PA>> - ok, crashing the system is possible as well ;)
DC>Hey, you can have some real fun with trojans. Crash the system? Reset
Depends on what you consider beeing fun ;). Destroing data can be fun,
but doesn't give you any real advantages (that is if it wasn't data on
you collected by the CIA ;) ).
DC>switch - little damage done. Format the HDD? Ok, maybe cause a few tears,
DC>but the fix is pretty obvious.
Well, and thats the problem ;).
DC>
DC>Hows about something like one I picked up and used for a while before
DC>figuring it out? It was this nice little undelete directory. Unlike
DC>MS-DOS's undelete, it had a text-GUI and also undeleted directories. But 
n
DC>occaision, things went missing and were to corrupted to undelete. I
Well, that I would put under "destroing data" along with "format C:".
It's both the same only on a different level of damage ;).
DC>Or hows about another suspected trojan/virus activity on my DOS system -
DC>redirecting mail for one user to another user, or something that causes
DC>minor errors/changes to the way DOS works. Whereas a format and re-install
DC>me be the best, easiest way to do something, most people will try to
DC>salvage data. I spent 12 hours one day at a friends place trying to 
ecover
DC>a slowly corrupting disk, reboot to clean floppy, FDISK and format HDD's,
DC>and re-install from scratch was the only way to fix things - no virus
DC>scanner would pick anything up either..
But against this consider the fun of able to intercept email or accessing
any ftp server on the internet for free. This I would consider to be real
damage. Just making a system stop working is (IMO) childs play.
Too simple, too senseless, too obvisous.
DC>Hmm, something that randomly changes a character in a .CFG file, or 
etects
DC>and alters whole path lines in a .cfg file - now that would be cruel!
It would be cruel, but would it also be fun (or even best profit ;>) ? I
mean if you do this to a "friend" of yours you would probaply not get
any kind of feedback, right ? But a trojan on any kind of big server
which doesn't do much more than opnening a backdoor to the system for
you ... can be quite satisfieng wouldn't you agree (as well as it is
satisfieng for a virus author to hear in the News how widespread his
virus is by now).
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