From: vporguen@unlinfo.unl.edu (victor porguen)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Re: Virus Advice needed
Date: 31 Dec 1992 03:31:38 GMT
Organization: University of Nebraska--Lincoln	
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: unlinfo.unl.edu

 

> There are only a few cases of diskettes actually being infected 
> in the original duplication process, but there have been quite a 
> few isolated cases of stores accepting returned software, and 
> re-shrinkwrapping it.

Such unrelated, widely separate and different processes cannot be 
logically connected in any quantitative sense as above. For example, 
how many "re-wrappings" are being considered, vs. how many "original 
duplications"?  Nobody knows how many time stores have rewrapped 
returned software.  Certainly, the writer of the above sentence 
doesn't know.  So why engage in these unprovable speculations?

As far as inclusion of computer "viruses" into disks, viruses
are incorporated at various stages of a disk's life and as a result
of a variety of actions and processes.  NO ONE has made any
validated studies of whether software returned for credit to a 
software store ends up being more or less "infected" than software
that is not so handled.  The INFERENCE is that it MIGHT be, but
inferences are often wrong.  Especially in the virus/antivirus
business,  were crazy rumors are often started and encouraged by 
vendors of antivirus software, obviously in their own interest, 
and usually without any substantiation that can be independently 
verified.  Until somebody can show me verifiable figures, I'll
continue calling it what it is: bullshit.

> Of course companies aren't "known" for spreading viruses.
>
>>Oh, they are...but only a few of them, though...
>

I interpreted the use of the expression "known" by the original 
poster mainly to mean "widely known" or "generally known". I am sure 
that some companies have, at one time or another, contributed to 
spread viruses, but I probably would not say that they are 
"generally known" to have done so.  

For example, it would seem obvious that the ONLY COMPANIES that 
would strongly benefit financially from the creation and spread of 
computer viruses are the antivirus software vendors.  But it would 
be risky to say that they are "generally known" to do so.  Perhaps 
"strongly suspected" would be a better term?  What do readers here
think?

> Have you never heard of Virus-exchange BBSes - they sure are known 
> for that practice...

I wouldn't call such systems "Companies", they mostly seem hobby 
systems, although they certainly could be commercial. 

But I _have_ heard some interesting stories about how some of them 
went about getting sudden hoards of initial "samples" and/or 
restocking their supplies... Many of the viruses in the collections
of the virus exchange BBSs are so called "research viruses", given 
by their authors to one antivirus vendor or another. Some of them 
have been secretely "marked" with special strings encrypted within 
their code.  All of a sudden, they show up on one of those virus-
exchange BBSs, still carrying the encrypted name of the antivirus 
vendor they were made for!

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    Victor Porguen                                      
    SMTP/Internet: vporguen@unlinfo.unl.edu             
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