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Computer
Viruses and "False Authority Syndrome"
Actual horror
story:
Antivirus firm calls an old program a 'new' Trojan horse
From the treatise
"Computer Viruses and 'False Authority Syndrome' "
by Rob Rosenberger.
BRIAN
MYERS WORKED for Access Softek in 1992. He wrote a program
called GHOST and offered it to everyone at no charge. Ghosts fly
around the screen as part of its Halloween theme; a few other cute
things happen if it runs on any Friday the 13th. The
software displays information about the company Myers worked for,
and he mentioned GHOST in his book Programmer's Introduction
to Windows 3.1 (1992, Sybex).
GHOST languished
in obscurity for four years. But rumors began to form around
it in 1996 right before Halloween -- thanks in part to jittery users
who'd just rebounded from a worldwide media fiasco surrounding the
Hare virus.
Eventually,
a naïve user wrote a message claiming GHOST would attack computer
networks on any Friday the 13th. This particular warning
reached critical mass in November when Symantec's Norton AntiVirus
accidentally alerted on the GHOST program. Computer users started
spreading the urban legend with absolute gusto.
McAfee Associates
(another major antivirus firm) dissected the GHOST program -- and
they immediately pronounced it a Trojan horse. The company christened
it "GhostFriday.Trojan" and updated their popular SCAN
software to detect it.
| "It's really scary to think how
quickly misinformation can become 'the Gospel truth.' "
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THIS TURN
OF events surprised the folks at Access Softek, who wish
the urban legend would go away. "GHOST has been around for years,"
one employee said. "It's really scary to think how quickly misinformation
can become 'the Gospel truth.' "
The U.S. Department
of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability agrees. "A
simple phone call to the number listed in the program would have
stopped this [urban legend] from being sent out," they proclaimed
in an 11/20/96
statement which dismisses GHOST warnings as unfounded.
Yet Paul Miller,
a sysop in McAfee's support forum on CompuServe, continued to call
GHOST a Trojan horse. "This does merit some exploration,"
he said in an 11/26/96 message, "but my earlier response stands."
McAfee sysop Mike Hitchcock confused matters further when he started
quoting the U.S. DoE CIAC statement to customers, thus contradicting
Miller. Finally, though, the company stopped labeling GHOST as a
Trojan horse.
Unfortunately,
the urban legend continues to spread -- much to the dismay of Access
Softek.
For further
reading
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