[3706] in WWW Security List Archive
Re : Any internet virus
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Charlie_Kaufman/Iris.IRIS@iris.com)
Wed Dec 4 22:12:49 1996
From: Charlie_Kaufman/Iris.IRIS@iris.com
To: ongjk@tm.net.my
Cc: www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu
Date: 4 Dec 96 19:16:02 EDT
Errors-To: owner-www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu
>I don't know about you, but it seems to me that a virus that spreads
>through ASCII is certainly nothing to worry about. Computer aren't
>designed to execute ASCII files. It needs to be converted to binary
>first. Or am I wrong?
The author of this "hoax" was making a little joke. The message warning
of the virus *is* the virus. It spreads by having people read the message
and forwarding it to their friends. Thus through the "mechanism" of
people reading and forwarding, an ASCII text virus can spread.
This bit of humor is lost on most recipients. In some sense, it's not a
hoax at all; in some sense it is a virus, it is spreading, it is wasting
massive amounts of disk space (in people's inboxes) and network
bandwidth (as it is sent along). And it is immune to all existing
virus scanners (until someone puts a filter on their mail gateway
discarding the warnings before they arrive).
--charlie
(charlie_kaufman@iris.com)
