-=> MILES MAXTED wrote to KURT WISMER <=-

 KW> how about the ethics?

 MM> Surely there can be no doubt in that area - the very name of
 MM> `virus' is self-declaratory in the ethical sense...

you'd be surprised... did you hear that consumer reports (yes, that
consumer reports) commissioned the creation of 5,500 new viruses in
order to perform tests on anti-virus products using viruses the vendors
hadn't seen before?

 KW> perhaps not the ethics of virus writing but maybe
 KW> the ethics of researchers or vendors...

 MM> Altruism seems to be an important evolutionary trait - righting
 MM> wrongs is truistically ethical ...

so then what if a researcher or vendor contributes to the wrongs? there
were some pretty big names involved in the research that created an
electronic voting machine virus...

then there are the people who are making freely accessible malware
repositories in the name of research and 'full disclosure'...

and outside of the virus domain things get even worse, like a famous
personality in the (so called) 'rootkit' field who on the one hand gets
royalties from a 'rootkit' book he co-authored as well as working as the
cto of an anti-'rootkit' company that receives millions from the
government and is partnered with symantec, and then on the other hand is
also responsible for one of the most widely deployed 'rootkits' on earth
(as in he wrote it, compiled it, uploaded it to a public website where
others took it and used it for malicious ends)...

 KW> then there's strategy and tactics... you take precautions but how did
 KW> you arrive at the strategies you employ? are they as strong as they
 KW> could be? are there chinks in the armour you weren't aware of?

 MM> My military training says there are always chinks...

well, that much is good - lots of people think all they have to do is
have an anti-virus product installed and they're magically safe...

 KW> funny you should mention that... while i don't think i can reverse the
 KW> appeal of the web, i can show people how to use it to participate
 KW> here...

 KW> http://www.docsplace.org to upload and download my qwk packets, and of
 KW> course where else but the web am i going to find a qwk compatible
 KW> offline mail reader?

 MM> Heh ... my dial-up gets me a QWK a day whether the `net is up or
 MM> down, and my kindly Maxi carries all the latest OLR's; local calls
 MM> in NZ cost nothing, but I'd not be online for more than 1 minute a
 MM> day.

hmm... i was calling up a bbs once upon a time, but the bbses i called
kept going permanently down... i don't call any bbses anymore, i don't
even have a normal modem attached to my computer anymore...

 KW> the greater appeal of the web is not so big an obstacle to
 KW> participating here as one might think... if that is all that we need to
 KW> overcome, there are certainly possibilities...

 MM> I fear that hitting a local phone number up for a QWK one doesn't
 MM> appeal to faddish users - I teach classes of beginners who can hit
 MM> their Internet buttons without fail to get my instructional PDF's,
 MM> but who are incapable of winning significant prizes by dialling up
 MM> a local phone number with Hyperterm,  even after direct coaching
 MM> in class ....

 MM> Never underestimate the power of the fad and innovation...

well, let's face it... dialing into a bbs is a lot more complicated than
clicking the blue 'e'...
 
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.43