Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!super!udel!rochester!rutgers!bellcore!tness7!texbell!sugar!peter
From: peter@sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Viruses (was: Re: The ultimate fix!!!)
Message-ID: <2815@sugar.uu.net>
Date: 14 Oct 88 11:19:46 GMT
References: <8810062045.AA04638@cory.Berkeley.EDU> <12643@oberon.USC.EDU> <934@ritcv.UUCP>
Organization: Sugar Land Unix - Houston, TX
Lines: 43

In article <934@ritcv.UUCP>, jjv3345@ritcv.UUCP (Jeff Van Epps) writes:
> 5. Statements claiming UNIX is not susceptible to a virus are false.

I don't think ANYONE is claiming this to be true.

>    Statements claiming it has
>    better virus protection than, for example, MS-DOS, are true but
>    misleading. Certainly it's better to have a newspaper to shield 
>    yourself from the rain than nothing at all, but it only stops the
>    laziest of raindrops. You still get awfully wet.

This analogy is way too harsh, unless you're running UNIX in an open
academic environment. Most commercial UNIX sites don't have any easy way
for a virus to get in. For these it's more like a set of raingear.

> 6. My Amiga has remained virus-free so far, but then I've never even been
>    near a user's group or other gang of disk-swappers. I have run all sorts
>    of binaries from the net (don't have a compiler yet) without incident.

My Amiga has been virus-free and I've been an active member of a user's group.
Since I never unprotect my workbench disk and run SYS: out of vd0: the easy
avenues for infection are cut off. If someone wants to write a virus to get
me, they can, but it's a lot easier for them to get people who boot random
programs and have half a dozen alternate workbenches they're always modifying.

> 7. Programs are not the only means of propagation available to a virus.
>    This very message might contain some sequence of control characters
>    that could reprogram your function keys.

That'd be a pretty daft virus, since (a) very few terminals have the same set
of function key formats, and (b) vnews doesn't pass them on anyway.

> 8. Danger lurks everywhere.

No, danger doesn't lurk everywhere. You're getting paranoid.

> 9. That article in Time Magazine was ridiculous. They actually made a
>    cartoon out of someone getting infected by a virus.

I'll go along with this one.
-- 
		Peter da Silva  `-_-'  peter@sugar.uu.net
		 Have you hugged  U  your wolf today?