Dos 5.0

[Ivan]

Yeah, I'd still run it if it were possible.

c:>

When did anyone ever get a virus that wiped the master boot record on DOS? I'd bet never. Of course the internet didn't exist then either, and you had to actually call people to get in a fight with them if they were in a different state. If you caught a virus, usually it meant time off from work/school, which was a good thing.

Now days I protect at least ten computers, mostly from their owners, who just don't understand that "free smileys" are never free. And that you can't just delete files with extensions you don't know. Trying to explain how to know if the "anti-spyware" is actually anti-spyware, or spyware that looks like anti-spyware is so frustrating.

Last one was a round with "Windows Antivirus Pro 2009" which is adware that finds false viruses and puts some new viruses on your machine, and promises to fix it all if you send your credit card number to someone in Nigeria (or Cuba or some other communist country). Seems my mother in law got it installed somehow and about had a fit that it wouldn't go away, and my father didn't know what to do, so I got to fix a computer 3,000 miles away.

Sorry to vent, but I am pretty sick of people who are dishonest making all the coin and myself being as honest as possible getting the shaft from the latest Boeing union strike.

Anyone want to go in on a spam business?

[boyat68]

Ivan:

All of the iterations of DOS (Disc Operating System) were subject to a boot sector virus. Even if there was no internet per se, there was bulletin boards that had virus uploads lurking for down loaders to experience. The first DOS virus on record was the "Brain" virus that infected the boot sector supposedly written by two Pakistani brothers that had copied the DOS code and sold it to others without paying the owners, Microsoft and company. It was to prevent others from copying the code and one would have to come back to the brothers shop and buy another copy to put it on another machine. It worked by replacing the boot code on sector 1 of the floppy and moving the boot code to another free sector and marking that sector bad. Over the years many coders copied this method, writing many more boot sector virus and inserting a message to pop up at a certain count of the system clock. Many of these viruses were spread by copying floppys and running them on other machines. A major trick was to copy the virus code to the memory, and having it stay there until the copy function was called for where as the memory would over write the boot sector thus copying the virus code to any floppy copied on that machine. Later this trick was ported to the hard disc machines. If you check, many machines come with a built in boot sector virus checker that one can implement before booting up the machine

[Bigfoot]

Last one was a round with "Windows Antivirus Pro 2009"

I have seen a couple instances of this lately myself. Malwarebytes anti-malware takes care of it fairly easily if anyone has problems with it.

[vanhump]

Ivan----------I still have the installation disk for MSdos 5 and also for IBM dos. I liked the IBM better. Even still have a couple 486's lurking around.

[DGXSER]

Interesting isn't it, Virus business, is alot like extorsion, and numbers games isn't it. Wonder who might be into those types of games? Hmmmm.

Not sure I could afford the "cut" they might want to take.

[CatatonicBug]

Interesting isn't it, Virus business, is alot like extorsion, and numbers games isn't it. Wonder who might be into those types of games? Hmmmm.

Not sure I could afford the "cut" they might want to take.

The problem with most viruses is that no money is ever made from them. They are created by college kids in their parents' basement as a "fun" activity. "Idle hands are the Devil's workshop"... They send it out to friends, and somebody thinks it's cool, and it gets plastered all over the 'net.

Of course, Spyware is a different story. There are many manifestations, but in one, they are created to try to convince you that there is a problem with your PC, and that the creator has the "best" product to help remove it (extorsion). Thankfully, there are enough people out there doing the exact opposite, and creating tools that will remove that junk for free. Unfortunately, the fact that they are free means that they don't have the advertising budgets to tell people about them. They rely on word of mouth (which may actually be a good thing) which encourages the creators of the "goodware" to keep improving their tools.

[Shuriken]

Yeah, I'd still run it if it were possible.

c:>

When did anyone ever get a virus that wiped the master boot record on DOS? I'd bet never. Of course the internet didn't exist then either, and you had to actually call people to get in a fight with them if they were in a different state. If you caught a virus, usually it meant time off from work/school, which was a good thing.

Now days I protect at least ten computers, mostly from their owners, who just don't understand that "free smileys" are never free. And that you can't just delete files with extensions you don't know. Trying to explain how to know if the "anti-spyware" is actually anti-spyware, or spyware that looks like anti-spyware is so frustrating.

Last one was a round with "Windows Antivirus Pro 2009" which is adware that finds false viruses and puts some new viruses on your machine, and promises to fix it all if you send your credit card number to someone in Nigeria (or Cuba or some other communist country). Seems my mother in law got it installed somehow and about had a fit that it wouldn't go away, and my father didn't know what to do, so I got to fix a computer 3,000 miles away.

Sorry to vent, but I am pretty sick of people who are dishonest making all the coin and myself being as honest as possible getting the shaft from the latest Boeing union strike.

Anyone want to go in on a spam business?

I still use DOS, for specific purpose:
http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20377

First virus I ever saw on a DOS machine was Michelangelo. It gave us loads of trouble. Anyone remember that?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo_(virus)

[Ivan]

My, I must have not been one of the privileged. I never even saw a virus until Win 98. Although win 95 and the internet advent got me my fair share of malware (which at the time was probably grouped with virii)

I still don't have any trouble on my machine. Its just all the people that I help, since I am the resident computer expert in the family. My dad, whom probably has a 180+ IQ, is very computer illiterate, and easily agitated. The only reason he didn't buy another computer this time was because I said "That's probably what they want you to do." Referring to the bastards that come up with malware. Dad, of course, would never want to appease the evil denizens of the internet and decided to keep his year old machine. For the stuff they do, they could probably run a P133 and win 98. It doesn't take much to check e-mail and read the newspaper website.

[DGXSER]

I do recall the Michealangelo now. MY first job out of college was running a $300 CAD program on an IBM XT. Trying to figure out how to get it to print on the laser printer. That was when I got christend into the land of computer stop bits and handshakes etc.

Catatonic, the story I have heard is that two kids cooked up a virus in their basement that emailed microsoft non-stop and locked up/bogged down their servers. They gave them a offer to not repeat it for $50,000. Microsoft thought it was cheap way out and paid. Some uhhh...less scrupulous fellows found out about it and came to take their virus, the kids said no, kids got dead and the virus was taken. This came form someone who lives and breaths IT. No idea how true, but I do know that if there is easy money to be had by extorsion and such, there are groups who sort of specialize in that market and will definitely make it their business.

[Snow]

Stealth_C was a big one, and it was 'Disk' Operating System, not 'Disc' as in compact disc