LETHAL FROGS

[Martin Tibor]

Although this virus may be a hoax I can assure you that the Rosenberger virus
hoax site is also a hoax. Some years ago and in a past life when I had the time
to do data recovery I found that the Michelangelo virus had attacked a good
number of my clients early (before the March 6 activation date). I had let the
media know and the media in turn whipped everyone into a total frenzy rather
than tell an accurate story. The final chapter reported was that the story was
overblown but by who "the media" of course. The truth is that countless
agencies had contacted me who had been affected by the virus. I am sure many
more would have lost their data had they not run software to eliminate the
virus before it erased their data. I attempted to communicate with this guy
Rosenberger to tell him the real story but he chose to ignore my email and
stick to his hoax slant. 

Viruses are real I have a huge box of them I captured from clients who had lost
data to them. Rosenberger is the anti-expert expert. The morale is that you
can't trust anyone and I can assure you can't trust Rosenberger. Most viruses
are transmitted by diskettes (boot sector viruses). You can cause damage over
the web but it is generally because you ran a program that had a destructive
element embedded in it (not really a virus per se). I am sure that there are
many falsehoods on the web for reasons I can't imagine but I can assure you
that viruses are real; viruses can cause severe damage and one should be
reasonably careful about swapping disks. There tends to be more far viruses in
the academic environment than the business environment.


At 05:23 PM 1/11/99 -0800, Tink Miller wrote:
>This is a HOAX.  Go to http://www.kumite.com/myths for information on hoax
>viruses and urban myths.
>
>At 12:04 PM 1/11/99 -0800, you wrote:
>>Ginette...for you info and please pass along!....Jean V
>>
>>>----Original Message Follows----
>>>Date: Sat, 09 Jan 1999 16:19:45 -0800
>>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>>Hi - I just received this message and want to pass it along to you!
>>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>>Subject: Budweiser Frogs
>>>
>>>For your information, the following virus warning was received at Clarke 
>>>Wilmott & Clarke today.  You may like to make a note of it:
>>>
>>>Someone is sending out a very desirable screen-saver, the Budweiser
>>>Frogs - "BUDDYLST.ZIP". If you download it, you will lose everything!!!
>>>
>>>Your hard drive will crash and someone from the Internet will get your
>>>screen name and password! DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS UNDER ANY 
>>>CIRCUMSTANCES!!!
>>>
>>>IT JUST WENT INTO circulation yesterday, as far as we know. Please
>>>distribute/inform this message. This is a new, very malicious virus and 
>>>not many people know about it. This information was announced yesterday 
>>>morning from Microsoft. Please share it with everyone that might access 
>>>the Internet.
>>>
>>>Once again, pass this along to EVERYONE in your address book so that
>>>this may be stopped. Also do not open or even look at any mail that says 
>>>"RETURNED OR UNABLE TO DELIVER". This virus will attach itself to your 
>>>computer components and render them useless. Immediately delete mail 
>>>items that say this. AOL has said that this is a very dangerous virus 
>>>and that there is NO remedy for it at this time.
>>>
>>>
>>>______________________________________________________
>>>Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>

Marty Tibor
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