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

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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      |____|_______^_______|____|