Talk:Computer virus
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This article has been cited as a source by a media organisation. See the [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia as a press source 2004#{{{section}}}|2004 press source]] article for details. The source is:
- Charles Arthur (24 November 2004). "Searching for the perfect portal". The Independent Online. [1].
Note: revisions of this article between June 28 and September 11, 2002 are at Virus (computing).
[edit] Accidental creation of viruses
I've already edited out the nonsense that viruses can be created by accident but it's back. Yes a destructive/harmfull program can be created as a result of a programming error (bug) but not a virus. A virus it too complex to be created at random and even if it were possible there are no reported cases. There aren't realy "coppying errors" data being coppied over a network or other medium is subjected to checksums meaning a random change would have almost know chance of matching the checksum.
[edit] compression virus
Didn't know where to put this so sorry in advance if it is in the wrong place. Can i suggest if something could be added about a 'compression virus' as opposed to a 'polymorphic virus'. Just so that it outlines the difference between the different methods. The reason i am suggesting it is because they are harder to pick up that other viruses (size doesn't change etc.) ... i wouldn't be the best person to do it though, so i guess i am passing the buck, sorry.
[edit] Cryptovirus
I have written a new article called Cryptovirus, but much work still needs to be done. Can someone more knowledgeable expand it?
[edit] Link spam
I edited the following line out of the page it was in there like 50 times. Someone thought they'd be smart and spam the crap out of this article.
"(most important sites to to remove spyware and viruses suggested by tony philip devassy of spyware and virus support dell helpdesk. prevention is better . http://tonyphilip.cjb.cc/ http://philip286.cjb.cc/ http://tonydevassy.cjb.cc/)"
[edit] Macro viruses versus Trojans
"Since the mid-1990s, viruses which infect operating systems or applications directly have been eclipsed by macro viruses. Written in the scripting languages for Microsoft programs such as Word and Outlook, these viruses spread in the Windows monoculture by infecting documents and sending infected e-mail. "
Whoa wait a second, a "macro virus" isn't a virus in the strict sense of the word as defined earlier in the article (which by definition inserts itself into innocent code in a different program). It is only a virus in the larger sense of malware. For example, a .bat attachment which is attached to an email is essentially a trojan horse. Many microsoft programs had a design flaw that automatically made them run these trojan horses. In fact, I think it should be made clear that viruses under the more strict definition are extremely much more rare then other malware.
[edit] Apple (NeXT) started the problem
It's interesting that the first virus according to the article was for an Apple OS. It's also interesting, though not in the article, that it was NeXT, through their MIME standard that paved the way for the email virus.
[edit] Headline text
[edit] Origins of the term 'Computer virus'
I think the term Computer Virus originated much earlier than 1985. My high school maths teacher explained the concept to me and used the term in 1979 or 1980. I got the impression it was not exactly a new thing then, although the actual number of viruses that had spread in the wild at that early date must have been very small.
Perhaps the worm paragraph should make the distinction between viruses and worms clear while also noting that the two concepts are often conflated in general use. -- Taral
- The term computer virus was around in 1973 according to the imdb.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070909/trivia <a href="http://www.mariegriffiths.co.uk">Marie<a>
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- IMDB is hardly authoritative. But I do recall hearing the term (and being very taken by the biological metaphor) as early as 1976. Isaac R 06:21, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Advice regarding prevention of viruses
How about some advice on how to protect your computer from a virus? Such as: turn off the feature in Microsoft Office that automatically runs a virus (er, macro) when you open the document. Ed Poor
- How is this pertinent to an encyclopedia? What you are suggesting seems more suitable for a tutorial. Perhaps there's a Wiki for practical, DIY type information.--branko
[edit] Microsoft as a monopoly
Instead of branding Microsoft as a monopoly (which may provoke controversy), why not research its market share in the types of programs that tend to spread viruses? For example, you could say that 83.7% of American workers use Microsoft Office and are thus vulnerable. Ed Poor
- What about the Microsoft antitrust case? Kind of official "branding"!
[edit] Link to Elk Cloner source code
Why was the link to Elk Cloner's source code removed? GregLindahl
I probably did that accidentally when I reorganized the article. I restored the link. I also cleaned up some of the text at the end about Microsoft vulnerability. Sure, it's something that ought to be said, but it doesn't need to be said three times in different ways. Just the facts. --LDC
[edit] Reasons for the vulnerability of the MS Windows platform ; Microsoft's monopoly position
Cunc, I think you're way overstating the Microsoft case, to point of absurdity. It is a true, accurate, and useful observation about computer viruses that whoever has a market-share lead in desktop OSes is going to have the most viruses. That used to be Apple DOS 3.3; now it's Microsoft Windows. It's not at all appropriate to single out Microsoft in an article that's not really about them: it just happens that they have a current monopoly position that makes them vulnerable. It's also totally incorrect to single out their "closed source" development environment, because almost every commercial software company has that problem: MacOS viruses and Solaris viruses are more dangerous than they might be if the OSes they infected were more open and easier to update. I've been personally Microsoft-free for years, running Linux on two machines at home, and the lax security of Microsoft products is a big reason for that. But let's not change an encyclopedia article into a platform for preaching the Linux religion, shall we? --LDC
- There are a couple of issues here:
- -There are two reasons for vulnerability of Microsoft software, one being that MS have got the monopoly on the desktop, the other that MS apps have holes in them the size of a something very large. Together they form a potent brew.
- -Never before has so much virus damage been inflicted on the world. I have no exact numbers at hand, but I am sure you will be astonished once you find out. Why does everybody remember the Titanic? Surely, boats have sunk before? And what's so special about Galileo saying the earth revolves around the sun? Surely many others have said it before him? It's the impact that counts. Of course, the Titanic and Galileo are subjects close to Western culture and I would not want to advocate that a page about great disasters should link to the sinking of the Titanic, nor would I argue that a page about astronomy should link to Galileo. But computing is pretty much an originally Western affair, and the vulnerability of Microsoft product users to virusses, whatever may be the reason, should be mentioned, IMHO.
Well, yes, Microsoft's monopoly causes something of a monoculture; yes, Microsoft software has bugs and security holes you can drive a truck through. But let's not pretend that the media's present virus-mania represents any major change in the nature of virus attacks, or that it's specifically due to Microsoft. Indeed, the first time the news media made a big deal about a virus that caused a lot of damage was the Morris worm, and that only infected Vaxen. The last few major viruses were macroviruses for Microsoft Excel, Word, Outlook, Outlook, and Outlook. OK, so Microsoft Outlook sucks. That's hardly big news to folks in the business, and it certainly doesn't represent anything like a major flaw in the nature of the Internet (after all, Microsoft servers are still a minority on the Internet), or a threat to national security or something. I think the article does a good job now of explaining why you might want to consider not having the same e-mail program as your neighbor, and that's a good thing. --LDC
In reference to the term "monopoly", I already did weasel out and say "near monopoly", but I think it is important to the point being made that we use much stronger language than "market leader", because mere market leadership isn't enough to cause the monoculture problem. The problem really is caused by the fact that a huge majority of people have Word, etc. Besides, the term "monopoly" is a legal fact now, even though they can't yet decide what to do about it, so Microsoft has utterly no standing to complain about it (as if they would anyway) You can't let irrational and uninformed fear of libel suits guide production of encyclopedia articles. Grow a damned spine and write the facts; after they sue, maybe we can change things. --LDC
OK, OK, I see where you're coming from. I just didn't want to see Wikipedia become the place where Linux and Mac advocates voice their bitter hatred towards Microsoft... it is an encyclopedia areticle, after all. Anyway, I was thinking, shouldn't we mention something about antivirus programs? Surely that in itself has become one of the larger software selling points- most new computers come with an antivirus program.
Yes, there should be more on that than the present brief mention. I'll see what I can do. --LDC
Cunc, I still think "near monopoly" is the better term here, because I'm using "monopoly" in the sense of "no alternative" to emphasize the monoculture problem, not in the legal sense of "anti-competitive business" which is irrelevant to this article (except to the degree that the latter leads to the former). In that sense, clearly unadorned "monopoly" isn't true, because there have always been alternatives, they're just not commonly used. In other words, what I'm trying to say here is that a Word macrovirus is especially dangerous because almost everybody has Word and passes documents around. That "almost" isn't just a weasel-word thrown in to be PC, it's important to keep the statement factual. --LDC
[edit] Article formatting
Just curious, Cunc, but what do you have against paragraphs? Each of your edits seems to add subheads every few sentences, and every sentence its own paragraph. You're stealing all my screen space! :-)
- Paragraphs are evil. I'm not really against paragraphs, but I feel it's important to separate individual ideas as much as possible, so that we don't let confusion/vagueness/ambiguity of one idea infect another. Sometimes I'll try to recombine things into paragraphs; sometimes I try to break things apart. This entry seemed to need some breaking apart to discern the separate issues, which could then be broken off into separate entries. --TheCunctator
The ideas are separated: by periods, into sentences. Sentences are then grouped into overall topics, which are called paragraphs. It has worked quite well for centuries, and I suggest you try it. Certainly macro viruses as a separate entry makes sense, and other topics will split off as more information about them is provided. But a paragraph of only one sentence shows a basic misunderstanding of English prose structure, and subheads every 2-3 sentences is just silly. Please, let the writers write. --LDC
[edit] Microsoft's market position
The legal sense of "monopoly" is not "anti-competitive business". It's "having enough market share to be a) immune from competitive pressures and/or b) able to act anti-competitively." It's certainly true that b) doesn't have much to do with computer viruses, but a) does.
"Near-monopoly" doesn't seem to quite capture what you mean; I don't think one can reasonably talk about near monopoly, just degrees of monopoly.
- In that sense, clearly unadorned "monopoly" isn't true, because there have always been alternatives, they're just not commonly used.
Rather, I'd say it certainly is. "Monopoly" doesn't mean no alternatives, it just means not enough alternatives for free market pressures to be effective: it means exactly what you wrote after "because".
If you don't buy my argument, we could always change it to "market dominance". --TheCunctator
"Monopoly" is not one of those words that has degrees--it's like "unique", either it is or it ain't. It's not possible to be "very unique" or "slightly unique", but it is possible to be "almost unique" or "nearly unique". Likewise "near monopoly". I realize it's been watered down a bit now that its meaning has been usurped by the economic version, but that's not the primary meaning of the word. The word really does literally mean "no alternatives", and it still has that connotation to my ears (and probably to others of my age). That's a fine point of English usage, but I want to get it right. --LDC
[edit] Viruses on the Linux platform
Is it correct that Linux has far less viruses than Windows? --User:Hirzel
Bluntly, yes. There are several thousand known viruses for Windows, as can be seen in browsing Symantec's encyclopedia of viruses. In contrast, there have been only a handful of true viruses that run under Linux, all of them confined to experimental settings.
A true virus is unlikely under Linux, because it must be run by a user and infect either an executable file, a library, or the boot sector. All of these are owned by root, and an ordinary user doesn't have write access to them! The distinction between root and an ordinary user in Linux is much stronger than that between the Administrator user (or "system context") and an ordinary user in Windows. (It could also be said that the Linux/Unix permissions system is much less flexible than Windows's!)
There have, however, been a number of network worms infecting Linux systems, such as the Ramen worm and the recent Slapper worm. Windows, however, has had a great many more worms, including last year's infamous Code Red and Nimda, and the endless torrent of email-based worms such as Klez, Snowhite, and ILOVEYOU.
The media have been making comparisons between Slapper and Code Red as if they were similar in their spread. They aren't. Slapper has infected a few thousand systems in a week or so. Code Red infected that many in an hour, and within a few days had spread to over half a million systems! Slapper's innovation is not its spread, but its payload -- a unique sort of DDoS program based on P2P design principles.
I hope this clears things up a little. --Fubar Obfusco
[edit] Name of the article
Why on earth was this article renamed from computer virus to Virus (computing)? --Brion 11:23 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)
- Good question! That sounds like a better place for it to me ... --FOo
I've moved it back here. No one would ever spontaneously link virus (computing) or let it appear in the text of an article without piping it, while computer virus is used constantly. --Brion 01:05 Oct 24, 2002 (UTC)
[edit] Spontaneous creation of computer viruses
- A small percentage of viruses are the result of computer code that operates in an unexpected manner,
Can anyone support this rather shocking statement? Tempshill 05:26, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I am convinced that this claim is false. It is certainly possible that bugs in legitimate programs can result in damage that is similar to the effects of some malware. However, I can't imagine a legitimate piece of code that is so similar to a virus that just a small modification (bug) can cause it to self-replicate. Bugs can cause much unexpected behavior, but self-replication of a complete application seems practically impossible to me. I have replaced the claim by "Viruses are deliberately written from scratch by people, are made by people who use virus creation software, or can be the result of modification of an existing virus. Computer viruses cannot come into existence spontaneously, or as a result of bugs in regular program. " Sietse 17:22, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I would have to agree with the original statement but place emphasis on the "small percentage" aspect when regarding prior incidents in the past.
Recent advances in polymorphic coding (circa 2005) and more specifically metamorphic coding allow viral patterns to autonomously generate themselves with random mutations.
This technique in conjunction with randomized encryption tactics is an attempt to mask string signatures that may otherwise be detectable via standard Anti-Virus scanners.
Typically all the potential programming parameters and routines are encoded in the "shell" of a metamorphic virus, along with a compiler that allows the virus to "construct" a new variant of itself in a self replicating fashion.
Alternatively, autonomously generate executables have been created based upon the simple self mutating ASM code known as "Gloeobacter Violaceus" which is located here:
http://spth.host.sk/programs.htm
Unlike true polymorphic and metamorphic viruses, which are rather complex, this simple self replicating code randomly generates mutations in it's own procedure initially with no expressed viral intent.
Many "siblings" of this code malfunction since there is little to no error control or instruction set to guide mutation but occasionally some variants are prone to exhibit viral behavior.
The chances of that happening may be one in a million but the code can replicate fast enough on the modern multi GHz processor based system that the statistical chances become an eventuality rather than a probability.
Recombinant coding, a division of "evolutionary programming" is another example of an autonomous self programing tactic that can lead to spontaneous viral patterns and behaviour.
Although this technique is not very well documented at this time- the premise is based on the automated decompiling, evaluation and amalgamation of existing subroutines from salvaged applications.
--Burns 12:55, 04 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] VIRUS Backronym
I always thought that VIRUS was an acronym for "Vital Information Resources Under Siege". But could not find a mention of it on the page. Jay 17:52, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- It isn't. Someone may have thought of that later, certainly, but that's not anything to do with the initial use of the term nor most people's definition of it now or at any other time. —Morven 18:11, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
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- One I've never heard of, and I worked at an anti-virus firm for three years. Are you sure this is at all a common one? —Morven 09:52, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
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- Thats how I was taught at school. Google gives 134 hits. The variety of the sites thrown up show that the myth/usage has spread wide. Its encyclopedic anyways. Jay 18:12, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
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- 134 hits? That's not very many, considering that there are millions of hits relating to computer viruses. 134 is just enough to sustain the theory that it's folklore. If enough people buy this folklore, than you it becomes common usage, and you can call it a backronym. Meanwhile, it's just a cute story, and I vote to keep it out of Wikipedia. Isaac R 06:00, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
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[edit] Motivations of virus writers
- "but the majority of viruses are programs deliberately written to interfere with, or damage, other programs or computer systems. "
This is at the very least a questionable statement. Just look up a few interviews with virus writers in Google. I have removed it from the article. I think this statement is more accurate (and have put it in the article): "Virus writers can have various reasons for writing and spreading viruses. Some people who create or spread viruses intend to interfere with, or damage, computer systems." Sietse 17:22, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Common targets of computer viruses
"Common targets are executable files that are part of application programs, documents that can contain macro scripts, and the boot sectors of floppy disks. "
Isn't the "floppy disk" part a bit... well, archaic? Probably superceded by email as the big transmission medium.
--Sockatume 02:50, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- You do have a point. Boot sector infectors are less common than they used to be. However, according to the the wildlist, anti-virus researchers still regularly encounter bootsector viruses such as Form, Ripper and AntiCMOS in the wild. I think that's a good reason for including it in the "common targets" list. On the other hand, much malware that uses e-mail as a replication medium is technically a worm (not a virus), so that's why e-mail is not mentioned in the list. On the other hand, I guess it would be a good idea to add some information about the growth and decline of the various virus types in, say, the history section. Sietse 05:50, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Virus page has been vandalized - and fixed
I'm not equipped to fix it. 209.155.42.7 14:52, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC) (ebear422 not logged in)
Fixed. Brendan 8 Oct 2004 (I wasn't logged in either)
[edit] Prescriptivism is not encyclopedic
Please keep in mind that the rules for making plurals and conjugating verbs were made up out of whole cloth to explain how already existing lanuages work. They do not exist to to "rule" languages. Languages are dynamic. In order for Wikipedia to become a leader and authority as a reference it has to lead, not follow.
Example, The OED just added 'bootyliscous' to its online dictionary. Prescriptivists would insist that it is not a word, but words are... whatever people are using, whether they follow the static rules or not. When the words people are using don't follow the rules then it is the rules which are incorrect and out of date, not the word. (Note - yes it is understood that not all made up words enter a given language. There has to be some minimum amount of large scale adoption, but how much adoption it takes is a grey area.)
The reference to viri has been in this page for quite some time, albiet in a non-NPOV form. Please don't remove it without some discussion here first so we can reach a consensus. Also please see Plural of Virus for discussion on the form. Jjk 21:12, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Note to Fubar Obfusco, Please use logic rather than insults to promote your arguments. Saying "This is the English Wikipedia, not the Script-Kiddie k3wl d00d Slang Wikipedi" is clearly meant to be insulting and has no place in the Wikipedia.
- I propose that we just note that there are tree forms in use, and that we leave the arguments and judgements about their correctness to the plural of virus article that was specially written for this purpose. No need to have this discussion in two places, in my opinion. Hence my edit. Sietse 21:31, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- I agree with Jjk's anti-prescriptivism, but that particular discussion needs to be in some more central place. As for virus versus viri -- you can justify either, whether you're a prscriptivist or not. "Viri" is good Latin, but when I learned how to be a technical communicator, I learned that you don't want to work too hard to maintain non-English inflections. This is partly because it's impossible to get it right all the time ("Octopi" is not good Latin, or even bad Latin -- it's a Greek word with a Latin ending!) But mainly because using non-English grammar is an invitation to confusion, unless the non-English usage is so well-established as to be idiomatic English. (Data, plural of datum, for example.) That said, people have a natural tendency to "correct" words like "viruses" and "styluses". There's no harm in this, as long is it doesn't get too silly ("abaci" will never get past my red pen!). Isaac R 06:02, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
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- Did you even read the plural of virus article?
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- 'The viri form is also incorrect in Latin. The ending –i is used only for masculine nouns, not neuter ones such as virus; moreover, viri is the plural of vir, and means "men".' --Darksasami 21:33, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Sorry, I overlooked plural of viruss. Sorry for pontificating without referring to it. But now that you mention it, I think it's a good candidate for deletion. Grammatical flame wars are not encylopedic.
- Viri is a pun in Latin. Not that it matters, since, as I said, "correct Latin" is not the point. Isaac R 23:12, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- 'The viri form is also incorrect in Latin. The ending –i is used only for masculine nouns, not neuter ones such as virus; moreover, viri is the plural of vir, and means "men".' --Darksasami 21:33, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
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- So are we using Virii or Viruses? I've always seen it as virii, so when I went through and did some grammatical edits I changed it to that. I can change it back, though. I just need to know which plural form we're using. And even if we choose the "wrong" plural form, let's try and only use that plural form. Xgamer4 12 Feb 2006
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- The only plural that makes sense in English is viruses. Virii is wrong in Latin, and its use has been deprecated in English so that it is not becoming valid English usage. Viri would be a valid plural for a second-declension masculine Latin noun; however, virus belongs to the less familiar fifth declension. The correct Latin plural of virus is virus, just as the plural of census is census. This leaves only one reasonable English option, which is to use the usual English method of forming plurals. That is viruses. Prescriptivism is not encyclopedic, but documenting the fact that a word has been considered incorrect is. Robert McClenon 16:35, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
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- You also changed the capitalization of the headings. According to WP:MOSHEAD, the house style is to "Capitalise the first letter of the first word and any proper nouns in headings, but leave the rest lower case." --RainR 16:57, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
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- Yep. I did. I've always used the way that has everything but words like "the" and such capitalised. There's a few sentences in there I made slightly more understandable, though, so don't just revert it back a few steps. I'll fix my mistake.EDIT: Titles are fixed. Personally, I think it looks better the way I'm used to seeing it, but it's really not my place to judge. Xgamer4 12 Feb. 2006
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[edit] Viruses Damaging Hardware
I'm not the one who added the assertion about viruses damaging hardware, but the assertion is perfectly valid. The only example I can think of is a monitor, which you can blow out by sending it the wrong signals. Easy enough to do with a badly written driver or with carelessly chosen video settings. What non-malicious software can do by accident, malicious software can do by design. That said, I've never heard of a monitor-killer virus!
Before we add this concept to the article itself, we should probably find some more general and authoritative information on viruses causing hardware damage. I've done a little Googling, but all I see are the usual rumors and flamefests. Consider this note a stub for future investigation! Isaac R 06:17, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- http://news.spamcop.net/pipermail/spamcop-list/2001-June/014485.html - 84.222.70.189 15:09, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- I saw that one. But a BIOS is software, not hardware. The problem described can be fixed by flashing a new BIOS, without changing any hardware. Of course, without a a BIOS, all your hardware is useless -- but this is still not "hardware damage". Isaac R 21:32, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Malicious software CAN damage hardware.
1. Monitors can be blown by oversyncing and non-compliant signals. 2. BIOS can be unrepairably corrupted by mal-formating the flash routine. 3. Harddrives can be destroyed by setting the wrong heads and sectors "on the fly" and then scraping the disk and causing it to overheat and melt. 4. CPU's can be destroyed by overclocking to cause intentional thermal overloads which bypass shutdown precautions. 5. RAM on the motherboard and videocards can be mal-synced to slowly corrupt adressable regions.
And that's just the first few examples that come to mind.
When I first saw this listed as "A GENERAL RULE" about viruses I was about to delete it on the spot but I figured it was best to provide feedback here first and leave it upto the powers that be to sort it out.
I've been blessed with several ACER doorstops thanks to a variant of the BIOS bomb mentioned above.
I've also woken up to the smell of molten harddrives- although the evidence of "viral activity" went up with the "ship". I can guarantee that other than proper AV measures the machine was 100% upto par the night before. The HD meltdown effect was replicated by changing the settings on the secondary HD while active and running format.
24.36.232.170 17:50, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Add some virus code
I'd like to see some source samples in this page. In my opinion, famous viruses belong to the global human knowledge, and therefore NEED to enter encyclopedias. So it would be great if someone can find very famous source codes (such as brain of I love you)
King Mike 11:52, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
- Wikipedia isn't a repository of source works. We should link to sites that show virus source code, just as our article Bible links to sites that have copies of the Bible, rather than including the whole Bible in the article. :) --FOo 15:48, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Nov. 16 2005
Unfortunately I'm going to have to revert a large edit by the anonymous user 69.90.173.4 who reverted a total deletion by 212.135.1.84. It seems to have no wiki links at all.
[edit] Recombination
- Some versions of Word have had bugs in the calls by which macros replicate themselves, causing occasional replication errors, which has sometimes resulted in actual evolution by natural selection. Also, again closely analogous to biological viruses, sometimes when a system gets infected with two Word macro viruses at the same time, recombination can produce a new virus (much as an animal host infected with multiple strains of influenza can produce a novel strain of influenza).
- Is there a single known case of recombination ? If so, it should be cited.
- Is there a single known case where replication errors produced some novel behaviour ? If so, it should be cited.
- Are there any cases of other interesting replication errors ? Like at least being able to avoid detection by anti-virus software because of being replicated in a weird version of Word. If so, it should be cited.
And if the answer to all 3 question is no, then this part should just be removed. Taw 06:01, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
- It's true. I've added a cite. --RainR 06:10, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
I read [3], cited by RainR, and I have adjusted the wording in the History section to be less sensational. There is no evolution or natural selection occurring. It's a misleading analogy. I conceded "mating" because the cited researcher himself uses the term. But please, let's not get carried away with the metaphor. <>< tbc 22:06, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] mac viruses
I don't know who cited that guy at Newsweak but this is a naive and wreckless statement: ""Symantec's security team has yet to find a single Mac virus; by contrast, it spotted almost 11,000 new Windows viruses in the first half of 2005 alone.""
as is this sentence immediately following the quote:
"The fact that Symantec has found no viruses for Mac indicates that there is little if any reason to even bother running anti-virus software on computers running Mac OS X or Linux."
If you go and read the actual article, he wonders why Apple doesn't promote the hell out of the fact that viruses don't affect mac users. Here's one reason smart guy, it's not true! The quote is hearsay to start with and it's likely he misunderstood the context or misquoted his source. I really doubt symantec is that stupid. There was a particularly vicious one in October 2004. [4]
There are probably somewhere between 50-100 viruses for macs. Furthermore, the Microsoft Office software available and often included with macs is quite capable of spreading the macro viruses that are generally thought of as a Windows only phenomenon. It is recommended that mac users turn off macros and scan word documents and email attachments because even though it may not harm them, they can infect those they communicate with. Windows based Non-macro viruses can also exist in emulators, virtual disks, etc. clamXav is a virus scanner for macs. clamxav.com tells a few of the obvious reasons why mac users should We should probably delete that whole paragraph and add something about mac viruses. I think it's going to be an important and controversial edit so that's why I posted here instead of just doing it. --Victoria h 07:23, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree, delete it. That paragraph is just misinformation.
[edit] $250,000 bounty
Microsoft's virus bounty: $250,000 to sing like a canary... by Will Sturgeon. Is this notable enough to add to the article?
[edit] Boot sector virus section
The section on boot sector viruses needs substantial cleanup. Throughout the article, it referred to "boat viruses" or "boat sector viruses". I have fixed that. However, portions of it appear to be garbled, or may have been badly translated from another language. Robert McClenon 19:35, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
== Forgive me, please == I have read the german article and translade it using a translator, so please forgive me Anonimus --201.254.180.158 21:22, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
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- At least that explains why "boot" was changed to "boat". It was assuming that a non-German word was a German word. Robert McClenon 21:56, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
- Please read Wikipedia:Copyrights. --RainR 21:25, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
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- Was it translated from the German Wikipedia, in which case its translation is within the scope of the GPDL, or was it translated from a German reference document that was copyrighted? Robert McClenon 21:56, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
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- It does look copied from the German Wikipedia. So not copyvio as far as I can see. I've thought about trying to correct it, but there's few english-language references, so I can't be sure that my interpretation of the translation is correct. Some of it is also a duplicate of existing content in the english article. If someone wants to bring over properly translated, non-duplicate content, with english-language references, that's fine as far as I can see. --RainR 23:42, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
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- I think I will revert it, and then slowly, painfully put it into English. There are reasons to have an M.S. in Computer Science, besides that it gets me paid slightly more. Robert McClenon 02:33, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
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- We are still waiting your translation Mr. Robert McCleon.
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[edit] A very good note about VIRUS
Hai am pathum..
I found a very good note about computer viruses.. read this...improve your Knowledge
[[Computer Viruses]]
hi! hello! just testing how this groupworks..
[edit] What happened to the following paragraph?
This paragraph seems to have disappeared: "Some people incorrectly argue that malware is only classified as a virus if it both meets the above definition and can infect a computer without user activation. By this definition, malware that requires user activation to run would be classified as a trojan or a worm. But, before computers were networked together, the only way a virus would activate (excluding boot sector viruses) was by user activation, so this never was part of the definition of a virus."
Discussion: The historically and logically incorrect "a 'true' virus requires no user activation" argument is used far too often, and needs to be directly addressed in this entry. Second, the seminal work on computer viruses (the original being his doctoral dissertation), Fred Cohen's <http://all.net/books/virus/index.html> "Computer Viruses - Theory and Experiments" gives the reasoning behind the plural, the origin of the term and who coined it, and the pseudocode for the first viruses.
--70.171.196.171 08:45, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Extreme bias in this article
This article is extremely biased in its current form. The fact that viruses are, practically speaking, specific to Windows systems, is not even mentioned. To the extent that it is vaguely implied, this critical point is downplayed. I have used Unix-like and Mac systems for decades, all without any kind of virus protection software, and have never encountered anything closely resembling a virus. The argument that Windows viruses are more common with Windows because of the popularity of Windows is a red herring. It is technically impossible to write a virus that can do any kind of system damage to a Unix, Linux or Mac system the way a Windows virus can. Again, this is lightly touched on in the article, but the ramifications are not spelled out. --Serge 05:57, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
One thing not discussed in this article is not only that the numbers of non-Windows viruses are so relatively small, but that the ones that do exist just don't spread the way Windows viruses do. The bottom line is that the vast majority of Windows users are compelled to use anti-virus software, while the vast majority of non-Windows users are not. --Serge 22:28, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Reference Section
The reference section in this article needs fixing. It reads "author. title. work." as of now for most of its sources. Unless this is some new idiotic format. Quadzilla99 13:27, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] history
There seems to be missing important info here. According to http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=virus The computer sense is from 1972. We need to ask an expert or find an Internet page with relevant info. --Espoo 22:28, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Can viruses harm hardware?
I had a virus infection, and when i formated the disk i could not boot from it to continue the OS instalation. The computer restarts when it should boot from hard disk. Has that something to do with the virus infection?
[edit] have you thought
iv already asked about 15 people about this but has anyone ever notest the instant a virus pops up there’s an update to protect agenst it from Norton or some thing shurly it would take at lest a few hours to make a protection for any virus unless you were the one who made it and had knowledge of the weaknesses’ it may have.
[edit] Link to my website
Hi, I am wondering if you could provide an external link to my webpage within this article. The page is Stopmyvirus.com it is a new site, and its main function right now is a virus/computer discussion forum. So please let me know if this would be possible. My name is Kevin, you can contact me at Kevin@stopmyvirus.com or 610-554-0013. Thank you I appreciate it.
66.253.218.73 17:29, 1 November 2006 (UTC)Kevin (stopmyvirus.com)
[edit] Possible Copyright Violation
Certain parts of this article (such as most of the classification text) appear to be copied directly from a Symatec knowledge base article. Is there any reason for this, or have the edits just slipped through the net? Kel-nage 15:00, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Evolving virus.
Has there ever been a virus that evolves? It seems to me that if a virus could modify it's source code just like its biological equivalent, then it could be debated as to whether computer viruses are alive. A lifeform is self-replicating and evolving. A virus could meet that by using computer's to make copies of itself and changing a few things in its source randomly everytime. The viruses that evolved poorly would be caught by anti-virus software and the ones that evolved well would propogate. It could even differentiate itself into different strains, evolvinng to something completly different than what was originally created. Just like skynet.
[edit] Frequent Vandalism
This page is the target of frequent vandalism from many unlisted IPs. Can we get an admin to block unregistered edits to this page? I'm about to revert the page (again) and it seems its been reverted about 20 times already this month.
- wgh 21:15, 11 November 2006 (UTC) dialectric
- The first step is to always warn the anon IP by placing {{subst:test1}} ~~~~ on their talk page (incrementing to test2, test3, test4 if there are already previous warnings—see WP:VANDAL for more about these and other variations). They almost always get the message the first or second time and stop their unhelpful behavior. It is important to do this each time, because if they strike again soon after test4, the final step is to report them at WP:AIV and an admin will block them. If anon IPs are continually vandalising an article, one can request semi-protection at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. Semi-protection prevents anon IPs and very new editors from changing a page. I don't believe an admin would consider this particular article to be at that stage yet. JonHarder 01:05, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
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- I've been watching this article (and reverting vandalism to it) for a while and I'd agree with that. Follow Jon's excellent advice for now. This does seem to be a popular article to vandalise, but enough people watch it that vandalism doesn't usually stay up for long. --Guinnog 01:12, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
