[extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?

[Emlyn O'regan]

Thanks Alejandro.

I'm aware of this, and there's no way around it as far as I can see.
However, I'm hoping it'll stop the spread of a virus infected file. With
luck, the person whose machine is virus infected, who originally infects my
program, will notice before they send it. Maybe they'll even go get some
virus detection software!

I'm not trying to completely protect my file (impossible!). Just stop
viruses spreading via my exe, and thus protect our reputation.

Emlyn

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alejandro Dubrovsky [mailto:alito at organicrobot.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, 27 January 2004 11:49 AM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?
> 
> 
> On Tue, 2004-01-27 at 11:22, Emlyn O'regan wrote:
> > Here's the question... Does anyone know how to make an exe 
> detect that it's
> > file size has changed, and warn the user if it has (because 
> it's probably
> > been virus infected)? Or any other way to make an exe 
> protect itself /
> > detect problems? I'd ideally like to find a method that 
> doesn't involve
> > coding (ie: something that takes and exe and modifies it 
> after the fact),
> > but I might be willing to add code for really cool 
> solutions. I just want to
> > protect the users as much as possible, and make sure that 
> an virus picked up
> > has very little chance of spreading further.
> > 
> It would only be partially useful.  Viruses tend to modify entry point
> to jump to their location, so they run before anything else, even the
> size checking code.  They tend to return control afterwards 
> so as not to
> give themselves away, so the size checking could detect it 
> after it has
> propagated.  This would be useful so they could warn other 
> people but a
> net-savy virus would have spread beyond their control by then.
> alejandro
> 
> 
> 
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