Virus Warning

[Brenda Starrr]

I just thought I'd share this, as I now have Windows back on my computer and don't want to have any more shit happen to it....

A new virus has just been discovered that has been classified by

Microsoft as the most destructive ever. This virus was discovered yesterday

afternoon by McAfee . This virus simply destroys Sector Zero from the hard

disk, where vital information for its functioning are stored.

This virus acts in the following manner:

It sends itself automatically to all contacts on your list with the title:

"A Card for You".

As soon as the supposed virtual card is opened the computer freezes so that

the user has to reboot. When the ctrl+alt+ del keys or the reset button are

pressed, the virus destroys Sector Zero, thus permanently destroying the

hard disk. Yesterday in just a few hours this virus caused panic in New York

, according to news broadcast by CNN.

This alert was received by an employee of Microsoft itself.

So don't open any mails with subject: "A Virtual Card for You."

As soon as you get the mail, delete it !! Even if you know the sender !!!

Please pass this mail to all of your friends.

Forward this to everyone in your address book. I'm sure most people,

like myself, would rather receive this notice 25 times than not at all.

[Scary Guy]

See if you were still on Linux, you wouldn't be having this problem

Also windows IS a virus IMO

[Brenda Starrr]

HA HA

Linux was a virus to ME. I couldn't deal with it. I tried, though. I'm just too used to Windows, I guess.

[Daniel]

Generally, being alert for specific viruses isn't good practice. You should simply follow "safe" procedures all the time, including not opening any suspect attachments.

With that said, this virus is most likely a hoax. I've seen similarly written emails floating around for years.

[BrassFusion]

=/

http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/card.asp

[Msterbeau]

I'm on a Mac... What viruses?

And before some smartass (*Looks at Mark*) tries to tell me there are Mac viruses... I know that. But I can count them on one hand.

[Rayne]

I'm on a Mac... What viruses?

And before some smartass (*Looks at Mark*) tries to tell me there are Mac viruses... I know that. But I can count them on one hand.

LOL.

Speaking of Mac, I have to take my Mac into the Mac store it looks like ... the screen is power surging (for lack of a better term). First problem I have ever had with this thing.

[Scary Guy]

I'm on a Mac... What viruses?

And before some smartass (*Looks at Mark*) tries to tell me there are Mac viruses... I know that. But I can count them on one hand.

Don't forget all the UNIX viruses too, since it has a UNIX core now. Also if it has an Intel x86 chip in it that's even worse. Having PPC was a nice extra layer of defense.

Even still the threat is minimal to none. Just make sure root is secure and you're good.

[Daniel]

You know, and if you browse the web with Lynx, you probably won't get your browser hijacked either.

[Destroit]

Eeep, thanks for the warning. I mean it's not like I've checked a lot of my e-mail accounts in months, but you know, I might get around to it (and hopefully I don't forget about the virus before I do). I so don't get why people make these things, a friend of mine actually had this a theory that viruses are actually made by the computer companies so that when your computer would get infected it would destroy your computer so that you either have to get it fixed or get a new one. Kinda silly, but then I was like "hmmm...what if?" You never know

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

It's a Hoax.

There is no virus or any other software that can do physical damage to any type of hardware. At most, they can wipe the flash memory used for your BIOS... sure the hardware is dead, but it can be brought back by having the manufacture re-flash the BIOS.

[DeadBurgerKing (10)]

Thanks Brenda!! I usually delete those anyways though. Cause I'm a prick like that

[Hellion]

See if you were still on Linux, you wouldn't be having this problem

Also windows IS a virus IMO

Being in 85% of the worlds computers,yeah Windows is a virus.

[pomba gira]

It's always a good idea to check Snopes or one of the sites that specifically deals with virus hoaxes, before passing these things on to errone you know. That particular one is at least 2 years old. I could go on to point out the elements that mark it as a hoax but I'm trying to not be quite as much a pedantic know-it-all, so I won't.

[BrassFusion]

Of course I'm still a pedantic know-it-all.

And I talked to the biggest computer genius I know, apparently it IS possible (and easy) to write a virus to do specifically what that e-mail suggests it does. Thing is, all viruses are pain-in-the-ass bad news, and watching out for e-mail attachments based on title, but downloading everything else, is still a bad idea.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

perhaps your friend didn't read the email or doesn't know as much as you would like to think. It could write 0s to the first sector.. and if you were using an older OS that used FAT for it's file system you would be screwed until you formatted the hard drive and reinstalled your OS. XP uses NTFS, which wont allow you to do that.

no virus has ever existed that could do physical damage.

Note that a Virus is not listed as something that can do physical damage

This one actually mentions this email and tells says that a virus CAN NOT do physical damage.

[Scary Guy]

perhaps your friend didn't read the email or doesn't know as much as you would like to think. It could write 0s to the first sector.. and if you were using an older OS that used FAT for it's file system you would be screwed until you formatted the hard drive and reinstalled your OS. XP uses NTFS, which wont allow you to do that.

no virus has ever existed that could do physical damage.

Note that a Virus is not listed as something that can do physical damage

This one actually mentions this email and tells says that a virus CAN NOT do physical damage.

Has ever? I know things exist with safeguards in them now. However I wouldn't say never.

People overclock their CPU's, video cards and fan speeds in computers these from within the system, change the refresh rate/resolution of the monitor. Even if they don't do it themselves the ability for an outside program to do this exists. All you need is the ability to control the hardware through the software.

While the system might not literally explode in a fireball I can see it doing serious physical damage to components inside the system. Tell the hard drive to read back and forth really really fast to make it go off track or stick or telling it to speed up faster than it can handle causing it to overheat and melt a bit.

Oh these might be rare, but there are very crafty programmers out there who are board because they're too ugly to get a date. So all they do is code stuff like what I'm talking about just to get the admiration of their nerd cohorts. I can guarantee you people have tried and at least one (probably more than one) virus exists with these capabilities I've mentioned.

http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/1099

http://www.virus.org/news/computer-viruses...s-hardware.html

http://vx.netlux.org/lib/static/vdat/epnotvir.htm#NOT8.2 (says it's possible but hasn't been done yet).

So if someone sends you a virus and your hardware does spark and go *poof* then you probably knew the person who did it.

Highly unlikely yes, never been done... no (though yes on a grand scale).

For a virus to properly do this it would have to lay dormant until a certain time, spreading itself out, then destroy the machine. You wouldn't want to use a specific date for that time, it would have to start from when the computer gets the virus to be the most effective.

[Scary Guy]

You know, and if you browse the web with Lynx, you probably won't get your browser hijacked either.

My friend in Whyoming (spelled wrong because WHY would you ever want to live there) actually uses lynx, but for graphics he has everything turned off except images in firefox. No java(script),PDF,flash,etc..

"Those who sacrifice security for useability deserve neither security nor usability"?

Or something like that anyway

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

All of those pretty muchs ay the same thing.. it's possible.. but so is a monkey flying out of my ass. it's never been done and in all likelyhood never will be.

[Scary Guy]

My point is your statement in which you said

no virus has ever existed that could do physical damage.

is false. Which it is. I'm sure one has existed, we've just never seen it in the wild.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Prove it.

[Scary Guy]

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9807/22/hardvirus.idg/

And I know that the BIOS is actually firmware, but back then it was an inconvenience because no one really had downloadable BIOS images for upgrading the code.

If you can rewrite the BIOS you can rewrite it to make it do other things as well, like everything I mentioned up above. Although it would be harder as you'd have to target a specific type of system motherboard brands, while it wouldn't damage the hardware it would still make the computer unbootable.

I don't need to prove it. The fact that the idea even existed back then means someone has probably tried it and succeeded... somewhere.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

This is one of those "agree to disagree" things.

[Scary Guy]

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-5450753.html

How's that? Chip in mans arm gets a virus and does physical damage. Is this hardware enough for you?

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

That would/will be fucked up... but then again... it's still not hurting the hardware.. just the human it controls.