Ahk... Friendship? What do we call friendship? How do we define friendship? Just how far into the boundaries of liking and telling people how we really feel will we go? How much can we trust them?

Most of us have friends, and the goths and the haters among you will say that you have acquaintances. So be it. In either instance, there are some people whom you just plain hang around with a lot. You enjoy (or for the goths/haters: tolerate) their company and you generally get along. But can you tell them that you slept with their sister last night? Can you tell a fellow guy that you are having girl problems (for women, I have heard it is as easy as pie to talk about guys). Wouldn't that break your macho physique? Or is that what I'm getting at?

Is a friend someone whom you don't have to put on your image for? Someone whom you can let see the real you, and not the one you put on at work, or the one you wear to church or around family? Do you have to play the image game with friends? Or are you so afraid of coming out of your shell that your friends will be surprised as you gun them down from the top of the water tower?

I leave you with thoughts to ponder... have you ever played a mind game on your friend? Or drove someone crazy by making them paranoid that they have done something wrong? Or does it matter? Do you really, truly care about your friend?

I often wonder how paranoid our lovely society has become. After sending out the first issue, I was barraged by IMs and emails about people asking me what the attached file was, so afraid of this hype of the "penpals" virus. So what follows is a guide to virii and the hype they bring, and how stupidity and ignorance are becoming too paramount.

As much as everyone says they can, they can't. By opening an email, you are not transmitting any dangerous data. The only way you can get something from email is if you download something attached to the email. In which case, the downloaded file is the carrier of the virus (see below for exceptions), NOT the email. The "penpals" virus is merely a ripoff of the "Good Times" virus which began in 1984. It is a hoax... an urban legend. The story is that if you open your email with the subject of "Good Times" or "PenPals" then you'll get a virus. This is impossible, unless YOU DOWNLOAD A FILE.

Another misconception of virii: "they are everywhere". Well, this takes an examining of a virus itself. I like to refer to it through the parent and child metaphor. But more on that later.

First of all, a virus needs to be RUN. So, the virus MUST be a standalone application. Stand alone applications are anything with .EXE, .COM, or .BAT at the end of their file names. However, there are some files that don't have these ending. As a simple rule, ANY FILE that needs NOTHING ELSE to run, but merely involves you double clicking it, or activating it, can be a carrier of a virus.

Now, picture files, text files, and sound files (which are the most often traded files on AOL) are not carriers of virii. How? They are not standalone applications (since they most likely end in .jpg, gif, .txt, or .wav). They need to be "seen" by a parent application. You need a text reader to READ a text file, or a sound program to READ your sound file so you can hear it. And that's where the difference lies. Virii must be RUN... but if a parent (an .EXE, .COM. or .BAT file) READS a child file (.TXT, .GIF/.JPG or .WAV) then the virus is never RUN. So therefore it can never infect your hard drive.

So, quite easily, a picture could hold code for a virus, but that virus will lay dormant within that file forever, simple because there is no way that file will ever be RUN, it will only be read. We hope this clears up any misconceptions. Hopefully we won't need to explain it again.

98-Sep-11
Ultr0s@aol.com

The only way that you can get a virus from an E-Mail is if you open your mail through word, therefore rendering you suceptible to macro viruses programmed into the mail text. I just needed to say that.

That would work too, of course, but how many people really use Word to open email... Anyways, you can also take light at the now-patched email bugs in most clients which could cause virus like activities if someone knew how to format the attachment correctly.

What was issue two? OHYA! There was that whole virus thingy!! uhh.. at first..I was kinda smiling cuz I was happy to have gained new knowledge cuz I knew some of that stuff but not all of it and I had the urge to pat myself on the head or something...then I went down to the letter area and (wow) I kinda felt dizzy. I had...no idea...what you were talking about. I know how to use my computer...that's about it...I have no idea as to the inner workings of the thing, and the termenology is totally lost on me. I just think maybe you should try and remember that a lot of people who are reading this...are totally clueless (like..uhmm..me [s]) and maybe you could dummy it up a bit? (I really hate offering critisism....you're not gonna cry now, are you?)

I wanted to let you know my thoughts on "friends". I have a group of friends I've hung w/ since elemantary school. Lately, I've been doing much pondering on whether or not they really are "friends". Your article made some great points. I have also made about my friends.

Getting to the point - quick story I think will show somewhat what you're saying/asking: I was trying to get a business going w/ a friend of 10+ yrs. Well, this so-called "best-friend", decided to steal and without my $$$ from me, so I gotout of there. Unfortunately, we were living w/ his fam., so now I was without a home. This was in MA, the only place I had to go was my Mom's in NH. Not having any gas or $$$, I went to another "really good friend's" house to wait for my girl to get outta work so I could get some $$$ from her. Well, after hanging w/ these friends for awhile and it being only an hour til my girl arrived, they decided they wanted togo out and that I had to leave. OK, I thought, no big deal - I came by unexpected. So I asked for 5 bucks so I could get gas. Well, they denied and I had to sit in my car, freezing, for over an hour til my girl got there. Point being, these "friends" make almost $100,000/ yr.!!!

You have misconceptions: Viruses can be written into the operating code of the e-mail or sound or picture.

Because e-mail can be sent from PC to mac, a 3rd operating system was invented for e-mail so it would be universal.

If a virus is written in this code, it can infect a cpu without d/ling an attachment.

Also, sounds, pictures, and text can infect the parent programs. But this is harder, because the virus has to be written FOR the exact parent application. i.e. a virus made to infect Balthasar (a Mac sound prog) will not infect NOW HEAR THIS (another sound prog). just thought I would clear that up... Because my uncle caught a virus by reading AOL mail and I know this is true.

A third operating system? I have trouble believing you.

1) I haven't heard anything about this.

2) Theoretically, if a third operating system was created, then it would have been so marketed by now that everyone would have been using it. To be compatible and universal, as you say, with both OS's would make it the epitomy of a computer. Why would people go out and buy $600 boards to make their PCs run like their Macs, or their Macs run like a PC? If something like this had happened, then we would be all running it by now.

3) I still don't believe that there is a third operating system. It just doesn't make sense. Say for example, I log onto to a BBS running Renegade (a PC program). On BBS's you have email. Now if you have a PC, then you can get your email straight from your term program (which I use Qmodem) no big deal. No compatibility problems there. It's Renegade to Qmodem (not necessarily PC to PC). However, if I log onto a BBS through Microphone LT (a Mac program) then I still get my email from the Renegade program. It is Renegade to Microphone LT (PC to Mac). The only third party item being used between these computers would be the phone line which is definitely not an operating system.

4) Ok, say there is a universal system. This OS would have to be incredible to handle all the many varieties of UNIX, not to mention all the handhelds (which are now becoming email worthy) and so forth.

And infecting without a download, I don't see how this could happen. Take AOL. Our email consists of opening up a little icon called the mailbox INSIDE AOL. So we are running AOL (which is the parent) and reading the code from another parent (the AOL server). Since AOL is receiving code and reading it from the server, this code is never being run either. I suppose it MIGHT be possible for it to cause some memory allocation errors within the AOL program itself (thus crashing AOL and stimulating a "virus" effect) but I still can't see how a virus could infect.

I will, however, agree with you on virii written for specific programs. The WORD macro virus that was running around is a good example of this... Basically, you ran the macro and it did weird things to your Word program (can't exactly remember what). While this may be true, you certify yourself that the virus can't infect any other program, thus making a simple reinstall effective enough to cure the problem.

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Devil Shat is published by Disobey & is protected under all copyright laws.
Devil Shat Two was released on 05/02/97. Last updated: 06/21/98.