Re: The Virus

I don't usually follow-up to myself but in this case it serves a purpose:

Yesterday, I wrote:
[stuff about the unviability of the virus at low TL deleted]

Followed by an innane bit:
>Yep done it.  Got it into a few hundred bytes of code.  Now to infect the
>world!

>M$)02H.30 J  D*(@ 0R   G0(J  E *@!/H"H ">$" *F =@ =@BH  0@  6
>MWB]  "$  !#@5"#T@(P@@"*   ^0$" *D!  "N("( #0 B ,HB  $8"D0 @V
>M@  (D! @"I "H 3H B  JA @"NHM  #0 B  T H  $  !V62$  *0  '79 0
[...]
>M= !?7V5X:70 7VUA:6X 7V5N=FER;VX 7U]$[email removed]# %]E>&ET %]P=71S
>M %]?9FQS8G5F %]?:6]B    !:"       $ !@    !C              ,

>If you read this far on a PC then you're system will be infected and
>your life is just about over!!! ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha


How many people paniced about this part of the message? (none???)

Well this is EXACTLY how the virus is supposed to infect unknown (and possibly
alien) computer systems.  Still sound reasonable at the current tech level???
(I still make no claims about super high tech computers because I cannot know
anything about them).


As an aside: This is quite close to how the 'internet worm' gained access
to WELL KNOWN systems.  It didn't take very long for those systems to be
cleaned up and the bugs fixed.  It is also possible to design a machine
that is totally immune to an infection along these lines even with errors
on the application programmers part.







        						Pauli

Paul Dale                       | [email removed]
Department of Computer Science  | [phone removed]
University of Queensland        |
Australia, 4072                 | Did you know that there are 41 two letter
                                |     words containing the letter 'a'?