MEMOIR5.CVP 921214 Memoirs of a ("gifted") virus researcher Note to lawyers: the following is fiction. It must be, right? And it came to pass, that a certain Manufacturer said unto itself, Let me make unto myself a system controller, that many may buy it, and I become wealthy. And it took of its gurus, and said, now that the controller is complete, make unto us a "sexy" application for this new controller, that we may hype it in the marketplace. And the one said, Let me, for I shall use the controller to smite the slime that infests many machines. And the Manufacturer saw that it was good. And when the app was completed (or almost completed, which is as good) then did the Manufacturer say unto the elders of AV, Look now, upon this app which is completed (or almost completed, which is as good), is it not fair? And lo, it shall control the slime that ye revile. And lo among the elders was one (actually, a rather short one, whose disks and CPUs were but few, but others put up with him) who spake and said, Well, I kinda specialize in looking at apps, so I could give it a crack, if you want. And the manufacturer did rejoice, and did promise unto the samll elder many things. And after many trials did the app, in a box, appear before the elder, wherefore he brought forth his tools and looked into the box. And he spake and said unto himself, This is odd. And he looked some more and spake and said unto himself, This is an absolute mess! And perchance could I make some observations, but they would be as like as apples unto oranges unto the other apps. Therefore shall I clean this, that I might have a baseline to measure against. Therefore he strove mightily (or as mightily as a small elder can strive) against the mess, and also (truth be told) against the app. And after many days (or what seemed like it, anyway) the box was again calm. But there had arisen, during the strife, certain lost clusters, which were now made into the form of files. And the small elder gazed upon them, that he might determine if they were, indeed, needful to the app. And one file was very large, and as the small elder gazed upon it, he beheld its data structure, like unto a ZIP file. And he said, I shall extract these files. And forth did come AIDS and Ambulance and Anti-Pascal and BADBOYS and Beast and Burger and many others, so that they filled the directory, and their number was like unto 875. And the small elder pondered all these things. And on the third day after the small elder returned unto the Manufacturer the box and the app saying, And if thou art so keen to combat slime, why hast thou not yet come up with a dip switch that can be used to write protect the hard disk, and wouldst cost but half a shekel? But before he did, he overwrote the whole hard disk. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1992 MEMORI5.CVP 921214 ============== _________________________ Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca | | |\^/| | | swiped Institute for Robert_Slade@sfu.ca | | _|\| |/|_ | | from Research into rslade@cue.bc.ca | | > < | | Alan User p1@CyberStore.ca | | >_./|\._< | | Tai Security Canada V7K 2G6 |____|_______^_______|____|