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From: jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple,comp.sys.atari.st,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Viruses, references and request for information
Keywords: virus
Message-ID: <811@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu>
Date: 17 Feb 89 19:10:27 GMT
References: <409@odin.cs.hw.ac.uk>
Reply-To: jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright)
Followup-To: comp.misc
Organization: Iowa State U. Computer Science Department, Ames, IA
Lines: 61

[ The original distribution for this message is inappropriate for	]
[ conducting a discussion.  Unfortunately comp.security, comp.virus,	]
[ etc. do not exist.  Comp.risks is moderated.  The best I could	]
[ find is comp.misc.  Please direct replies there. (Is someplace	]
[ better?)								]

In article <409@odin.cs.hw.ac.uk> davidf@cs.hw.ac.uk (David.J.Ferbrache) writes:
}Responses by email please, I will summarise any relevant information which
}is not of a sensitive nature for posting to the machine group.
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[...]
}[...] although I appreciate the reticence shown
}by infected parties to disseminate any details of virus operation, on the
}basis that it could lead to development of further viruses.
            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[...]
}The technical report is part of a Doctoral research thesis in computer
}security, and will be available in late May. Distribution of the technical
                                              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
}report will be restricted to people who have a legitimate interest
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
}(ie systems managers, commercial concerns, research), as I expect to
}review the techniques exploited by viruses in a fair degree of detail at
}the BIOS/DOS interface level.
[...]
}-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
}Dave Ferbrache                            Personal mail to:
}Dept of computer science                  Internet <davidf@cs.hw.ac.uk>
}Heriot-Watt University                    Janet    <davidf@uk.ac.hw.cs>
}79 Grassmarket                            UUCP     ..!mcvax!hwcs!davidf 
}Edinburgh, Scotland                       Tel:     (UK) 31-25-6465 ext 553
}-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is no one else offended by this?  The key to exterminating these
bugs, worms, viruses, whatever, lies not in hiding the facts.  The
answer is knowledge.  Even the US government has realized that
secrecy is by no means equivalent to security.  Witness the NBS's
DES (National Bureau of Standards' Data Encryption Standard).  The
essence of its security lies not in the fact that the encoding
scheme is some (hard-to-maintain) secret, but rather in the fact that
a clever way has been found to take advantage of what is today a
known computationally "difficult" problem.

How can anyone expect to ever surmount these difficulties by
hiding them?  And this from an academic institution!  I dread
to think just how wide-spread this plague would be if everyone
tried to hush it up.

Regardless of how well-intentioned the author may be, I am
appalled at his methods.  If the computing community ever hopes
to deal effectively with this problem, we must first understand
it.

Mr. Ferbrache, perhaps you have already been through this discussion
within your own group.  If so, could you tell us why you chose
to make this project secretive?  I don't consider "knowledge is
dangerous" a suitable reason.

--
Jim Wright
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu