HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: kep@calmasd.Prime.COM (Patteaswaran)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: Does DEMACS work reliably for anyone?
Keywords: demacs, brief, unix, msdos, editors
Date: 22 Dec 92 18:35:31 GMT
Organization: Computervision, San Diego, CA

Hi Emacs-loving-folks,

In article <1992Dec20.173946.20445@super.org> pcolsen@super.org (Peter C Olsen) writes:
>
>Does DEMACS work --- reliably?  I would appreciate email from anyone
>who has experience, either way. I have been trying to use DEMACS, but
>I have been unable to get it to work reliably.  It seems to be very
>sensitive to other software, either refusing to run or running
>"poorly" --- e.g. ignoring characters or doubling them.  Then, when it
>appears to be running well, it often hangs at odd times, losing my
>recent work.  Emacs is my favorite editor (by far) in the unix
>environment, and I had hoped to use it extensively in DOS, but, so
>far, I am still relying on BRIEF simply because I can't depend on
>DEMACS.
>
>Peter

About a week back I got a copy of DEMACS from the UC Berkely ftp site and
have been using it really successfully. I find that it is great.
Eventhough I did not attempt at doing a full QA of the S/W, I did use it
reasonably well. I have to admit that I was using the S/W with a
little bit of caution as you do with any new S/W. I don't claim that
it is perfect or anything, but in my opinion it looked pretty stable.

Like, once I used it for one full day from the morning to evening without
getting out of the Emacs session and it went fine. I used all the basic
editing features like yank, put, indent, enhanced-dired, etc.  At times I had
more than 10 buffers( read files ) during the session. I even did compilations
from within the demacs session. I ran the Borland C++ 3.1 'bcc' command
line compiler from within demacs and it went fine. Actually I used most of the
main editing features that a programmer will be using in his day-to-day
work.

Of course, all of us using the demacs will feel much more secure if someone
could give us some QA results, or directs us to some kind of a QA suite
which we can run for ourselves and feel secure.

Thanks,

Easwaran
(If you are emailing to me, please do send a copy to the following address
too :      
	easwar@ravitech.com
)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am speaking for myself and opnions expressed here are my own.
- Easwaran
------------------------------------------------------------------------



Newsgroups: comp.emacs
From: rick@mel1.geg.mot.com (Rick Rankin)
Subject: Re: Does DEMACS work reliably for anyone?
Organization: Motorola, inc. - Scottsdale, AZ
Date: 29 Dec 92 16:43:13 GMT
Followup-To: comp.emacs

In article <1992Dec20.173946.20445@super.org> pcolsen@super.org (Peter C Olsen) writes:

;   Does DEMACS work --- reliably?  I would appreciate email from anyone
;   who has experience, either way. I have been trying to use DEMACS, but
;   I have been unable to get it to work reliably.  It seems to be very
;   sensitive to other software, either refusing to run or running
;   "poorly" --- e.g. ignoring characters or doubling them.  Then, when it
;   appears to be running well, it often hangs at odd times, losing my
;   recent work.  Emacs is my favorite editor (by far) in the unix
;   environment, and I had hoped to use it extensively in DOS, but, so
;   far, I am still relying on BRIEF simply because I can't depend on
;   DEMACS.

;   Peter

I've been using DEMACS for close to a year now, and have had none of
the difficulties you describe.  My only problem was that I use 4DOS
instead of COMMAND.COM and DEMACS doesn't seem to handle it very well.
When I put "set COMSPEC=c:\dos\command.com" in the .bat file, that
problem was solved.  Believe me, if it had ever hung up more than once
or twice or even once done anything to my hard disk, I would have
dropped it immediately, but I don't ever recall it doing anything like
that.  I hope you get the problem solved.  Good Luck.


--
==============================================================================
| Rick Rankin				|				     |
| Motorola				| Voice: 602-441-5726		     |
| Government Electronics Group		| Fax: 602-441-2919		     |
| 8220 E. Roosevelt St.			| Internet: rick@mel1.geg.mot.com    |
| Scottsdale, AZ 85252			|				     |
| Mail Drop R4246			|				     |
==============================================================================
Newsgroups: comp.emacs,gnu.emacs.help
From: ori@marvin.technion.ac.il (Ori Degani)
Subject: Numbered Backups (version control)
Organization: Heart of Gold Institute
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 10:35:18 GMT
Summary: Problem with version-control, doesn't do backups right 
Keywords: version-control backup help

Hi, 
  I'm using the version-control on emacs (actually epoch
4.0p2).  I was wondering if it even works right?  I usually
save quite often (about every 5 minutes), but I don't get as
many numbered backup files ($FILE.~n~).  my kept-old-versions
and kept-new-versions are set to 50, and version-control is t.
Recently I looked to see if at least the last backup is the
correct and saw that it is not.  (I have file.~1~ thru
file.~16~, and of course "file", but file.~16~ is a pretty old
version (I saved a lot before that version)).
	 So I tried to edit a file just to see if the backup
version thing works.  I changed just one character, and saved,
did that 13 (lucky number) times.  What i got was just the
original saved file, and the newest file.  (file.c and
file.c.~1~).

	I hope you understood why I explained...
If you did, and know what the problem is, and how to solve it,
please reply by mail, because this is the only way I do
backups.

	If not, and there is some other way to do backups
(thru emacs), please do tell.

Thanks,
Ori
--
   |  ----      Ori Degani
   |  |___      ori@eddie.technion.ac.il   (Ship Computer on the HOG)
   |  |         ori@marvin.technion.ac.il  (Who else) 
   |  ----      s2973229@techst02.technion.ac.il (Ech..)   
Xref: sparky comp.emacs:3874 gnu.emacs.help:5188 gnu.epoch.misc:1221
From: ratinox@meceng.coe.northeastern.edu (Lemming Productions Present...)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs,gnu.emacs.help,gnu.epoch.misc
Subject: Re: strange replace-regexp behavior
Date: 28 Dec 92 17:28:34 GMT
Organization: 3WA, Boston Office. Or Nu Meta Chi. Take your pick.
X-Posting-Software: GNUS 3.14.1 [ NNTP-based News Reader for GNU Emacs ]
X-Signature-Virus-Protection: Version 1.51
X-Get-A-Clue: Have two, they're small.

>>>>> On Mon, 28 Dec 1992 13:39:23 GMT, pat@gsfc.nasa.gov (patrick m. ryan)
>>>>> said:

Patrick> 	I was trying to remove a leading column of '>' characters
Patrick> from some text and got some strange behavior from replace-regexp.
Patrick> I have text something like this:

>In article 999, joe@blow said:
>>blah blah blah
>> blah blah blah

Patrick> I wanted to remove the first '>' in each line.  Thus, I did:

Patrick> 	(replace-regexp "^>" "")

Patrick> Instead of removing just the first '>' in each line, it removed
Patrick> the whole sequence of '>' characters.  It acted as though I
Patrick> has used "^>*" for the first argument.  I ended up with:

Ok, here's the deal. What emacs does is to do a re-search-forward for your
search string, deletes it, and inserts the replacement string. There goes
the "^>". Now, it repeats the re-search-forward. Lo and behold, point is
sitting just to the left of the search string "^>". It gleefully replaces
it with the replacement string, and repeats itself.

You may want to use querey-replace-regexp instead. Or do two replace-regexp
commands, the first change "^>" into something else, like "><", then do a
second replace-regexp on the new string.

--Rat                               PGP Public Key Block available upon request
||||| | | | |  |  |  |   |   |    |    |    |   |   |  |  |  |  | | | | | |||||
Northeastern's Stainless Steel Rat          ratinox@meceng.coe.northeastern.edu
Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over,
pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.
                                                 --Nietzsche [or Matt Groening]
From: mulroonm@marvin.edge-hill-college.ac.uk (Mike Mulrooney)
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: Tequila on the Pc (PC)
Date: 21 Dec 92 14:01:07 GMT

Could somebody out there please give me some info on the various
strains of the TEQUILA virus. We have unfortunately contracted it at
one of our sites here and there was no virus protection there to stop
it (they feel pretty daft).
 So I am left to try and pick up there pieces and would like to know a
little background info on the little critter.  Also I am sorry if this
is a FAQ but - what is the best SHAREWARE-FREEWARE-ETC software to use
for the first line of defence, the RAM overhead and sig updates is
important.  Many Thanks Mike Mulrooney -- Senior Network Technician
                              Edge Hill College of HE - Lancs - UK
From: tytgat@esat.kuleuven.ac.be
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: viruses in OS/2 environment (OS/2)
Date: 21 Dec 92 11:32:23 GMT

I'm looking for information (books, articles, news-items...) about the
spread of virusses in an OS/2-environment : have any infections (DOS
or OS/2 viruses) been reported yet ; what's the impact of
compartmentalisation on the infection power of DOS-viruses ; how is
this compartmentalisation actually realised within OS/2, etc. ...
Thanks.
							Pedro Tytgat
From: ygoland@edison.SEAS.UCLA.EDU (The Jester)
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: Re: A user's view of IBM's antivirus/2 (OS/2)
Date: 18 Dec 92 04:02:53 GMT

chess@watson.ibm.com (David M. Chess) writes:
>That's it exactly.  If enough people also want to see an entry in
>the log for every file that has changed, we'll look into making it
>an option.  My fear is that, even if we say otherwise in big
>letters, people will assume that if an anti-virus program even
>mentions a file, that file must have a virus in it!  *8)

I understand why you did it, I just don't agree with the result. The
log file is hidden away in a menu that a casual user will hopefully
never find. But for people who know the difference between R.A.M.  and
a Ram, I want that information. Thats why I bought Stiller's product.
I guess the main reason I want the information is because scanners are
only useful if the virus is already known or a close variant. But
change detection gives me a shot at protecting myself from the vast
unknown number of viruses.

			Yaron (The Jester) Goland

- -- 
	The Jester -PGP VER2 Key on Request
Why all Politicians should be like Ross Perot:
"Hes too short to be seen, to rich to be bribed, and will quit
before he does any real damage"-Jay Leno
From: rslade@sfu.ca
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: CHRISTMA EXEC wrap-up (CVP)
Date: 18 Dec 92 21:13:06 GMT

HISVIRN.CVP   921022
 
                           CHRISTMA EXEC
 
During the summer of 1988 there was considerable confusion regarding
the CHRISTMA EXEC.  This was "early days" for the virus field as a
whole, of course, and so there were the usual media reports
confusing microcomputers and mainframes, talking on the one hand
about international networks and on the other about disks being
erased.  One story describes the symptoms of the CHRISTMA EXEC while
at the same time talking about computerized medical systems being
sabotaged.  There was also a rumour among Mac users that CHRISTMA
was a Mac virus.  (I mean, it had to be IBM, right?  Who else uses
eight character filenames?  :-)
 
The author of the CHRISTMA EXEC was fairly quickly traced back to a
university computer in Germany.  The culprit's account was lifted. 
The NETLOG file that the EXEC used to obtain account and system
names is a transaction file that lists all mail sent and received. 
Therefore, while the file could be suppressed by some users, in most
cases an entry would show where the message had come from, and
confirm where it had been sent to.  Backtracking the infestation was
therefore relatively easy, even though the author had left no clues
in the program, and eventually the paths converged.  (This was a
good thing: this particular type of mail system does not carry the
same amount of header and "received from" information that others
may be used to.)
 
In fact, the author had not intended to cause any problems: he had
thought to send the greetings to his friends.  A second student used
the EXEC created by the first, with some slight modifications, and
didn't realize the havoc he was about to cause.  Fortunately, his
lack of programming expertise showed up in other areas: the
"parsing" of account info from the NETLOG file was faulty, and
reduced the traffic to only five percent of what it could have been.
 
Also, some copies never did get to reproduce, because they ended up
on incompatible systems.  One VMS user received six copies of
CHRISTMA.  Obviously, he never sent any on.
 
One of the frequently asked questions in the virus world is "has
there ever been a virus in a mainframe and can I can a scanner for
mine?"  CHRISTMA and the Morris worm are often used as examples of
viral programs on mainframes and networks (with the obligatory "it's
not a virus, it's a worm" pedantry), but the answer about scanners
is always "no".  This is not correct.  All major Bitnet backbone or
"core" sites run a "selective file filter" to catch any of the known
variants of CHRISTMA EXEC ... a scanner by any other name ...
 
copyright Robert M. Slade, 1992   HISVIRN.CVP   921022

==============
Vancouver      ROBERTS@decus.ca         | "My son, beware ... of the
Institute for  Robert_Slade@sfu.ca      |  making of books there is
Research into  rslade@cue.bc.ca         |  no end, and much study is
User           p1@CyberStore.ca         |  a weariness of the flesh."
Security       Canada V7K 2G6           |          Ecclesiastes 12:12
From: tyetiser@umbc5.umbc.edu (Mr. Tarkan Yetiser)
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: Re: A user's view of IBM's antivirus/2 (OS/2)
Date: 18 Dec 92 01:48:47 GMT

From: bontchev@fbihh.informatik.uni-hamburg.de (Vesselin Bontchev) writes
DC>> didn't want to be told that SETVER.EXE had changed (because they

DC>> or that their boot record had changed (because they
DC>> changed a volume serial number).

>Hey, they should be really power users, if they know how to do that!
>For instance, I don't know how it can be done, without reformatting
>the disk, or using a sector editor... And anybody who is competent
>enough to mess with a sector editor in the boot sector, should not be
>surprised by a message that the said sector has been modified afterwards...

   No, it is not really necessary to be a power user. If you use the
LABEL command with DOS 4.0 or above, it will update the BPB in the
boot sector.  DOS 4.0+ records the volume label at offset 2Bh in the
boot sector. If the integrity checker is using the complete BS when
calculating the signature, then it will issue a warning message.

Regards,
Tarkan Yetiser
VDS Advanced Research Group
From: David_Conrad@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: Re: WARNING - Vacsina Loader in Pkunzip.exe (PC)
Date: 19 Dec 92 13:30:23 GMT

In VIRUS-L v5i195 Otto Stolz writes:
>The copy of Pkunzip I use personally is clean:
>         File-id        length    Creation date & time
>         Pkunzip.exe    22540     15 Mar 1990  01:10h
>Note that both copies of the Pkunzip.exe display 1.1 as their version
>number.
 
Actually there are two versions of pkunzip.exe, one with the -s scramble
with password option, and the so-called 'European' or 'export' version,
without.  The one above is the export, and the full version is the same
date and time but the size is 23,528.
 
The European version identifies itself as version '1.1.' instead of '1.1',
and of course leaves out the -s option from the online help.  I have both
on my system, with the European renamed to euunzip.exe, and F-Prot 2.06a
proclaims both clean and here are the Validate codes, as well as 32-bit
CRC's of both files:
 
          File Name:  \bin\pkunzip.exe
               Size:  23,528
               Date:  3-15-1990
File Authentication:
     Check Method 1 - 23AC
     Check Method 2 - 0ED1
 
          File Name:  \bin\euunzip.exe
               Size:  22,540
               Date:  3-15-1990
File Authentication:
     Check Method 1 - FE41
     Check Method 2 - 1F93
 
 4457e783 : \BIN\PKUNZIP.EXE
 
 d001c3e9 : \BIN\EUUNZIP.EXE
 
No doubt more information than anyone would need.  :-)
 
David R. Conrad, David_Conrad@mts.cc.wayne.edu
From: JDG111@PSUVM.PSU.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: NEW MPC On the way (PC)
Date: 17 Dec 92 22:39:43 GMT

Rumor has it that a newer verion of the Phalcon/Skism MPC (Mass
Produced Code Generator) is going to be released sometime soon.  My
source didn't say when, but "soon".  Also, a new edition of the 40-Hex
magazine is suposedly coming out around New Years.  Happy New Year
everyone.  <sigh>
From: bjl1@Ra.MsState.Edu (Brett J.L. Landry)
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: Viruses in OS/2 HPFS (OS/2)
Date: 20 Dec 92 15:02:25 GMT

There has been aa lot of talk about OS/2 not being able to be infected
from regular old DOS boot sector viruses using the HPFS. This is false
since regular old STONED can infect both logical and physical parttions
on OS/2 using HPFS.  Why wait for true OS/2 viruses when you can suffer
from regular DOS viruses.
- --

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
|------------------ Brett J.L. Landry,  bjl1@ra.msstate.edu, -------|
From: bjl1@Ra.MsState.Edu (Brett J.L. Landry)
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: Bugs in Mcafee OS/2 Clean (OS/2)
Date: 18 Dec 92 18:13:10 GMT

I downloaded the new OS/2 wares from Mcafee and had mixed results.
OScan discovered that there was stoned in two partitions on 120 meg
drive that was partitioned into a 40 and 80 meg C and D respective
drives.  The problem came into play when I cleaned using OSclean.  It
removed stoned but also removed the second partition loosing the 80
meg section.  This was in a single boot HPFS scenario.

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Brett J.L. Landry
- --

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
|------------------ Brett J.L. Landry,  bjl1@ra.msstate.edu, -------|
From: MC1980@mclink.it (Luca Parisi)
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: Another Kind Of Droppers (PC)
Date: 19 Dec 92 22:15:35 GMT

Not much time ago, a posting by Stefano Turci (Stefano_Turci@
f108.n391.z9.virnet.bad.se) prompted discussion about the fact that
converting a file from .COM to .EXE caused scanners not to recognize
some virus infections any more.

I don't have much to object to the views expressed by the scanners
themselves (well, actually their authors :-) but I faced the same
problem while dealing with the "leftovers" of my previous posting.

That is, files infected with virus 855 (Nov. 17th) and subsequently
immunized with CPAV 1.2 are not recognized as such by F-Prot 2.06,
Scan 97 or VirX 2.4 (I know they are not entirely up-to-date, but all
three recognize the 'vanilla' infection on the same files).

I don't think this is more than an "academic" problem unless the
current DOS version of CPAV still offers immunization, and a bit more
if the rumored MSDOS 6.0-bundled one does (the most recent plain DOS
CPAV I have is 1.2, and WinCPAV doesn't). More generally, I'd say that
the integrity check should be a built-in function, otherwise it can
only build false security.  But somebody here must have said that
before and better than me...

Luca Parisi 
<MC1980@mclink.it>
From: JFORD@UA1VM.UA.EDU (James Ford)
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: Files on risc.ua.edu (PC)
Date: 18 Dec 92 23:49:31 GMT

Here is the most recent listing of files available via anonymous FTP
from risc.ua.edu (130.160.4.7).  If you notice some that are out of
date, then please let me know.  Thanks.

- -- jf

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
0files.9212    ds115.zip      scanv99.zip    vaccinea.zip   virusgrd.zip
aavirus.zip    fixutil3.zip   secur235.zip   validat3.zip   virx26.zip
avs_e224.zip   fp-206a.zip    sentry02.zip   validate.crc   vkill10.zip
bbug.zip       fshld15.zip    stealth.zip    vc300ega.zip   vshell10.zip
bootid.zip     fsp_183.zip    tbav502.zip    vc300lte.zip   vshld97.zip
catchm16.zip   hack1192.zip   tbavx502.zip   vcheck11.zip   vsig9211.zip
ccc91.zip      htscan19.zip   tbresc19.zip   vcopy82.zip    vstop54.zip
chk.zip        i-m131.zip     tbscan43.zip   vdetect.zip    vsumx211.zip
chkint.zip     innoc5.zip     tbscnx31.zip   vds210t.zip    vtac48.zip
clean97.zip    killmonk.zip   trapdisk.zip   virlab15.zip   vtec30a.zip
cvc792am.zip   m-disk.zip     unvir902.zip   virpres.zip    wcv201.zip
cvc792ma.zip   mtetests.zip   uxencode.pas   virsimul.zip   wp-hdisk.zip
cvc792ms.zip   netsc99b.zip   v-faq.zip      virstop.zip    wscan97b.zip
cvcindex.zip   nshld103.zip   vacbrain.zip   virus-l.faq    ztec61b.zip
dir2clr.zip    pkz110eu.exe   vaccine.zip    virusck.zip
From: tck@fold.ucsd.edu (Kevin Marcus)
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: Re: A user's view of IBM's antivirus/2 (OS/2)
Date: 18 Dec 92 07:45:16 GMT

>> or that their boot record had changed (because they
>> changed a volume serial number).
>
>Hey, they should be really power users, if they know how to do that!
>For instance, I don't know how it can be done, without reformatting
>the disk, or using a sector editor... And anybody who is competent
>enough to mess with a sector editor in the boot sector, should not be
>surprised by a message that the said sector has been modified
>afterwards...

Well, I don't have the entirety of the original sentence, so I might
be missing something, but, int 25h will let you read in the boot
sector, you modify it however, and rewrite it with int 26h.
 
Additionally, I have just recently seen some 486-50s with AMI BIOS's
(copyright 1992, I dont' know the exact date, though), that allow for
a "bootsector virus protection".  Which is somewhat funny.  Since I do
a lot of fdisking and formatting of drives on new systems, they scream
these messages, "Boot sector write - continue? (Y/n)" type of thing.
THe funniest thing, however, is that it didn't do that when I ran sys
on a hard drive.  In fact, they mean bootsector of floppy, or MBR on
hard drive.  For example, it would seem to me that Form would not be
detected when infected a hard drive, thought the floppy infection
would.  Maybe I should drag a copy to work and see what happens...

- -- 
|| Kevin Marcus, Computer Virologist.  (619)/457-1836; RE-xxx, TSCAN       ||
|| INET: tck@bend.ucsd.edu       []-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]
||       tck@fold.ucsd.edu       || All I wanted was a Pepsi...            ||
||       datadec@watserv.ucr.edu ||       And she wouldn't give it to me...||