23 Oct
2016
23 Oct
'16
9:03 a.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Liam Proven
Sent: Sunday, October 23, 2016 9:37 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Archived viruses, was Re: Reasonable price for a complete SOL-20 system?
On 22 October 2016 at 21:21, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
On Sat, 22 Oct 2016, Liam Proven wrote:
No no no -- hang on.
Classic MacOS was appallingly vulnerable. It had no user-account security at all, and
every disk had a tiny bit of code read and executed when it was mounted, AIUI, to
customise the icon etc.
Personal computer viruses more or less originated on the classic Mac.
But OS X is effectively immune to all of them, and AFAIK there are no true viruses for OS
X even now. But you need to use a narrow strict definition. There are many Trojans, but
they need to social-engineer or trick the user into agreeing, clicking OK and entering a
password.
That's not a virus if it requires user interaction to propagate.
Ditto there are sploits and worms that attack OS X servers, but since OS X servers are
fairly rare, so are the sploits. And OS X has a much-modified FreeBSD userland underneath
it, and some of those componets are vulnerable too.
So it's a bit of a hair-splitting argument.
What it is _not_ is plain marketing lies, such as "Windows NT is a
microkernel".
--
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Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven
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I still have sealed packs of installation software for very early laptops with DOS. Some
of them probably have the Stoned virus on them. I used to have factory original CD install
disks from Zip drives, but I threw them all out, because they were all infected with
viruses. Iomega was kind enough to send me clean install disks, after I mailed them back
one of the infected disks. That prompted a huge recall, back in the 90s. I remember seeing
web screens in the early 2000s from viruses; one was a picture of Zeus holding a lightning
bolt with the caption "Watch out for Zeus, he will kick your ass!" Another was a
picture of the old Kilroy was here, but had the caption of Kiljoy was here. Kiljoy would
stay on for about 5 seconds, and then gradually all the network services would be stopped
and then deleted from the computer.
:-)
A good 5-6y or more ago I restored an old Mac Classic II a friend
gave me. I got it dual-booting System 6.0.8 and 7.1 and had both of
them online via an Asant? EtherSCSI interface. To do this involved
downloading a lot of ancient Mac software on my B&W G3 under OS X,
and putting it on Zip disk, then putting the Zip media in the Classic
II's SCSI Zip drive.
One of the Systems on the Classic was repurposed from another Mac and
included some ancient Mac antivirus program -- I forget which one,
maybe Disinfectant. I was glad of it, though, as it triggered and
found one of my downloads was infected with an equally ancient Mac
virus.
But "Marketing" convinced the public that Macs were IMMUNE TO GETTING
VIRUSES! :-)