Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!hp4nl!dutrun!hans
From: hans@duttnph.UUCP (Hans Buurman)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin
Subject: Re: The viral high ground--go for it while I puke in the corner
Message-ID: <546@dutrun.UUCP>
Date: 14 Nov 88 08:18:29 GMT
References: <16672@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <7882@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <16800@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <161@loci.UUCP>
Sender: tnphnws@dutrun.UUCP
Reply-To: hans@duttnph.UUCP (Hans Buurman)
Organization: Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Lines: 44

In article <161@loci.UUCP> clb@loci.UUCP (Charles Brunow) writes:
>> >In article <16672@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) writes:
>> 
>> ... , note that I'm
>> NOT suggesting that anything crippling be done--just something that keeps
>> security a high company/university/institute priority across ARPANET and
>> elsewhere.  I simply do not expect this attitude to come voluntarily.
>> 
>> ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720
>
>	Just do it.  All this blathering back and forth isn't going to
>	do any good.  Use the time to write a monthly virus and announce
>	"THIS IS A TEST" and send it.  We should vote on whether or not
>	to moderate it, of course, and then do it anyway.  If you're
>	looking for analogies, how about Pasteur and his dead germs.

Please, send us one ! I've been asking around on my own university network
what people were doing with the recent virus information. There were three
reactions:

a) This wouldn't have happened if they had been running vendor supplied
   software instead of some public domain sendmail program.

b) Don't put our network in a bad light.

c) Attention, system administrators ! I have just found out that setuid
   shell scripts are a security breach !

(Yes, all these people were serious !)

Mind you, we are not on the Internet yet. I can only hope that they learn
before things get serious. Your virus-of-the-month might just cause that.

	Hans

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Hans Buurman                   | hans@duttnph.UUCP
Pattern Recognition Group      | mcvax!dutrun!duttnph!hans
Faculty of Applied Physics     | tel. 31 - (0) 15 - 78 46 94
Delft University of Technology | "What this country needs is a good
the Netherlands                | five cents virus/worm !"
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Disclaimer: any opinions expressed above are my own. They may have been
changed by a virus, however.