Old Virus Rumors

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2 total messages Started by j... Joe Dellinger Fri, 20 Apr 1990 23:59

#2498

Author: j... Joe Dellinger
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 1990 23:59

31 lines
2437 bytes

	I've heard back from 2 people now who claim to have heard
of an IBM mainframe virus program around 1978. (One heard the story
in the USA, one in New Zealand.) Supposedly this program used the modem
to call up other computers, then having found another IBM mainframe would
try a password attack on it. Having broken in, it would then launch a copy
of itself.

	This sounds like an "urban computer legend". However, the Cookie
Monster story ALSO sounded like an urban computer legend, and now it appears
it really did happen, at several places. OK: Did anyone actually _SEE_
this semi-mythical 1978 IBM mainframe autodialer virus? Or is it really and
truly just a legend?

	PS: About Apple ][ viruses: mine is still the oldest I've heard
of. It seems a couple of others came into existence around 1982, and by
1984 lots of people were writing them. I'm still asking for people with
old Apple DOS 3.3 disks to check for my circa-1982 "invisible" virus. Alas,
even with all my pestering I've only gotten 2 people to actually check their
disks. There are still lots of people with DOS 3.3 disks out there... I've
gotten several _promises_ to check disks, but it appears people don't feel
like checking for a virus until they've had their disk erased, some cute
message printed on their screen, their disks fill up unexpectedly, etc....
Mine didn't do any of these things, so nobody will check for it. Oh well.
Perhaps there are "invisible" viruses out there today that just don't get
noticed because they don't DO anything? Is that possible? It appears it
actually happened with the Apple ][, at least.
\    /\    /\    /\/\/\/\/\/\/\.-.-.-.-.......___________
 \  /  \  /  \  /Dept of Geophysics, Stanford University \/\/\.-.-....___
  \/    \/    \/Joe Dellinger j...@hanauma.stanford.edu  apple!hanauma!joe\/\.-._
************** Drive Friendly, Y'all! ******************************************

Re: Old Virus Rumors

#2499

Author: zb... Ben Cranston
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 1990 23:17

49 lines
2725 bytes

There is a discussion going on in comp.virus about mainframe viruses that
might be interesting to those following this thread.  I wish I could remember
the date to compare to 1978 for the IBM virus or 1982 for the apple ][ one.
Alan Stebbins, currently at UCSB, "defanged" the "animal" and we just treated
it as a normal computer game.  Hmm, wonder if it was in  alan*lib  and if 
there is a date there...  Yes, enter Unisys 1100 mode !

@active,l alan*lib.animal

SEQ    DATE      TIME    SIZE  TYPE   NAME
-------------------------------------------------
 27  03/10/75  25:14:19   112  ABS    ANIMAL

TOTAL SIZE= 5515 SECTORS
END ACTIVE

ha! so it was as early as 1975 that viruses existed on Unisys 1100s...
Here's the original posting:

From: zb...@umd5.umd.edu (Ben Cranston)
Subject: Re: PCs v. Mainframes
Message-ID: <0010.900420...@ubu.cert.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 19 Apr 90 21:00:13 GMT
Sender: Virus Discussion List <VIR...@IBM1.CC.Lehigh.EDU>
Lines: 23

There have been virus-like objects in mainframe environments.  Some years
ago we got the binary program "animal" for our Unisys 1100.  It played a
game where it tried to guess the animal you were thinking of.  It basically
asked the questions at the branches of a binary tree, when it got to the
end it asked "is your animal a <leaf data>" if you said that it wasn't it
then asked for the name of the animal, then asked for a question that would
distinguish the new animal from the <leaf data> animal, then added a node
at the leaf branching to the old leaf and the new animal.  Outside of a
few "one eyed trouser snakes" it was pretty benign.

Little did we realize that it was ALSO looking for writeable directories
and copying itself into those directories.  :-)

We actually saw it at the end of one of the Unisys distribution tapes, so
we assumed their distribution machine was well infected.

This must have been in the late 1970s or early 1980s (hi Alan!)

-- 

"It's all about Power, it's all about Control
 All the rest is lies for the credulous"
-- Man-in-the-street interview in Romania one week after Ceaucescu execution.

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