Return-Path: XPUM04@prime-a.central-services.umist.ac.uk Received: from G.SEI.CMU.EDU by ubu.cert.sei.cmu.edu (5.61/2.3) id AA03526; Tue, 19 Jun 90 07:22:54 -0400 Received: from SEI.CMU.EDU by g.sei.cmu.edu (5.61/2.5) id AA28675; Tue, 19 Jun 90 07:22:27 -0400 Received: from nsfnet-relay.ac.uk by sei.cmu.edu (5.61/2.3) id AA01642; Tue, 19 Jun 90 07:21:49 -0400 Received: from sun.nsfnet-relay.ac.uk by vax.NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK via Janet with NIFTP id aa05228; 19 Jun 90 9:38 BST From: Anthony Appleyard To: DAVIDF@cs.heriot-watt.ac.uk Date: Tue, 19 Jun 90 09:39:04 BST Message-Id: <$TGWFCWKBBCTF at UMPA> Subject: Here is Virus-L vol 0 #0907 Virus-L Digest Wed, 7 Sep 88, Volume 0 : Issue #0907 Today's Topics Re: Virus wars Hypercard as a virus vector ** no subject, date = Wed, 7 Sep 88 10:16:44 EDT Re: Virus wars Legality Virus vs. Virus Virus Legislation Re: Virus vs. Virus Hypercard as a virus vector Different Operating Systems Suits for Viruses 'Good' Viruses Virus wars ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Sep 88 09:14:36 SET From: "Christian J. Reichetzeder" Subject: Re: Virus wars In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 6 Sep 88 10:19:00 CDT from >> From: WHMurray%DOCKMASTER.ARPA@cunyvm.cuny.edu >> Viruses are the tools of the immature, the sneaks, and the cowards; not >> those of the hero. >That could be said of the atom bomb, too, but when the time came it was used, >it worked, and it probably saved countless lives. I don't intend to spend my >time writing viri, but if my country is threatened and a virus is what it >takes to alleviate the threat, you're going to see me crank out a virus so >fast it makes your head spin! >Malcolm Petcher >Texas Instruments, Inc. It did save lives, yeah? Even it did it did so only because no one else had it. If the Japanese would've had it then ... And if "your country" - as you want to see it - is threatened (by "someone elses country", I assume) and you decide to release a virus I feel you are threatening my country also (or can you guarantee that "my country" is spared?) and I will not hesitate to take appropriate counter-action and ... you see where this leads to. And maybe I should start right now - my country is threatened by atom bombs since they were invented. So all countries with ICBMs and nuclear warheads watch out! *flame off* Christian -------------------- Date: Wed, 7 Sep 88 08:24:07 EST From: Joe Simpson Subject: Hypercard as a virus vector The famous "birthday" virus is reported to have been introduced into a hypercard stack loaded onto compuserve. As a general answer, hypercard is a fertile medium for virus infestations. HyperTalk itself contains many commands supportive of this end and there are publicly available extensions as XCFN's and XCMD's that will finish the job. -------------------- Date: Wed, 7 Sep 88 10:16:44 EDT From: OJA@NCCIBM1 In an earlier posting warning about human frailities and computer security, it seems that the intense dramitic scenario touched off a discussion about viruses in warfare. Fascinating exchange of comments but I should put an important comment here... The scenarios were extreme case. The depiction of viruses used for "political" reasons was intended to be depicted as being sought by groups more used to working outside of the regular conventions of law, and other social constraints. Most likely candidates if this were ever to happen would be terrorist groups which are already oriented to working outside of normal bounds. Besides this orientation, another factor enters- the difference in perspective from that of governmennts. Many governments would be far more cautious realizing that they have much to lose and that they have a "return address" should some crazy "viruses war" scheme be attempted and discovered. They also know, hopefully, the danger of things getting out of control when the modes of C3I - communications, command, control, and intelligence - get severely disrupted. Such disruption rather than leading to miltary or political success could, in this age, lead to a lethal panic. So, I doubt that as a form of "warfare" viruses would be serious considered by most countries. For "outsider" groups, the changes are higher. But still very low, except for small scale harrassment. I have gotten reports on some groups using variety of computer means to harrass opposing groups. But these have very localized and very temporary. (And quite illegal.) The overall picture of terrorism and computers is that if terrorist want to disrupt a computer center, they used more crude, physical means- arson, explosives, etc. To date, there has been no substantiated report of computer viruses used for political / terroristic motives. (The Hebrew University case was reported in some articles in US papers as a politically motivated viruses. That was an erroneous report. The allegation may have happened from the combination of "excitment" on the part of the writers and from an easy misunder- standing or misrendition of the Hebrew word Mechabel (can mean either saboteur or a terrorist.)) So this picture of "virus wars" is mentioned as possibilty among many others, but a low probability one. The biggest threat of viruses still remains the "hackers" and the innocent vectors. As for the specific targetted use of viruses, the greater likelihood would be "insiders" seeking revenge or some other self-oriented goal. -------------------- Date: Wed, 7 Sep 88 10:56:18 CDT From: "James N. Bradley" Subject: Re: Virus wars In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 7 Sep 88 09:14:36 SET Gentlemen, Gentlemen... War is not an instance of rational minds at work. Rather, it is the failure of rational minds. Viruses also might be considered a failure of an otherwise rational mind. Regardless, in the event of a war, I think we can assume that both sides will be doing whatever they can to disrupt whatever they can. I think the question should be something on the order of "Will the exchange of computer viruses be so detrimental that no one will instigate it?" This is approximately the situation with nuclear weapons. As with nuclear weapons, both sides may seek the capacity to win with a first strike, but neither is likely to achieve that capacity given the "roughly" equal resources. This presumes of course, that this warrants further discussion on this list. JB -------------------- Date: Wed, 7 Sep 88 10:55:00 MDT From: Bernie Subject: Legality If you get infected by an original piece of software straight from the manufacturer, can you sue the software company in question for damages? -------------------- Date: Wed, 7 Sep 88 10:54:00 MDT From: Bernie Subject: Virus vs. Virus Since many of the virus out there have been identified, why doesn't someone write a "good" virus which can hunt them down and remove them? Fight fire with fire. I was recently hit by a virus on an SE which blasted the hard drive. Lots of work down the tubes by a worm I've never seen before. -------------------- Date: Wed, 7 Sep 88 19:01:00 EDT From: "Daniel M. Greenberg" Subject: Virus Legislation I'm not going to go on a long strung lecture about this, but I don't feel that viruses should be illegal to write for several reasons. First of all, it would be virtually impossible to monitor this to the extent necessary for it to be taken seriously and obeyed. Take software piracy- illegal, unmonitored, and rampant - nobody is afraid of being prosecuted for copying a piece of software because it doesnt happen. Second of, its a matter of freedom. Many anti-porn people think that all pornography should be taken off the newsstands and not allowed to be sold. That in itself would be a crime- to take away one's freedom of choice. Nobody is forcing a person to buy such reading material if they don't want it. What I write as a programmer sould be my own business! Many viruses are contracted by people that download unknown software from bulletin boards. If they didn't download it, it wouldn't have propegated in their system. Every time you download something- you take a risk that it has a nasty virus. If you go to a store and buy a program, you can expect it to be "clean". I believe that the concept should be something like this: It should be illegal to write or distribute software that is intentionally made to destroy information of any sort - unless that is the intention of the software, and quite clearly stated so. One purpose of a virus could be: a small company doesnt want any of its employees stealing its confidential database/software/etc- so they install a time-bomb, and keep resetting it periodically, but if an emmployee were to steal the disk, they wouldn't know how to reset it, and it would self-destruct. Also, any software written out of malace to intentionally destroy information should be anywhere from a misdemeanor to a felony depending on the scope of the damage/criminal record/etc. I believe that the most important area to focus on at first is the corporate/ university level. This is where the most dammage can be caused. Viruses entering corporations/schools have been known to have devastating damage- and thus should be dealt with very strictly. Basically, what I'm saying is that one should be able to write whatever one wants to- consider it freedom of the press, supression is not the american way, however if one actually uses a virus- then action should be taken. Remember: you can talk about shooting the president, there's nothing illegal about that, but if you actually do so: then you are legally liable. You have the freedom to make your own decisions and then decide the consequences. Box # 1026 Daniel M. Greenberg 25 Andrews Memorial Drive Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester, NY 14623 Computer Engineering Technology '92 BITNET : DMG4449@RITVAX INTERNET : dmg4449%ritvax.bitnet@CORNELLC.CCS.CORNELL.EDU UUCP : {psuvax1,mcvax}!ritvax.bitnet!dmg4449 Compuserve : 71641,1311 GEnie: D.GREENBERG2 PHONENET : [716] 475-4295 "The answer is 42." "I hate quotations." (Deep Thought) (Ralph Waldo Emerson) -------------------- Date: Wed, 7 Sep 88 19:05:23 EDT From: ENGNBSC@BUACCA Subject: Re: Virus vs. Virus In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 7 Sep 88 10:54:00 MDT Re: "Good" virus Hmmm - sounds like some genetic research controversies lately... Actually, I would rather blow away the infected files and go to my most recent backup then risk putting a virus in - What if the "good" virus gets perverted? (could be almost as fun as the micro copy protection battles...) Besides, why do with a virus what can be done with a normal program? For the Apple //s, there are a number of programs that look for symptoms of known viruses and inform you of their presence - the same task I take it that your "good" virus would perform. The added risk of a virus just doesn't justify to me the risks involved when all I need to do is run a virus detector on any executable additions to my system, and every once in a while to catch any requiring an incubation period. -------------------- Date: Wed, 7 Sep 88 20:22:31 EDT From: David.Slonosky@QUEENSU.CA Subject: Hypercard as a virus vector In-Reply-To: What is Hypercard? Is it a command language like REXX, or what? __________________________________ | | David Slonosky/QueensU/CA,"",CA | Know thyself? | | If I knew myself, I'd run away. | |__________________________________| -------------------- Date: Wed, 7 Sep 88 20:28:01 EDT From: David.Slonosky@QUEENSU.CA Subject: Different Operating Systems I was just wondering what the relatvie susceptibility of each available operating system on the market was, in terms of security from viruses and other nasties. We can tell that IBM and PC/MS-DOS are fairly leaky just from reading this discussion. What about the operating systems of Ataris, Amigas, Macintoshes? Do they all share the same kind of open environment that DOS possesses? Is anyone more/less susceptible to viruses? Are any of them harder/easier to write viruses for? Are any of them harder/easier to protect? I suspect the answer is that they are all equally vulnerable, but curiosity demands that I ask. >From previous items, I know that mainframes and such are the hardest to infect, so I won't ask about them here. __________________________________ | | David Slonosky/QueensU/CA,"",CA | Know thyself? | | If I knew myself, I'd run away. | |__________________________________| -------------------- Date: Wed, 7 Sep 88 21:54:00 EDT From: EAE114@URIMVS Subject: Suits for Viruses + If you get infected by an origional piece of software strait from the + Manufacturer, can you sue the software company .... ? Yes. You'd probably even win. You MIGHT even get compensation beyond the cost of the sofware and clean-up, but I doubt it. You can sue anybody for anything. Winning the suit is sometimes based on precedent, sometimes on who spends the most money, and frequently on random chance... -------------------- Date: Wed, 7 Sep 88 22:05:00 EDT From: EAE114@URIMVS Subject: 'Good' Viruses ... Why [not] write a "good" virus which can hunt them [bad viruses] down and remove them? 1: Its hard enough to predict what a program is going to do on YOUR system. What it does on someone elses, and the systemic behavior as it propagates is REALLY hard to predict. 2: It is even easier to modify an existing virus that used to be 'good' than it is to write a 'bad' virus. (not that either one is hard...) 3: In order for your 'GOOD' virus to survive, you must leave holes in your security. These holes are available to 'bad' viruses as well as yours. 4: There is no need for a virus killer to be self-propagating. People are perfectly willing to run the virus-killers by themselves. Inserting the virus-killing code INTO other programs serves no purpose. > (Eristic: EAE114@URIMVS) -------------------- Date: Wed, 7 Sep 88 22:34:00 CDT From: PETCHER%eg.csc.ti.com@RELAY.CS.NET Subject: Virus wars > From: "James N. Bradley" > Gentlemen, Gentlemen... > War is not an instance of rational minds at work. Rather, it is the failure > of rational minds. Viruses also might be considered a failure of an otherwise > rational mind. Regardless, in the event of a war, I think we can assume that > both sides will be doing whatever they can to disrupt whatever they can. Exactly. It is a time of desparation, and desparate measures are taken, if they offer the hope of an end to the war on terms acceptable to whoever takes the measure. > I think the question should be something on the order of "Will the exchange of > computer viruses be so detrimental that no one will instigate it?" This is > approximately the situation with nuclear weapons. As with nuclear weapons, > both sides may seek the capacity to win with a first strike, but neither is > likely to achieve that capacity given the "roughly" equal resources. Though I initiated that analogy, I must point out a major difference: Viri are capable of being stealthy. A modern nuclear attack would quickly be followed by retaliation, and quite likely a no-win situation for both parties. The use of nuclear weapons in WWII was successful because it was controlled and necessarily unilateral. Such would not be the case today. On the other hand, given the resources, it is possible a stealthy virus could be developed and injected into a target computer operated by some hypothetical enemy, that might do it's dirty work undetected - degrading system performance, perhaps causing the system to generate wrong results, or maybe simulating hardware failures. We haven't thus far seen a virus that behaves that way, only because the only known reasons for anybody to write a virus so far have been misguided mischief, and perhaps revenge. When and if the reasons for creating viri change, the behavior of them will change as well. Malcolm Petcher,, Texas Instruments, Inc. -------------------- *** end of Virus-L issue ***