Greg Mayman (3:800/449) wrote to Steven Horn at 08:08 on 07 May 2003:

 GM> Why in Asia?

Symantec identifies the origin of VBS.LoveLetter aka Lovebug as Manila. 
The last time I looked, that was in Asia.

 GM> In the same way, the originator of the virus knows the most
 GM> likely virus protection that his virus is going to encounter so he
 GM> writes it to be as transparant as possible to that brand of
 GM> protection.

If the originator is that sophisticated.  The author also needs to know
what will give the virus the most bang for the buck and since many people
are less than careful about their virus protection, how the anti-virus
program works may not be a major concern.

 GM> OTOH it is much more difficult to write a virus that is
 GM> transparent to two different kinds of virus protection, even more
 GM> difficult for it to be transparent to three. So using two or three
 GM> different virus protection systems gives a MUCH higher degree of
 GM> protection than using one.

To each his own.  I already have a hardware firewall, a software firewall,
a virus checker, some security software other than the virus checker, and I
don't open files or email attachments unless I can establish their source. 
Remember that Lovebug would have infected noone unless he or she actually
opened the note. 

 GM> The analogy of belt and braces to support trousers that aren't
 GM> under attack is completely false, although some people who want to
 GM> fool themselves that one type of virus protection is 100% safe
 GM> often use it to support their laziness or frugality or whatever it
 GM> is.

My trousers (or at least their staying up) become a problem the moment I
put them on.  How I hold them up is by braces because that works.  If a
belt worked, I'd use that instead.

Take care,

Steven Horn (steven_a_horn{at}yahoo.ca)
Moderator, ALASKA_CHAT 
--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+