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1992-09-27
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
CRYPT NEWSLETTER #6 (or something like that) - still
another in an occasional series of info-glutted,
humorous monographs solely for the enjoyment of the
virus programming pro or enthusiast interested in the
particulars of cyber-electronic data replication and
corruption.
-Edited by URNST KOUCH. [Oct. 1992]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This issue's top quote:
******************************************************
"Giveitaway, giveitaway, giveitaway now!"
--long-haired, tattoo'd dolt from The
Red Hot Chili Peppers, speaking out about
viral source code at a recent computer
security seminar.
******************************************************
IN THIS ISSUE: Local NEWS...New Section: INCAPABILITIES - exposing the
flaws in various a-v software packages with Urnst Kouch and other
guest 'speakers' like Vesko Bontchev...Charles Bowen: Recipient
of National Dummkopf Award...rehash of US NEWS & WORLD REPORT/IRAQI
COMPUTER VIRUS imbroglio...The INSUFF/MtE spawning viruses...
...COMPUFON trojan...'ARTIFICIAL LIFE' book review...ZCOMM & Hyper-
ACCESS: more term programs (one with a-v scanning), definitely not for
sissies...DIOGENES virus...sarcasm, trenchant wit, etc.
NEWS! NEWS! NEWS! NEWS! NEWS!
IF THE SHOE FITS: Some users of the FidoNet's Virus echo have been seen
referring to moderator Frans Hagelaars as "Dutch" ever since Crypt
Newsletter renamed him back in August.
IN CONTINUING FIDO VIRUS ECHO NEWS, Sara Gordon, the e.e.cummings of
antivirus-dom, has been seen flaming on baseball pro David Justice
who provoked her by impugning her looks. We offer
to settle this dispute at the Crypt Newsletter. If Sara and David
will send cheap portraits of themselves (it must be the kind of photo
obtained from an arcade photo booth - you know, the ones you see
on the boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ.), Crypt Newsletter editors will
judge them on the basis of "looks" and publish the results in a
future issue. The address of the Crypt Newsletter is:
The heehee Desk
Mr. Aggrieved, Assoc. Editor
POB 1234
Nether Poo-Stink, PA 18017
LATE BREAKING GOSSIP: Pro-ballplayer Dave Justice was just seen
cursing Paul Ferguson's name in the Virus echo. This nullifies the
Gordon/Justice 'looks' rate-down. It would have been unfair to
exclude Ferguson from the contest but the editors of the
newsletter are too busy to judge the expanded field of entrants,
so we decided to cancel. Hey, cool it wontcha, guys??
But, on more serious matters, we excerpt a tiny segment of one of
Sara Gordon's mid-September FIDO flames for further comment:
"...if you are interested in keeping information free, then learn
to be responsible with its use. your freedom to information does
not include the right to destroy it. its [sic] MY information too,
and its [sic] not YOUR right to rip it up.
"if you think killing people is cool, and are aware of the
implications of your actions,i.e. knowing that your virus could
wipe out some hospital database in some third world country,
or even in u.s.a. in appalachia, where they cant [sic] afford backups,
and effectively be responsible for the deaths of innocent people,
then write them."
WHoah! Whoah! Whoah! Sara! What a stretch. Let's entertain that
fool claim for a moment. Do you think a backwoods hospital would
have computers, but no hard copy system? (What if a fire broke out
in "RECORDS"?) But even if we let that slide for the
sake of the argument, let's consider a different tool of destruction.
Arms. The U.S. sell arms to lunatics on the left and right in
"Third World Countries." Does anyone who makes them in this country
get held responsible, or even LOSE ANY SLEEP, when civilians get
blown away by the same guns in any number of mindless civil wars?
Of course not, BECAUSE IT'S THE AMERICAN WAY TO BE AN INCONSIDERATE,
HYPOCRITICAL LOUSE.
So, jumping back to computer viruses, which are decidedly more trivial
than the business end of a Claymore mine, it's totally ludicrous to even
presume that virus programmers are "effectively responsible for the
deaths of innocent people." Far better to waste your time, if you must
Sara, arguing with the arms merchants than virus programmers, we think.
In fact, The Crypt Newsletter decided to back this up with a little
research on virus strikes in hospitals. Now keep in mind, although our
skills are much vaunted, we're still a relatively new publication
and your results may differ. Still, this is the best we could come
up with - two small newspieces purloined from CSERVE (who in turn
purloined them from the New England Journal of Medicine) ca. 1989.
What follows is transcript:
---------------------------------
HOSPITAL STRUCK BY COMPUTER VIRUS
---------------------------------
(March 22) - 1989
Data on two Apple Macintoshes used by a Michigan hospital was
altered recently by one or more computer viruses, at least one of
which apparently traveled into the system on a new hard disk that
the institution bought.
In its latest edition, the prestigious New England Journal of
Medicine quotes a letter from a radiologist at William Beaumont
Hospitals in Royal Oak, Mich., that describes what happened when two
viruses infected computers used to store and read nuclear scans that
are taken to diagnose patients' diseases.
The radiologist, Dr. Jack E. Juni, said one of the viruses was
relatively benign, making copies of itself while leaving other data
alone. However, the second virus inserted itself into programs and
directories of patient information and made the machines
malfunction.
"No lasting harm was done by this," Juni wrote, because the
hospital had backups, "but there certainly was the potential."
Science writer Daniel Q. Haney of The Associated Press quoted
Juni's letter as saying about three-quarters of the programs stored
in the two Mac II PCs were infected.
Haney said Juni did not know the origin of the less harmful
virus, "but the more venal of the two apparently was on the hard
disk of one of the computers when the hospital bought it new. ...
The virus spread from one computer to another when a doctor used a
word processing program on both machines while writing a medical
paper."
Juni said the hard disk in question was manufactured by CMS
Enhancements of Tustin, Calif.
CMS spokesman Ted James confirmed for AP that a virus was
inadvertently put on 600 hard disks last October.
Says Haney, "The virus had contaminated a program used to format
the hard disks. ... It apparently got into the company's plant on a
hard disk that had been returned for servicing. James said that of
the 600 virus-tainted disks, 200 were shipped to dealers, and four
were sold to customers."
James also said the virus was "as harmless as it's possible to
be," that it merely inserted a small piece of extra computer code on
hard disks but did not reproduce or tamper with other material on
the disk. James told AP he did not think the Michigan hospital's
problems actually were caused by that virus.
--Charles Bowen [October's Crypt National Dummkopf]
------------------------------
MORE HOSPITALS STRUCK BY VIRUS
------------------------------
(March 23) - 1989
The latest computer virus attack, this one on hospital systems,
apparently was more far- reaching than originally thought.
As reported here, a radiologist wrote a letter to the New England
Journal of Medicine detailing how data on two