Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!yale!cmcl2!ccnysci!alexis
From: alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: The NEW nVIR (just the facts, ma'am)
Message-ID: <1116@ccnysci.UUCP>
Date: 3 Jan 89 19:44:10 GMT
References: <4Xb0I9V28k-0A1zVwN@andrew.cmu.edu> <65@sdacs.ucsd.EDU> <12813@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen)
Organization: City College of New York
Lines: 33


Bob Murrow recently wrote an article describing the new Hpat virus.
While I have not seen it yet, from looking at the sizes of the various
resources I would guess that the Hpat virus is nothing but nVIR type 'B'
(as classified by John Norstad) with the appropriate resource types
changed from 'nVIR' to 'Hpat'. To confirm this, Bob can send a copy of
the virus to a trusted person who can test it.

1) Don't send a live virus!!! You can paste the viral resources into a
   separate file, they'll be dead there.
2) 'Trusted person' is a tricky term. If you choose to trust me, fine.
   Otherwise I suggest that John Norstad is sufficiently well-known to be
   safe and reliable. On the other hand I can't volunteer his time. So, John,
   if you're willing to compare the two, please say so.
3) Of course Bob could do the comparison himself if he has both viruses.

Has anyone else been infected by Hpat, and noticed any damage?

I suppose we all knew that it was only a matter of time before someone
did another modification of nVIR. Hopefully the idiot responsible for
this one wasn't clever or malicious enough to do anything besides
changing its name. Still, if Hpat spreads over the next few months, that
will just show how susceptible the entire user community is to a really
nasty virus. If we can't even protect ourselves from the relatively
well-understood nVIR variants, how will we deal with something much much
worse? I'd like to remind everybody that for all of the havoc caused
by Mac viruses, _NOT ONE_ of them has actually been generally malignant.
If we suffer so much from benign viruses, what happens when a nasty one
comes along?

In a poor frame of mind to be writing coherent sentences,
Alexis Rosen
alexis@ccnysci.uucp