offers an update service. anti-viral product instead of using Disinfectant. Purchase a product which Mactivity-macclub benelux update service, or purchase a commercial information listed above, we recommend that you either subscribe to the viruses appear. If you do not have access to any of the sources of It is very important to keep your virus protection tools up to date as new  for more information. Disinfectant as new viruses appear. Write to them at the above address not just Western Europe. For a fee they will send you new versions of Disinfectant. This service is available to people anywhere in the world, Mactivity-macclub benelux also offers an international update service for   B-4761 Büllingen Belgium Wirtzfeld Valley 140 Disinfectant Update Mactivity-macclub benelux  Mactivity-macclub benelux. Stamps are not required. The address is: Disinfectant by sending a self-addressed disk mailer and a floppy disk to People in Western Europe may obtain a copy of the latest version of   cardboard disk mailers. (available from any post office). Please use sturdy envelopes, preferably the US may send an international postal reply coupon instead of US stamps the author at the address given at the end of this manual. People outside self-addressed stamped envelope and a floppy disk (800K or 1440K) to shareware software may obtain a copy of Disinfectant by sending a Macintosh users who do not have access to electronic sources of free and  • Read the USENET news group comp.sys.mac.announce.  • Subscribe to the BITNET distribution lists VIRUS-L and INFO-MAC.  CompuServe, or GEnie. Join the Macintosh forums. • Subscribe to a commercial online service such as America Online,  excellent bulletin boards for their members. • Join a Macintosh electronic bulletin board. Many user groups operate  (Boston Computer Society), or a local user group. • Join a user group such as BMUG (Berkeley Macintosh User Group), BCS  the latest news about Macintosh viruses and new Disinfectant releases: services. Nonetheless, there are several ways you can keep abreast of commercial services such as telephone support, mailing lists, or upgrade Disinfectant is not a commercial product. We cannot offer typical  rascal.ics.utexas.edu, and comp.binaries.mac. Calvacom, Delphi, BIX, MacNet, sumex-aim.stanford.edu, New versions are also posted to CompuServe, GEnie, America Online,  ftp://ftp.acns.nwu.edu/pub/disinfectant/  within a few days. The official anonymous FTP site is: we usually release a new version of Disinfectant to recognize the virus Disinfectant is distributed electronically. When a new virus is discovered,  to the comparatively meaningless damage caused by computer viruses. compare the enormous suffering caused by biological viruses such as HIV they never occur naturally. Most importantly, it is not possible to never created by people. Computer viruses are always created by people; organisms. Biological viruses usually occur naturally and are almost between biological and computer viruses too far. Computers are not living As with all analogies, however, it is possible to carry the analogy  inoculate or vaccinate the system to protect it against future infection. the infection without damaging the system and it is sometimes possible to damaged. With both kinds of viruses, it is sometimes possible to remove survive. In both cases, the infected system is sometimes severely Both of them replicate and they both require the assistance of a host to The analogy between biological viruses and computer viruses is striking.  the virus problem and other security concerns endanger this revolution. and regulations imposed by the corporate MIS priesthood. We cannot let extensions of each individual’s imagination, unfettered by arbitrary rules the empowerment of the individual. At their best, personal computers are the personal computer revolution (especially the Macintosh revolution) is are completely unnecessary and are in fact very dangerous. The heart of employees from joining bulletin boards or user groups! These restrictions software. Some companies have even gone so far as to prohibit their in locked rooms and do not permit their employees to use unapproved doing more harm than good. For example, some companies keep computers on the use of personal computers and personal computer software are overreact to the threat. Organizations which impose severe restrictions The virus problem is serious, but even more serious is the tendency to  of freeware and shareware software are remarkably virus-free. infected commercial software, while most of the major national sources from the truth. There have been many reported cases of (inadvertently) viruses by merely avoiding shareware and freeware software. This is far There is a misconception that you can protect your Macintosh against  simple things we suggest you do to protect your Mac. viruses. See the section titled “Recommendations” for a short list of the minutes per week to effectively protect your Macintosh against the known should take the problem seriously. Using Disinfectant, it only takes a few There is no need to panic over the current virus situation. However, you  Trojan horses. Disinfectant does not attempt to address the problems of worms and  you ogled the cheesecake images. Trojan horses do not replicate. the “Sexy Ladies” HyperCard stack, which erased your hard drive while additionally does something destructive behind your back. An example is A “Trojan horse” is a program which appears to do something useful, yet  computers in a single day. infected and disabled several thousand government and university UNIX The most well-known example is the Fall 1988 Internet worm, which computers. They are not spread through the sharing of software or disks. survive and replicate. Worms usually spread over a network of itself to other programs. Unlike a virus, it does not require a host to A “worm” is a program which replicates and spreads, but does not attach  such as “worms” and “Trojan horses.” Viruses should not be confused with other types of destructive software  against infection by any of the known non-HyperCard Mac viruses. properly installed, the Disinfectant INIT will protect an uninfected system Disinfectant also includes a virus protection extension (INIT). When  stacks. “MerryXMas” viruses. These viruses only propagate between HyperCard Disinfectant does not recognize the “Dukakis”, “Three Tunes”, or  have to get a new copy of the program. appears, we will have to modify the program to recognize it, and you will been configured and programmed to recognize. If a new virus or strain Disinfectant will not recognize all possible viruses: only the ones it has  possible, repair files which have been infected by the viruses. unknown variations and clones. It will both detect the viruses and, when viruses. Furthermore, Disinfectant also recognizes many possible viruses. It also recognizes all the known variations and clones of these Disinfectant recognizes all of the currently known non-HyperCard Mac  crashes and strange behavior. also discovered errors in most viruses which can cause unexplained interfere in unexpected ways with other parts of the system. We have They also live at very low levels in the operating system and can memory and disk space and this is enough to cause problems all by itself. problems with the normal operation of their Macintosh. Viruses occupy unintentional. Many people who have experienced infections have reported non-malicious viruses are always damaging, even if the damage is are non-malicious. It is very important to realize, however, that even We are very fortunate that to date most of the known Macintosh viruses  damage or delete files or destroy the contents of hard drives. damage something. For example, malicious viruses often intentionally other hand, malicious viruses, in addition to replicating, do attempt to else innocuous, but they do not intentionally try to do any damage. On the example, they may beep, display messages on the screen, or do something replicate, but they do not attempt to do anything destructive. For Viruses may be malicious or non-malicious. Non-malicious viruses  and distribution of infected software or infected disks. computer. Viruses spread from one Macintosh to another via the sharing files. Viruses quickly spread to other files and disks as you use your A virus is a piece of software which attaches itself to other programs or  continue to cause problems for some time. years ago, viruses continue to spread rapidly and widely. Viruses will community, although the problem is not as serious as it was several increasingly serious problem in the computing world. In the Macintosh Viruses and other kinds of destructive computer software have become an   åIntroduction , ,