From: aglover@acorn.co.uk (Alan Glover)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Micro User - general
Date: 6 Apr 92 08:33:27 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, England

In article <1992Apr3.151331.29291@cs.nott.ac.uk> smb@cs.nott.ac.uk (Simon Burrows) writes:

This could go on and on - I'm sticking to factual points, and won't
reply again. I believe posting the original message was a mistake,
so I'm aiming to balance the record here. Please consider whether
it's worth replying to this - I'd rather it just faded away....

>It was good to see that the Micro User sent out a letter warning magazine
>subscribers that their disc was infected with the Module virus, unlike
>Archimedes World who left it to spread for a couple of months before taking
>any proper action.

A couple of months is wrong. MoViKil was put on the following month's
magazine disc, and the licensed copy of !Killer 1.26 on the one after.

Copies of the issue concerned were withdrawn from sale.

>With regards to the Micro User virus problem, I received a phone call from the
>Editor of the Micro User (Steve Turnbull) a few days ago. His words were that
>'the situation is very embarrassing'. This is especially true since the
>infected disc contained a copy of John Kortink's programs to kill the Module
>virus, along with a warning about this 'new' virus.

Both examples of the virus were within archives. Which meant that
MoViKil couldn't find them unless specifically set up to scan through
ARCFS.

MoViKill was written as a rapid response to the discovery of the
virus. It will not open archived files to check them (NB, !Killer
1.30+ will....).

>When I went on to quiz him about why Alan Glover's !Killer hadn't been used
>to check the disc, he claimed that the first time he saw !Killer was when it
>was distributed on the Archimedes World and RISC User discs. He asked me how
>it was that they had received a copy AND permission to distribute it, whilst
>he had not even heard of it. He said that he did not even get a copy through
>the distribution with Developer's Newsletters. I explained how it was that
>AW and RU magazines had been licensed to distribute it on their discs.

I'm surprised the disc wasn't enclosed with the Developer's
Newsletter (issue 25, dated February 1992) - a disc went with
almost every copy (there are some exceptions, but Europress isn't one
of them).

It was also referred to in the text of the newsletter. 

We wrote 'Please find on the enclosed disc, a copy of Killer which will 
"disinfect" your discs of any virus known to Acorn at the time of writing.
Please use it on any master disc before it is sent for duplication'. 

Given that, I would have expected Micro User to have obtained a copy,
if one wasn't sent originally. 

!killer 1.17 was released in December 1991. !killer 1.26 was finalised in
January 1992, and has been released through various channels since. 

I'm somewhat surprised that they were unaware of it until it appeared on
the Archimedes World discs.

>Far more than this was said, but it would be wrong to broadcast it all.

I'm don't think this much was a good idea.

>The overall message was that he claims that Acorn do not provide the Micro
>User with nearly as much support as certain other magazines.

I can't confirm or deny this, but if it's true it's certainly not
deliberate.

Alan
From: omoduser@hpbbi4.BBN.HP.COM (#Notes Login Ralf Klein)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 15:01:21 GMT
Subject: File Mgr / Keyplus ?
Organization: Hewlett-Packard GmbH