From: purp@wixer.cactus.org (Jim Meyer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: The answer Re: Virus vs disk compression
Date: 14 Oct 1992 01:44:21 -0500
Organization: Real/Time Communications
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu


Please consider this a submission for posting on comp.sys.mac.announce
as a rebuttal of your own argument.

	[ I considered it, but I do not approve it.  The only reason
	  I occassionally "spill" such discussions into the announce
	  group, is that I consider the topic and discussion as rather
	  important, enough so to try and attract attention to it; I hope
	  that everyone you want to reach has decided to start monitoring
	  the discussion thread here; but under no circumstances do I think
	  I should allow continued discussions to take place in CSMA;
	  rebuttals of my argument shouldn't be an issue, but if other
	  people want to occassionally use "the pulpit" (of CSMA) to attract
	  attention for an "important issue", I'd welcome that (but reserve
	  judgement case-by-case)

	  I do use "the trick" of making a somewhat opinionated  editorial
	  statement sometimes, but I figure that to be a "necessary evil",
	  a convincing tool, rather than "a personal pulpit" to be used with
	  any regularity.
				---Werner (CSMA moderator)
	]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
In article <ldkttrINNq7@dimebox.cs.utexas.edu>, werner@cs.utexas.edu
 (Werner Uhrig) says:
> Jim.Kauffman@f20.n3603.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Jim Kauffman) writes:
>
>>...an article suggesting that "While any disk compacting utility, 
>>such as Disk Doubler, or Auto-Doubler, is active, your Virus protection 
>>software is rendered virtually useless." I will assume by this statement 
>>that they mean to include other utilities such as More Disk Space, 
>>SpaceSaver, and others as well.
>
>> Can anyone offer authoritative refutation or confirmation?
>
>	I suspect part of the problem is either in poor presentation
>	of the problem context, or poor understanding of the problem
>	(or both) by the author of the Information Systems newsletter
>	article...

Though I haven't read the cited article, I will say that if that quote
is accurate and not out of context, I object to its implications. Your
anti-viral software is FULLY functional still when working with any
uncompressed files that your virus protector would normally screen. As
for the compressed files, any virus protector such as SAM or GateKeeper
will still notify you of virus-like activity once the file is
uncompressed and in use.

>	...on one hand, when a file is "compressed" (stuffed), it isn't
>	easy for anti-virals to protect the (now data, and not executable)
>	file (resource forks) from "getting modified" - if for no other
>	reason than that the anti-virals don't usually try to protect
>	data-files....

For the most part, true. But then again, I've yet to hear of a virus
that infects compressed data. Not that it's inconceivable, but it WOULD
be difficult.

>	on the other hand, a lot of those compacting utilities are so
>	poor in design and concept as to make (some) anti-virals useless
>	(because they were not designed and executed to be compatible with
>	the older - and certainly more important - anti-virals).

I will register my opinion on this after your expert source's.
>
>	or as a "usually well-informed source" just commented (to me):
>
>
>The best compression technique is compression at the disk driver level.
>Golden Triangle has one such, and I know of at least one more company
>with one just about ready.  This technique avoids many of the nasty
>patching strategies currently in use by many of the compression utilities.

Agreed. But, as yet, I've not heard nor seen any of these schemes
available to the general public, nor one that is universal to all
drives. This is not to say they don't exist; rather, if they do, they
are poorly marketed.

>Most of them I've seen so far are hacks.  They use the system in
>less-than-compatible ways.  Some of them use unsupported internal
>system mechanisms.  These vendors should be ashamed of themselves.
>
>The fact that they are not compatible with useful, nay, essential system
>utilities (anti-virus protection) only serves to demonstrate their
>disregard for the user, the very persons a vendor has an obligation to.
>
>The cheap attempts by these vendors to characterize one category of
>software as of no consequence deserve to be challenged.  If they are
>unable to achieve compatibility, they must take responsibility for
>their inability rather than pointing the finger of blame at other vendors.

Funny, that. I've been using DiskDoubler since it's inception; I decided
at a MacWorld/San Francisco, after meeting and talking with Terry Morse
and Lloyd Chambers, that their product sounded quite useful. After the
usual bugs present in most v1.0 software were squashed, I've had no
significant problems with it. And this is over two years of hard
experience with the program and such anti-virals as Disinfectant,
Gatekeeper, SAM, and Virex.

>	So there - authoritative enough for a Tuesday morning ?	;-)
>
>	From day one, I have recommended against using those "on-the-fly"
>	compression utilities - and I don't need to hear from anyone who
>	"has used them without problems", because every user uses them
>	"without problems", because when you experience one of the problems,
>	you go "cold turkey" real quick !

I am sorry you feel this way. I cannot begin to enumerate the money I
have saved my company in both media and drives by the simple use of
these "transparent" compression utilities. On the average, DD saves me
roughly 50-60 percent of the space a file would have taken up
uncompressed; in extreme cases (many of the graphics files I work with),
it saves up to 80% of the original size of the file. And, to date, I've
lost no files due to its functions, nor have any of my compressed files
been virally affected.

[the following paragraph may be deleted if you wish without any offense
 taken by me; otherwise, remove this pair of lines, please.]

I realize that you requested users not reply with "I've used them
together without problems" type messages; however, I feel that your
attack on what is such a useful tool, said attack being made in a
newsgroup you moderate -- a newsgroup that many thousands of Mac users
look to for information (myself included, which you may take as a
compliment to your moderation skills) -- was both damaging and
misleading. I hope that you will post this in order to restore the
balance that comp.sys.mac.announce has always had.

In closing, I would like to state clearly that I am not affiliated with
*any* software company, either anti-viral or compression.

--Jim
-- 
+--------------------------------------------+-------------------------+
|  Julien Finaudere' du Main Pourpre         |  Jim Meyer DoD#680      |
|  Collegium Turris Animarum, Bryn Gwlad     |  purp@wixer.cactus.org  |
+--------------------------------------------+-------------------------+
|        If no one else listens to my opinions, why should you?        |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+