Re: CONTEST: Name That Program!

At 11:45 AM 1/30/96 -0500, Nathaniel Borenstein <nsb@nsb.fv.com> wrote:
> In fact, I'd settle for getting onto 10% of the machines, although I
> suspect I could get onto more like 80% without raising a sweat.

You've alleged that Macs and Unixen should be about as easy as Windows
machines to crack with your CardShark.  I disagree - most Mac users I
know have been using virus protectors more consistently and reliably
than DOS/Windows users.  However, if their virus software only stops
known viruses, rather than anything modifying critical resources,
you might get away with it for long enough to surf some numbers.

Unix is a much tougher case - while there have been a couple of viruses,
they don't spread very well, even when everyone uses the same binary
formats.  B2 helps, of course; B1 configured reasonably should also work.

...
>Case closed.  Your argument would hold a lot more weight if you could
>convince me that the average Internet consumer was going to rebuild his
>UNIX kernel every few weeks. 

I suspect a machine that gets rebuilt every week may be _more_ at risk :-)

#--
#				Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com, Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281
# http://www.idiom.com/~wcs

> Unix is a much tougher case - while there have been a couple of viruses,
> they don't spread very well, even when everyone uses the same binary
> formats.  B2 helps, of course; B1 configured reasonably should also work.

Most people are very nervous about running binaries on a unix box that
they get off the net, and nobody runs a setuid-to-root binary on their
system unless they paid $$$ for it and got it from a reputable vendor.  I
personally only run one binary on my machine that I didn't compile myself
- that's Netscape. 
--
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