X-Message-Number: 6651
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 00:13:01 -0400
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <>
Subject: Re: Viruses

In #6635,  (John Bull) wrote:
> The virus is known as "Good Times", it always travels to new
> computers the same way, in a text E-Mail message with the subject
> line reading "Good Times" Avoiding infection is easy once the file
> has been received simply by NOT READING IT! The act of loading the
> file into the mail server's ASCII buffer causes the "Good Times"
> mainline program to initialize and execute.

Yes.  But you left out the part about the dying 7 year old in Britain
who wants to get into the Guinness Book of World Records by collecting
as many "good times" e-mail messages as possible, after catching an
illness from a Mexican pet which he thought was a dog but turned out
to be a rat, after staying at a hotel where burglars broke in and left
photographs of his toothbrush in an unusual and unhygeinic place, just
before he got the warning about the FCC modem tax.  And when he got
home, there was a hook on the car door.  And the veterinarian called
and told them to get out of the house immediately, because of what
the doberman was choking on, shortly before his brother was hit by a
shotgun blast while jumping off a tall building not realizing that
he would have been saved by an awning below.  Which is no worse a fate
than driving an old Chevy Impala into a cliff face at 400 mph using
a surplus JATO unit, but is much worse than having to go to a urologist
because of one's self-repair with industrial staples after an accident
with a belt sander when one was alone at work during lunch.

Getting back to the topic of cryonics, the Prometheus Project doesn't
need pledges, since there's a simple and perfectly legal way on the
net to MAKE.MONEY.FAST.  And did you hear about Walt Disney?

> If the program is not stopped, the computer's processor will be
> placed in an infinite binary loop, which can severly damage the
> processor if left running that way too long.

Yes.  If a processor is left in an infinite binary loop, doing the
exact same thing over and over again, e.g. waiting for a keypress or
a mouse movement, the whole computer will quickly burst into flames.
That's probably what destroyed Flight 800.

> The program is hightly intelligent, it will send copies of itself to
> everyone whose E-Mail address is contained in a receive mail file,
> or a sent mail file, if it can find one.

It does this right after destroying the hard disk and the processor.

Urgent Newsflash:  There's a mind virus going around the net.  It
will cause your brain to explode, and spray out sarcastic messages
in all directions.  There's only one way to defend against this virus.
If you get a message from , immediately delete
it without reading it!  Add your name to the bottom and pass this on,
and within 6 weeks, something wonderful will happen.
--
Keith Lynch, 
http://www.access.digex.net/~kfl/


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