Article View: comp.virus
Article #4362"Benevolent" Viruses
From: A. Padgett Peterson
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 19:52
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 19:52
48 lines
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2342 bytes
>From: bontchev@fbihh.informatik.uni-hamburg.de (Vesselin Bontchev)
>This is a result of the misunderstanding of the definitions. I know at
>least three anti-virus packages, which are "benevolent viruses",
>according to Dr. Cohen's definition. The supervisor installs them on
>the LAN server -once- and each time a user logs in, the package
>automatically installs (or updates) itself on the user's workstation.
>Therefore, the package propagates from the server to the workstations
>like a virus (or like a worm, if we want to be precise).
The interesting fact is that as far as I know this is a concept that
was originally discussed here on V-L with explicit specification two
years ago (before Fred's contest in fact - Anthony ?).
>There's nothing bad in the above...Therefore, there are no ethical problems
>involved - - if you don't like that policy, don't use that LAN.
Exactly. The same argument may be used about privacy concerns and ANI/
Caller-ID dial-up logging.
Warmly,
Padgett
Just as a final final note, for those who do not wish to bother
with DEBUG to determine which DOS 5.00 CHKDSK.EXE you have and
do not trust dates, the following PKZIP CRC-32 and VALIDATE
results are given:
PKUNZIP (R) FAST! Extract Utility Version 1.1 03-15-90
Length Date Time CRC-32 Name
------ ---- ---- ------ ----
16200 04-09-91 05:00 8e2aba28 CHKDSK.EXE (dangerous)
16200 11-11-91 05:00 59dbaefb CHKDSK.EXE (with "bug fix")
McAfee Validate 0.3 numbers:
File Name: chkdsk.exe
Size: 16,200
Date: 11-11-1991
File Authentication:
Check Method 1 - 19D8
Check Method 2 - 16E2
"Most version numbers have the same relation to reality as the Chevrolet
horsepower figures that put a '67 Z-28 @ 290 and a '69 L-88 at 430"
(and are probably produced by the same people).
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!cert!netnews.upenn.edu!netnews.cc.lehigh.edu!news From: padgett@tccslr.dnet.mmc.com (A. Padgett Peterson) Newsgroups: comp.virus Subject: "Benevolent" Viruses Message-ID: <0018.9212181845.AA00632@barnabas.cert.org> Date: 17 Dec 92 19:52:07 GMT Sender: virus-l@lehigh.edu Lines: 48 Approved: news@netnews.cc.lehigh.edu