From: crystal@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Crystal)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re: Commodity question
Date: 8 Jan 93 20:28:32 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
NNTP-Posting-Host: glia.biostr.washington.edu
Keywords: manuals documentation 2.04

In <38416@cbmvax.commodore.com> ross@cbmvax.commodore.com (Ross Hippely - Manuals) writes:
>In article <1993Jan7.222820.13563@hubcap.clemson.edu> charlet@hubcap.clemson.edu (Charles E "Rick" Taylor IV) writes:
>>crystal@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Crystal) writes:
>>
>>[Someone 's name deleted here ... sorry]
>[comments from Rick and Crystal on virtues/failings of _Using the System
>Software_ manual deleted]
>My responses to this are covered in a prior response, basically saying that
>there indeed seem to have been some gaps in the _UtSS_ index.

>>i.e. Someone who was not Crystal wrote:

No, it was me.. :>

>>>I found Enforcer on my HD, and I *know* I didn't put it there, and I couldn't
>>>find a reference in the 2.04 manual for it, so I got bugged enough to run a
>>>VIRUS CHECKER on the mysterious thing.  It was clean...but *geez* if a program
>>>is considered important enough to put in with the system software, at least
>>>DOCUMENT it!
>>
>>It's for systems with MMU's (normally 68030's and up).  They shoudl have still
>>supplied *some* sort of docs, though.

>Similarly, my previous response indicated that in general, stuff that is 
>undocumented should be left alone.  It's unlikely you'll get a virus on an

If it is undocumented, then it shouldn't even be included.  Not everyone who
buys a computer is programming whiz.  Nor do they understand not to play with
things that are undocumented.  If it's high-level developmental stuff, then it
should not be left out on the table, unattended, where the baby can get into it...

>undocumented should be left alone.  It's unlikely you'll get a virus on an
>original disk from Commodore.

Uh...I didn't KNOW it came from a Commodore disk.  All I knew was that I had
some strange program in my directory with a rather ominous sounding name that
*I* did not put there.  Then I saw it mentioned, and looked in the UtSS Index,
and didn't find it.  Someone else told me that the latest version was on an
FTP site somewhere.  THAT comment right there, said, 'HMMMM....I KNOW I didn't
get this from an FTP site, so HOW DID IT GET ON MY DISK?' and then checked it
with the VirusChecker, just incase SOMETHING I got off of FTP decided to 
create a virus file and call itself (ominously)  'Enforcer' just waiting for
me to try to run it out of curiosity. (which I did not do - BECAUSE I ALWAYS
RTFM *FIRST* - and there wasn't one in this case :<)

What is a newbie to think?  When I got this machine I tried to look up every
program I found on my drive. (Didn't understand a lot of it, and gave up the
idea).  I roam around FTP sites gathering stuff that could quite conceivably
have a virus.  Heck, I downloaded CHALLENGER just before the word came out
that there was a virus on a FISH disk!  Thankfully I hadn't gotten the chance
to run it!  But at the same time, that 'Enforcer' program could just as easily
have come from Challenger if I HAD run it.  And with no docs to support what
I knew *I* hadn't put on my disk, what's a newbie to think? 

So, why didn't I LOOK on the original system disk?  Because there were posts
saying that Enforcer was on an FTP site, and one saying that it was NOT part
of the system software.  So, if it was commercial, from C=, why would it be
on an FTP site?  Hence, I had to assume it had arrived on my HD by suspicious
means.

Crystal
  ;>

*sigh*