🚀 go-pugleaf

Jonathan E. Oberg wrote:
> QUESTION: Will new live viruses spread effectively without new
> techniques??
>
 [lots of good stuff deleted for space]

> With the increase of scan/resident/other virus programs, and a
> significant decrease in the time between when a virus is detected and
> the information on that virus is published, the time a virus has
> available to spread is shortened, perhaps below the critical level
> necessary for success.

I agree. Everyone fears a "great plague" type of virus but we won't
get one. When the Black Death swept across Europe, medical science was
still throwing leeches at problems. We are beyond the "leech" stage
and will effectively combat any hyper-virus.

Worth remembering when using the medical analogy for viruses that
humans have created these binary beasts (: not nature.

Everyone has now become a virus "expert". I have heard tales (from my
own department) of a one-byte hyper-code self-extracting virus. If I
ever find it, I'm going to analyse it and make a fortune in data
compression routines!

The point I want to make is that while people like ourselves stay
restrained, others like to panic and this panic causes a lot more
damage than most viruses. In that sense, a virus that gets a lot
of media attention but causes little actual damage could be called
successful because of mental damage. Also, people lose their jobs
over one case of Stoned; now that's REAL damage :-<

> Is the stoned virus, for example, so prevelent because it is well
> designed and/or defeats virus detection, or because it proceded the
> large increase in sites with virus detection programs. Does not, in

I would say that Stoned is so successful because it exploits a flaw in
the PC architecture which is also our main ally in the fight against
viruses - booting from floppy. How many times have you seen a student
put their disk in the PC then switch it on? I do it by mistake myself
sometimes. Whether the author was a great visionary(!) or got lucky
doesn't matter, he was the first(?) to use the technique.

I doubt that we will see too many original techniques because we (not
I!)  know about every aspect of the PC, unlike the human body.

> Without a continual influx of successful viruses, that is new
> techniques, the only marketable force behind upgrades and/or market
> share are dead viruses.

Cruel. Perhaps virus fighters ought to remember that their ultimate
goal, like doctors, is to make themselves redundant.
- --
James Nash, Computing Services, Coventry Polytechnic, England