-=> Mocking Luther Kolb to Kurt Wismer <=-
   
 KW> exact identification is important for relief from false
 KW> positives and
 KW> also from false negatives with polymorphs...
 
 KW> exact id is more about an increased degree of certainty
 KW> about the
 KW> diagnosis than about avoiding screwing up the
 KW> disinfection... false
 KW> alarms are more of a problem than mistaken identity (it's a
 KW> very big
 KW> problem with some scanners... and false positives will
 KW> always be a
 KW> problem with scanners that don't do exact identification...
 LK> How do you know any given identification is exact ?  YOU DON'T!  ALL
 LK> you know is what the scanner tells you!  If Dr. Solomon says you have
 LK> One.Two.Three(a) how do you know your virus isn't really
 LK> One.Two.Three(b) or any of the other 350 variants ?
because of the way exact identification works... if the exactly right
bytes aren't in the exact right place it's says "like virus
one.two.three(a)" instead of "identified as one.two.three(a) virus"
 LK> YOU DON'T!
for the most part i do... there are some cases where not all of the
virus is defined in dsav's database (ie. only the code map, nothing of
the encrypted text) but usually it's the whole thing... if it weren't,
their competitors would scream foul when dssl makes such claims...
 LK> fact you don't even know for sure that it's a virus and not a false
 LK> positive.  ALL YOU KNOW IS WHAT THE SCANNER TELLS YOU! 
luther, i respectfully suggest that you lose your capslock key for a
moment and consider the possibility that i know a bit more than that...
 LK> Have you ever noticed that the only people who stress the "importance"
 LK> of "exact identification" are the anti-virus companies who claim to
 LK> have more of it than the next guy ?
have you perhaps noticed that my previous statements about exact ids
make the above statement incorrect as i don't work for any av company...
as for exact identification only being hyped by the people who provide
it, what do you expect? do you think mcafee is going to sit there and
say "well, we don't have exact identification capabilities but we're
REALLY, REALLY good"... no, of course not... no company is going to
point out their own deficiencies to the general public...
 LK>  Nobody else gives a fuck about it
 LK> as long as their scanners can clean up the mess.  Like Rod said, it's a
 LK> buzz-word for techno-wankers, worth about as much in real life as
 LK> reverse-fucking-piggybacking!
 
try again... exact id'ing cuts down false alarm rates, thus making the
product more usable because the user doesn't have to second guess the
scanner as often... your basic ignorant user doesn't care much about
technical issues, i'll agree, but they get mighty peeved if a scanner
says a virus is there when it isn't...
... video games, ha! yoyos have more of a danger element to them...
--- TGWave v1.20.b09
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