* Original Area: Internet E-mail
* Original From: George Smith
* Original To  : Gene Paris
Feel free to repost as needed. :)
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CORPORATE PROPAGANDA, INC.
Rejoice, rejoice!  Symantec Corp. has declared the period between
Feb. 15 and March 15, "Virus Awareness Month" -- even though it's
not a month.
The driven marketing managers of the Cupertino, California, anti-virus
software publisher claim the promotion is designed to educate computer
users about new virus threats.  So said a typical Symantec press release
disguised as news a week or so ago. "Because of the tremendous growth 
in communications via the Internet, computer virus threats are on the 
rise. Symantec is committed to protecting our customers from viruses, 
therefore we have established Virus Awareness Month," claimed Symantec 
pitchman, Enrique Salem.
Inspired by Symantec's Virus Awareness (tm) and its pseudo-informational
marketing cynically aimed at maximizing the appearance of the
company's name in the news, Crypt Newsletter and Rob Rosenberger's Virus
Myths are declaring the month of March as Symantec Awareness Month.  Unlike
Symantec marketers, we know the 12 months of the year and are setting aside
March as a special time in which everyone is invited to educate PC users 
bout
Symantec's merciless pummeling of Netizens with ad
campaigns disguised as consumer news.
As you know, anti-virus companies enjoy a considerable amount of
valuable free publicity.  They spend a lot on advertising but they'd
much rather get mentioned in a news story.  Every time a virus appears,
anti-virus firms compete to get quoted in print or are called upon
to frown on cue for the TV camera.
However, Symantec's own ringer press releases mailed to 1,400 media
outlets via the PR Newswire aren't quite good enough. Poor Symantec
doesn't like this because it means competition with every other
company willing to spend $500 for 400 words uploaded to PR Newswire.
Why, on a bad day, a reporter might be forced to pick and choose between
as many as half-a-dozen quasi-fraudulent press releases, all from
different companies!  Symantec could get lost in the noise!  Symantec
salesmen might not get a telephone call!
No, Symantec wants reporters to salivate on command for it, just
like Pavlov's dogs.
To that end, the company has made it even easier for reporters to get
their daily dose of propaganda.  On February 10th, the company issued a
press release for its future press releases under the headline: "Symantec
Announces the Opening of the Symantec Antivirus Research Centre (SARC)
News Bureau for the Media!" [Note the too hip European English spelling of
"Center."  It's not just a "Center," it's a "Centre"!]
Symantec's propaganda outlet will serve as a information center --
some would say a Sales Information Centre -- for the media
only . . . Editors and producers will be able to sidestep pesky
competitors and contact the SARC _News Bureau_ [our emphasis added] via
a special toll-free 1-888 number to obtain information on topical
issues such as . . . easy anti-virus protection through Norton AntiVirus
products, of course.
"We will be able to spread the word," burbled Symantec product manager
Alex Haddox in the press release to cover all future press releases.
And spread _it_, Symantec certainly does. Without pause.
On February 14, Symantec marketroids _again_ spammed journalists,
editors and -- by proxy -- most of cyberspace via PR Newswire with a
software promotion, this one hung on a stunt pulled by the Chaos Computer
Club.
Instead of using company resources to research and publish a thoughtful
and perhaps even valuable analysis of the Chaos Computer Club's
dog-and-pony show using ActiveX controls to allegedly subvert the Quicken
checking and banking software package, Symantec merely used the
opportunity afforded by momentary bad news to hector users into buying 
more of its new products.
". . . Norton Secret Stuff today announced that [two Symantec
software solutions] can protect users against malicious ActiveX or
Java applications such as the recently discovered ActiveX control
created by the Chaos Computer Club . . . Internet users need to protect
themselves with encryption products such as Norton Your Eyes Only.  At
a minimum, they should get started with a free trial of Norton Secret
Stuff," said Bob Pettit, the day's designated Symantec huckster.
PC Users are invited to recall that it was just at the end of last
year that Netizens voted Symantec a winner in the 1996 Virus Hysteria
Awards.  Yes, instead of dispelling misinformation and confusion about
computer viruses, Symantec was deemed guilty of the just the opposite
in 1996 with a March press release describing a new Norton Anti-Virus
feature: the ability to detect Java viruses. However, the press release
admitted "no current Java virus threats exist." This led some to
question how you could test this feature to see if it really worked.
Actually, none of this mattered since all that was really important
was getting the company's name into more publicity thinly disguised as
consumer news.
Additionally, computer users are invited to point out a 1996 study
(probably _not_ available through the in the "Symantec Antivirus
Research Centre (SARC) News Bureau for the Media!") published
by the trade publication, Secure Computing, that demonstrated Symantec's
Norton Anti-virus was a poor performer when it came to Word Macro
virus detection and removal.
The ensuing vendor fight over these lousy results became even more
embarrassing when competitor McAfee Associates started a war of the press
releases, employing the Business NewsWire to tar Symantec. In
September, McAfee Associates CEO Bill Larson thundered in a press
release delivered over that wire: "Symantec appears to have repeatedly
and blatantly [misled] software consumers about the capabilities of
Norton AntiVirus . . . Once again, Symantec has tried to fool customers
by deliberately exaggerating the capabilities of Norton AntiVirus.  We
call on Gordon Eubanks, Symantec's CEO, to come clean and own up to - and
correct - his company's false and misleading claims."
For the sake of continuing Symantec Awareness, users are also
invited to reflect on the following:
[1]. In 1988, Peter Norton declared in _Insight_ magazine that computer
viruses were an "urban myth." "It's like the story of alligators in
the sewers of New York," he said. "Everyone knows about them, but no
one's ever seen them." Today Peter Norton is still ridiculed for that 
quote.
[2]. And in yet another press release, this one from August 1996, a
Symantec marketing agent declared PC users needed the Norton
Anti-virus "to fight [today's] more sophisticated polymorphic viruses."
As usual, the Symantec marketroid was full of air: Polymorphic computer
viruses were old news around 1992 when virus writers like the Dark 
Avenger and Mark Washburn popularized them in computer security circles
with viruses that demonstrated the effect. But in _August 1996_ the
company cynically asked users to believe they should protect themselves
against this "new" threat.
Of course, polymorphic viruses do exist. They have for quite awhile.
But lots of different anti-virus software flavors find and eliminate 
them, or claim to -- not just Symantec.
[3]. Another thing you will never read from the "Symantec Antivirus
Research Centre (SARC) News Bureau for the Media!":
Programmers for the Norton Anti-virus have deserted the company regularly
since 1995. A recent loss was to competitor S&S International. Three
developers went to McAfee sometime in 1995. One went to Command Software,
another to IBM. When Symantec asked what it would take to keep the IBM
defector at the company, he replied, "Buy IBM."
And please remember, "'Symantec Awareness Month' ends on April Fool's 
Day!" 
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[Users are encouraged to make like their own personal local bureau of 
the PR Newswire and copy this memo freely throughout cyberspace -- in 
the interest of Symantec Awareness, of course.]
George Smith, Crypt Newsletter
Rob Rosenberger, Virus Myths
--- Maximus 3.01
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