
Organization: Philips I&E DTS Eindhoven
Lines: 31

In article <880801064254.135611@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA> Friesen%PCO@BCO-MULTICS.ARPA writes:
  [stuff deleted]...
>Well, I got the directory up and much to my surprise, there were many
>groups of two files with exactly the same name.  I opened the files
  [stuff deleted]...

Note that this doesn't have to be the work of a virus. It is perfectly
possible in GEMDOS to have two files with the same pathname (whether
this is desirable or documented is another question: you get lots of
problems deleting or accessing one or the other).
I did something like:
    0) Start first program
    1) first program opens the file readonly
    2) Pexec second program
    3) second program opens the same file write-only
    4) writes into the file
    5) closes it and exits
    6) first program closes file and exits
and then I had two copies of the file. The program in question was in
fact a 'more' utility which can fork a 'vi'; this option I no longer
use because of the duplicate files problem.

Perhaps you have an analoguous problem; for instance if your shell for some
reason keeps files opened (e.g. shell scripts, files to which redirection
is done) you will encounter the same problem.
I suggest you check all your tools and programs for weird behaviour by
keeping constant track of the contents of your directories for a while.

Hope this has put you at ease somewhat - it could still be a virus 8-).
Happy virus-hunting!
                         Leo.