Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!acns.nwu.edu!jln
From: jln@acns.nwu.edu (John Norstad)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Plans for Disinfectant 2.0
Message-ID: <3467@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 2 Feb 90 20:48:36 GMT
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In the announcement of Disinfectant 1.6 I mentioned that I'm working on 
version 2.0, and I thought you might be interested in some of the things 
I've been planning and working on.  Version 2.0 will be a major new 
release.

* 2.0 will be a real non-modal application, with a menu bar, multiple 
windows, support for DAs, MultiFinder program switching, scanning in the 
background, etc.

* More and better clone detection and repair capabilities.

* Much improved online document, with screen shots and other pictures.  
You can print both reports and the online document, with user-selectable 
font, font size, and margins.  The printed document will have a title 
page, table of contents, page headers, intelligent page breaks, and other 
nice formatting features.  Version 2.0 actually has a miniature built-in 
text formatter just to do this nice printing of the document.  All of this 
code is reusable, and will be available to anybody who might want to 
implement a similar documentation and help system in their own program.

* Version 2.0 will be configurable.  I plan to use a scheme similar to the 
one Jeff Shulman uses in Virus Detective.

* You will be able to schedule scans.  E.g., wake up at 3 am and scan all 
of your AppleShare servers.

* Version 2.0 will come with a new protection INIT designed for use by 
novices.  It will only catch the known viruses.  It will NOT be a general-
purpose suspicious activity monitor.  People who want the stronger protection
offered by the fancier and bigger INITs can use Chris Johnson's excellent
Gatekeeper INIT.  There's no need for me to reinvent that wheel.  My INIT will 
be completely idiot-proof and very tiny - just throw it in your system folder 
and reboot.  It will not be configurable, and will never ask the user to make 
a complicated decision.

* 2.0 will include checksumming - scan a disk, compute checksums, save the 
checksums, come back a week later, scan and checksum again, compare new 
checksums to saved checksums, report which files have changed and how.  
This is the only really good way to detect new viruses.

* 2.0 launches much faster than 1.6 - just a few seconds.

* The online doc window comes up much faster than in 1.6 - almost 
instantaneously.

* 2.0 includes a context-sensitive online help system.  E.g., click on an 
error message, and the document comes up scrolled to the detailed 
description of that error.

* There are some very interesting possibilities involving the new 
inter-application communications feature of Apple's system 7.0.  For 
example, other programs could send messages to Disinfectant asking it to 
scan and/or repair files on their behalf, and send back a report.  This 
kind of thing probably won't be in Disinfectant 2.0, but I'm beginning to 
consider the possibilities.

Don't hold your breath waiting for 2.0.  I have a real job, and I mostly 
work on Disinfectant at home at night and on the weekends.  I'm in a 
coding frenzy right now, and the work is going well (maybe half of the 
stuff listed above already works), but it will still be at least several 
months before the new version is released.

Also, don't take any of this as promises - I may decide not to implement 
something I listed above for some good (or bad) reason.  It's just a list 
of my current ideas and tentative plans.  I'm posting it here because 
I know people are interested, and I have nothing to gain by keeping it all
a big secret.

There are four aspects to fighting the virus problem:

a) Detection.
b) Repair.
c) Protection.
d) Education.

Disinfectant 1.6 does a good job in categories a) and b), and an excellent 
job in category d).  Version 2.0 will be even better in these three 
categories, and will also cover the missing category c).  What I'm 
striving for is a complete solution to the Mac virus problem all in a 
single package (in fact, in a single file).

Of course, with all this new stuff, I'll have to charge double - the 
program will still be free :-)

John Norstad
Northwestern University
jln@acns.nwu.edu