V i r u s ! !

[Paul Dessart]

Dear Taxacomers,

Before summarizing and concluding the numerous messages in reaction to my
knack of processing accents (thanks to the many commentators) I thing more
urging to spread (even if already done in other way/s) the following warning
emanating from the informatica staff of my institute:
Paul Dessart

Monday the 12th of August 1996 11:58

         ----------------------------------
           WARNING - Internet Virus
         ----------------------------------


>---------------Original Message---------------
>There is a computer virus that is being sent across the Internet. If
>you receive an email message with the subject line "Good  Times", DO
>NOT read the message, DELETE it immediately.  Please read the
>messages below. Some miscreant is sending  email under the title
>"Good Times" nationwide, if you get anything like this, DON'T DOWN
>LOAD THE FILE!
>It has a virus that rewrites your hard drive, obliterating anything
>on it.
>
>   Please be careful and forward this mail to anyone you care about.
>
>                   WARNING!!!!!!!  INTERNET VIRUS
>
>The FCC released a warning last Wednesday concerning a matter of
>major importance to any regular user of the Internet. Apparently a
>new computer virus has been engineered by a user of AMERICA ON
>LINE
>that is unparalleled in its destructive capability. Other more well-
>known viruses such as "Stoned", "Airwolf" and "Michaelangelo" pale in
>comparison to the prospects of this newest creation by a warped
>mentality. What makes this virus so terrifying, said the FCC, is the
>fact that no program needs to be exchanged for a new computer to be
>infected. It can be spread through the existing email systems of the
>Internet.
>
>Once a Computer is infected, one of  several things can  happen. If
>the computer contains a hard drive, that  will most likely be
>destroyed. If the  program is not stopped, the computer's processor
>will be placed in an nth-complexity infinite binary loop -which can
>severely damage the processor if left running that way too long.
>Unfortunately, most novice computer users will not realize what is
>happening until it is far too late. Luckily, there is one sure means
>of detecting what is now known as the "Good Times" virus. It always
>travels to new computers the same way in a text email 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. The program is
>highly intelligent- it will  send copies of itself to everyone whose
>email address is contained in a receive-mail file or a sent-mail
>file, if it can find one. It will then proceed to trash the computer
>it is running on.
>
>The bottom line is:  - if you receive a file with the subject line
>"Good Times", delete it  immediately! Do not read it"  Rest assured
>that whoever's name was on the  "From" line was surely struck by the
>virus.  Warn your friends and  local system users of this newest
>threat to the Internet!  It could save them a lot of time and money.
>
>      DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANY FILE NAMED PKZIP300
>      REGARDLESS OF THE EXTENSION!!
>
>A NEW Trojan Horse Virus has emerged on the internet with the name
>PKZIP300.ZIP, so named as to give the impression that this file is a
>new version of the PKZIP software used to "ZIP" (compress) files.
>     DO NOT DOWNLOAD this file under any circumstances!!! If you
>install or expand this file, the virus WILL wipe your hard disk clean
>and affect modems at 14.4 and higher. This is an extremely
>destructive virus and there is NOT yet a way of cleaning up this one.
>
>     REPEAT: DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANY FILE NAMED PKZIP300
>     REGARDLESS OF THE  EXTENSION.
>----------End of Original Message----------
>
>-------------------------------------
>Sent by: Veronika Sperl
>USIA, Regional Program Office
>1080 Vienna, Schmidgasse 14
>Telephone (+43-1) 31339-73-2635
>Fax (+43-1) 408-8288
>E-mail: vsp at usia.co.at
>