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FTP + viruses



   Sender: executor-request@ictv.com
   Precedence: bulk
   Date: Wed, 29 Jan 92 18:22:51 MST
   From: iclone!ctm@unmvax.cs.unm.edu (Clifford T. Matthews)

   Dear Folks,

	   I think the information about viruses below may be of  
   sufficient interest to merit a reply to the entire mailing group.   
   This is my response to the questions posed by John Troxell  
   <unmvax!pucc.Princeton.EDU!JKTROXE%ERENJ.BITNET>.

	   --Cliff

   >>     What are good archive sites for mac software?

   sumex.stanford.edu has an "info-mac" subdirectory that has tons of  
   stuff.  There are many others, check out the FAQ (answers to  
   Frequently Asked Questions) in the various mac newsgroups if you have  
   access to netnews.


Yes, but I prefer mac.archive.umich.edu instead because they have very
good index  and descriptions there.  And if you  are from  Europe then
there  is  Sumex mirror site  at Sweden (lth.se) and then nic.funet.fi
where I keep my own Mac archives.


   >>     Do I just uncompress/untar in ExecutorVolume?

   Pick up the files as either ".hqx" or ".bin" and put them within  
   ExecutorVolume and run Binhex on them.  Make sure you use "binary"  
   mode to transfer files whose extension is ".bin".  If you have NCSA  
   telnet you can use the "Macbinary" option to copy files from a Mac  
   over to your machine, where you can unbinhex them (don't use  
   "Macbinary" with .hqx or .bin files, they are already in a form  
   Binhex understands).

Not completely  true. ".bin" files are MacBinary  files. At least that
is how  I  keep them. ".hqx"   are  normal  ASCII files like UUENCODED
files. ".cpt", ".sit" and ".sea" files are MacBinary files.

   >>     Are mac viruses a potential threat to the NeXT?

   Yes and No and Yes:

	   Yes) viruses could mess up the "mac universe" that Executor  
   provides you with.  As far as I know the threat is limited to your  
   MACVOLUMES.  I suppose someone could write a virus that specifically  
   guns for the rest of your NeXT but with only a couple hundred people  
   running Executor, I doubt anyone would go to the trouble of doing  
   that.

	   No) I suspect that most viruses won't work anyway because we  
   do not execute code out of the system file.  The standard "MDEF"s are  
   compiled into Executor and are special cased.  I really don't know  
   much about all the virsuses that are out there so I make no promises.

	   Yes) One serious consiseration about viruses is right now I  
   know of no way to detect them under Executor.  The virus checkers  
   that run as INITs or CDEVs won't work because we don't support INITs  
   or CDEVs.  I don't know about the virus checkers that examine your  
   filesystem, but I do know that our System file has much less in it  
   than a typical System file and that may confuse things.

Disinfectant is a normal application that scans and removes viruses.

-harri-


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