Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!biar!trebor
From: trebor@biar.UUCP (Robert J Woodhead)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: WARNING - POSSIBLE APRIL FOOLS VIRUS THAT TRASHES HARD DISKS
Keywords: VIRUS MALEVOLENT APRIL FOOLS
Message-ID: <424@biar.UUCP>
Date: 1 Apr 89 03:01:54 GMT
References: <423@biar.UUCP>
Reply-To: trebor@biar.UUCP (Robert J Woodhead)
Organization: Biar Games, Inc.
Lines: 25

The user that reported the hard disk trash has been unable to replicate
the problem on several machines that were networked to the machine which
lost it's hard disk.  However, he reports that one of his engineers ran
some new software (name unknown at this time) on the machine that died
just before it went down.

Unfortunately, my source cannot contact the engineer in question to get
more information until Monday.

Based on the (sketchy, to be sure) information I have, I don't think it's
a virus.  It is either a hardware problem, or it is a trojan horse.  While
I am tending towards the belief that it was just a hardware problem with
a scarey set of circumstances, I still think it may be prudent to keep
your system date from turning to April 1 for a while.  If there are any
viruses or Trojans set to trigger on April 1, best to wait and find out
rather than get caught.  I hope this is a false alarm; but better safe
than sorry.

If anyone hears of any reports of disk smashing on April 1, I would
appreciate getting details.

-- 
* Robert J Woodhead * The true meaning of life is cunningly encrypted and *
* uunet!biar!trebor * hidden somewhere in this signature...               *
* Biar Games, Inc.  *                       ...no, go back and look again *