Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!mailrus!ncar!boulder!stan!dce
From: dce@stan.UUCP (David Elliott)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Hang due to floppy copy -- update
Message-ID: <595@salgado.stan.UUCP>
Date: 16 Mar 89 06:11:28 GMT
References: <581@salgado.stan.UUCP> <376@biar.UUCP> <466@lakesys.UUCP>
Reply-To: dce@salgado.UUCP (David Elliott)
Distribution: na
Organization: Solbourne Computer Inc., Longmont, Colorado
Lines: 38

In article <466@lakesys.UUCP> macak@lakesys.UUCP (James Macak) writes:
>In article <376@biar.UUCP> trebor@biar.UUCP (Robert J Woodhead) writes:
>>1) You were downloading programs.  What does this suggest?
>>2) Why would the desktop need to be rebuilt after this?
>
>It might be good to add one point to the recommendations made by Mr. Woodhead:
>if you indeed _do_ find that a virus was causing these problems, please get in
>touch with the source of the suspect software (the stuff you were downloading
>that was likely carrying the virus) and warn them that a virus is present in
>those files.

First of all, I think that Bob was a little careless when he posted
this.  Viruses are indeed a problem, but we don't need people making
statements that infer that downloading programs will always result in
viruses.  After all, just because viruses can imitate real system
problems doesn't mean that system problems don't exist.

In my case, I believe that it is fairly clear that my problem was not
a virus.  First of all, I run virus detection programs every day.
Secondly, the only places I have downloaded from recently are sumex
and NCSA.  Finally, I was able to cause this problem booting from a
locked floppy which was scanned for viruses.  I did say in my first
posting that I was sure that the problem was not a virus.

My current theory is that this was caused by bad bundle bits that
caused my desktop to bloat.  Even when I rebuilt the desktop a week
before the problem happened, it was taking over 30 seconds to update
the desktop.  Now that my system has been completely restored, the
update takes less than 5 seconds.  I also noticed that about 3 weeks
ago, StuffIt archives began appearing as archives belonging to
applications that had just been added to the system.

I do agree, Jim, that if someone finds a virus that they should
locate the carriers and warn people.  We're all in this together.

-- 
David Elliott		...!pyramid!boulder!stan!dce
"Splish splash, I was rakin' in the cash"  -- Eno