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From: urlichs@smurf.ira.uka.de (Matthias Urlichs)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: nVIR (was Re: Mac Viruses: How long before...?)
Message-ID: <882@smurf.ira.uka.de>
Date: 22 Mar 89 10:18:41 GMT
References: <709@unocss.UUCP> <380@biar.UUCP> <1416@ccnysci.UUCP>
Reply-To: urlichs@smurf.ira.uka.de (Matthias Urlichs)
Organization: University of Karlsruhe, FRG
Lines: 39

In comp.sys.mac alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen) writes:
< In article <380@biar.UUCP> trebor@biar.UUCP (Robert J Woodhead) writes:
< >
< >In general, not much at all.  No known nVIR virus is malevolent.  Most
< >do nothing.  Some attempt to speak or make sounds.
< 
< Well. Fortunately, that appears to be true now. However, the original nVIR
< *WAS* malevolent, deleting files once out of every sixteen times. Whatever
< people say about Mattias Urlichs' common sense, we probably have him to
< thank that that strain is now, apparently, extinct.
< 
You can say that about my common sense again.
(BTW, my first name is Matthias :-)

Unfortunately, at the time this virus first appeared (it seems to have
originated in Germany), numerous people (including Apple Germany) did not
believe it was possible for virus code to exist on the Macintosh.

And because this critter was really malevolent I didn't have any other
choice (no Usenet access, things like that) but either to sit tight and watch
people run screaming to their dealers because the System folder keeps
dropping files into the trashcan by itself, or to fight it back with its own
methods.
Pushing people to install KillVirus (my own nVIR-blocking INIT) did not work.

I wholeheartedly agree that letting people convince me to put part of the
sources onto CompuServe's MACDEV library (that was some months later) was
not very bright of me. But I think I've improved since then. :-)

PS: Last year's April edition of MacUp (a German Mac magazine) described
in detail how to perform the ultimate virus protection:
Open your disks and slide a condom over the rotating surfaces inside.
Then glue the open end of the condom and put the disk back into its
envelope.
This, incidentally, is also an argument pro buying Macintoshes because IBM
disks (5 1/4 ") are too big to get condoms over them. :-)
-- 
Matthias Urlichs -- Humboldtstrasse 7 -- 7500 Karlsruhe 1 -- FRG
urlichs@smurf.ira.uka.de -- ++49+721-621127@PTT