3.799 FineArt Forum; some minor evils (131)

Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca)
Wed, 29 Nov 89 19:12:36 EST

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 799. Wednesday, 29 Nov 1989.


(1) Date: Tue, 28 Nov 89 15:56:00 EST (55 lines)
From: COLAN@ecs.umass.edu
Subject: FINEART Forum

(2) Date: Wed, 29 Nov 89 17:56:23 EST (17 lines)
From: Abigail Young <YOUNG@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Warning: avoid DIR EXEC

(3) Date: Thu, 23 Nov 89 11:53:21 +0200 (34 lines)
From: Y. Radai <RADAI1@HBUNOS>
Subject: Re: MS-DOS virus? (3.775)

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 89 15:56:00 EST
From: COLAN@ecs.umass.edu
Subject: FINEART Forum

[I have circulated examples of this fine newsletter before. I do so
again for the benefit of those who haven't seen it, and this issue in
particular because it contains many items of interest for Humanists, I
suspect. It is too long to send out in its entirety, so I have posted it
on the fileserver in place of the previous sample of FineArt Forum.
--W.M.]
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_______________________________________________________________________
FINEART Forum Dec 1, 1989 Volume 3 : Number 30
_______________________________________________________________________
CONTENTS:
Musicus: Lisa Whistlecroft
Computers and Music in Higher Education: Jeanette Davies
Musical Structures and Information: Bernard Bel
Berlin 1:1:1:1990 : Ray Lauzzana
NCGA '89: Michael Weiner
Holography Hotline: Sydney Dinsmore
San Francisco Arts Commission: Jill Manton
Canada Council: Jean Gagnon
International Computer Music Conference: Paul Lansky
MIT Animation: Franz M. Wimmer
Shearwater Foundation: Posy Jackson Smith
Technoculture Meeting: Elie Theofilakis
Announcements: Ray Lauzzana



--------------------
[A complete version of this announcement is now available on
the file-server, s.v. FINEART FORUM. A copy may be obtained
by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either
interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@UToronto and
*not* to Humanist. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively:
TELL LISTSERV AT UTORONTO GET filename filetype HUMANIST; to submit
a batch-job, send mail to ListServ@UToronto with the GET command as
the first and only line. For more details see your "Guide to Humanist".
Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you
have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.]

(2) --------------------------------------------------------------19----
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 89 17:56:23 EST
From: Abigail Young <YOUNG@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Warning: avoid DIR EXEC

Forwarded from BITNET%"C0030006@DBSTU1.BITNET" Joachim Lohoff-Werner

I have also received DIR EXEC and looked into it. After reading the
NAMES and NETLOG files and shipping multiple copies to the people listed
in these files it does something very bad:

The DIR EXEC asks for the system date (QUERY TIME) and erases all files
if the system date is greater then 89, i.e. next year.

Please discard all copies of DIR EXEC in your system RDR queue.

Kind regards, amicales salutations, cordiali saluti, shalom u'bracha,
freundliche Gruesse Joachim Lohoff-Werner
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------43----
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 89 11:53:21 +0200
From: Y. Radai <RADAI1@HBUNOS>
Subject: Re: MS-DOS virus? (3.775)

In 3.775 Charles Faulhaber writes:
>It turns out that we have two different versions of the ping pong
>virus, which, unfortunately, lives in the File Allocation Tables.
>Our local experts think that we will have to reformat the hard
>disk.
>
>Does anyone have a less drastic solution?

Yes, there is a much less drastic solution. But first of all, please inform
your local "experts" that no virus lives in the FATs. A virus can "live" only
in executable code, and there is no such code in the FATs. In actuality, this
virus resides in the boot sector and in part of a cluster which it has marked as
"bad", as well as in the upper end of RAM.
To remove it from your hard disk, first turn off your computer (don't just
perform Ctrl-Alt-Del) in order to clear the virus out of RAM. Then cold boot
from your original (write-protected) DOS diskette. While you are still in A:,
perform SYS C:. In addition to replacing the two system files on the hard disk,
this will also replace the boot sector with a clean copy. (You will still have
a bad cluster on your hard disk, but the viral code which is there cannot do any
damage as long as the boot sector is uninfected.)
In order to avoid reinfecting your hard disk, you will also have to remove the
virus from any diskettes which are infected. If they were formatted with the S
option, you can use the same procedure (e.g. SYS B:). In any case, you can for-
mat a new diskette, copy all the files from the infected diskette to the new one
(by means of COPY A:*.* B:, not by DISKCOPY), and then reformat the infected
diskette.

Y. Radai
Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem, Israel
RADAI1@HBUNOS.BITNET