Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!xanth!mcnc!rutgers!ucsd!ucbvax!DOCKMASTER.DCA.MIL!TMPLee
From: TMPLee@DOCKMASTER.DCA.MIL
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: viruses in BASIC
Message-ID: <890317162822.491694@DOCKMASTER.ARPA>
Date: 17 Mar 89 16:28:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 10

I had even thought about a self-modifying BASIC program!  If you look at
the book from Abacus on viruses ("Hi-Tech Crimes" or something like that
is in its title) there even are examples of BASIC viruses.  My point is
that with reads and writes (PRINT D$ ...)  embedded in a fairly complex
program that "computes" what it is reading and writing in string
variables you could end up with a BASIC program that is not at all easy
to understand; I have seen plenty of "ordinary" BASIC programs wirtten
with cryptic variable names, no comments, and no clear structure that it
would take a lot of work to understand well enough to convince oneself
they were clean.