Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!super!udel!princeton!njin!rutgers!mcnc!thorin!unc!bell
From: bell@unc.cs.unc.edu (Andrew Bell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: The ultimate fix!!!
Message-ID: <4212@thorin.cs.unc.edu>
Date: 15 Sep 88 15:44:06 GMT
References: <681@zehntel.UUCP> <3084@hermes.ai.mit.edu> <4197@thorin.cs.unc.edu> <599@accelerator.eng.ohio-state.edu>
Sender: news@thorin.cs.unc.edu
Reply-To: bell@unc.UUCP (Andrew Bell)
Organization: University Of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Lines: 33

In article <599@accelerator.eng.ohio-state.edu> mills@phao.eng.ohio-state.edu (Christopher Mills) writes:
>In article <4197@thorin.cs.unc.edu> bell@unc.UUCP (Andrew Bell) writes:
>>
>>However,  an idea that might at least make virus writing more difficult would
>>be creating custom boot blocks that do interesting things.  Perhaps a bunch of
>>Robotron robots performing anti-marketroid maneuvers...
>>
>
>	Arrgh!  No!  Not a robotroff virus!  No!  Please!  No!

>| Christopher Mills              | "If you see someone without a smile, |
Aw, "Smile,  darn ya, smile..." -_Who Framed Roger Rabbit_?

Just to make sure my point got across:  no,  the robots program should NOT be
a virus.  It should be incapable of replicating itself  (instead,  some
variant of the install program should exist.)  Then,  if you start up your
amiga and the screen hack fails to appear,  something has changed the boot
block.
     It might be possible for a virus to move the screen hack out of the boot
block and run it after it has completed its dirty work,  but hooks that make
the screen hack check if a copy of it is still in the boot block should make
virii too small to do all the necessary work.  A trojan horse might be capable
of such damage,  but it too would have to be sizeable and complex.

Can anybody think why this wouldn't work?  The only possibility I can think
of being a problem is people distibuting virii while claiming they're boot
block protectors, or distributing boot block hack installers that are 
Trojan Horses...

     -Andrew Bell
The Schizophrenic Grad Student
bell@cs.unc.edu
acb@cs.duke.edu