Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!udel!mmdf From: dan-hankins%cup.portal.com%UDEL.EDU@cunyvm.cuny.edu Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: The ultimate fix!!! Message-ID: <4483@louie.udel.EDU> Date: 4 Oct 88 01:34:49 GMT Sender: mmdf@udel.EDU Lines: 77 Received: from CUNYVM by CUNYVM.BITNET (Mailer X2.00) with BSMTP id 5676; Mon, 03 Oct 88 21:32:36 EDT Received: from UDEL.EDU by CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.1) with TCP; Mon, 03 Oct 88 21:32:33 EDT Received: from Louie.UDEL.EDU by Louie.UDEL.EDU id ar10567; 3 Oct 88 18:17 EDT Received: from USENET by Louie.UDEL.EDU id aa10486; 3 Oct 88 18:02 EDT From: dan-hankins%cup.portal.com@UDEL.EDU Subject: Re: The ultimate fix!!! Message-ID: <4398@louie.udel.EDU> Date: 3 Oct 88 22:02:07 GMT To: amiga-relay@UDEL.EDU Sender: amiga-relay-request@UDEL.EDU Received: from CUNYVM by CUNYVM.BITNET (Mailer X2.00) with BSMTP id 7137; Fri, 30 Sep 88 23:16:16 EDT Received: from UDEL.EDU by CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.1) with TCP; Fri, 30 Sep 88 23:16:13 EDT Received: from Louie.UDEL.EDU by Louie.UDEL.EDU id aa16274; 30 Sep 88 19:41 EDT Received: from USENET by Louie.UDEL.EDU id aa16092; 30 Sep 88 19:28 EDT From: dan-hankins@cup.portal.com Subject: Re: The ultimate fix!!! Message-ID: <9548@cup.portal.com> Date: 29 Sep 88 03:20:54 GMT Organization: The Portal System (TM) XPortal-User-Id: 1.1001.5361 To: amiga-relay@UDEL.EDU Sender: amiga-relay-request@UDEL.EDU In article <2689@sugar.uu.net> peter@sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: >Nope, it's a virus. Yep, it's a virus. >A trojan horse is a technique which you can use to get a virus into another >computer, and it's the way most viruses... including the Amiga bootblock >viruses... work. Sort of. I believe that the classic definition of a Trojan Horse is: A program that appears useful but which has been deliberately and directly modified to contain code unrelated to the program's overt function. This unrelated code may be directly harmful (erase your hard disk), indirectly harmful (release a virus), or innocuous (display a bouncing ball on your screen once per hour). >A virus is any program that hides in a computer system and replicates itself. Close. The first published definition of a computer virus is attributed to Dr. Fred Cohen, who experimented with a non-harmful virus on one of his university's computer systems. Being first, his definition should really be considered the most valid. It certainly holds the closest to the biological analogy: A computer virus is a piece of code that hides by attaching itself to other pieces of code, self-replicates by usurping the function of the host code, and may or may not inflict damage to the host systems. It may or may not have an incubation period, and a specific host trigger. The biological analogy holds up well: 'other pieces of code' are the programs and operating system of the machine, and correspond to cells in a body. Attaching is roughly equivalent to invading a cell. Replication by usurpation (is that a word?) is equivalent to the way a virus replaces the DNA of the target cell with its own. Incubation and triggers have obvious analogies with biological viruses. >Or run a protected operating system like UNIX, where a virus has a *much* harder >time of it. Not really. Fred Cohen's virus experiment was performed on a protected multiuser operating system. The longest it took a virus to attain system priviledges was an half an hour, the shortest five minutes, with an average of about fifteen, *even when the users knew a virus was around*. Dan Hankins