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=========================================================================
||
From the files of The Hack Squad: || by Lee Jackson, Moderator, FidoNet
|| Int'l Echos SHAREWRE & WARNINGS
The Hack Report || Volume 2, Number 5
for May, 1993 || Report Date: May 9, 1993
||
=========================================================================
Welcome to the fifth 1993 issue of The Hack Report. This is a series of
reports that aim to help all users of files found on BBSs avoid
fraudulent programs, and is presented as a free public service by the
| FidoNet International Shareware and Warnings Echos and the author of the
| report, Lee Jackson (FidoNet 1:124/4007).
This month was quite crazy here at Hack Central Station, due to a new job
that required relocation. The FidoNet address shown above, 1:124/4007,
was just assigned and isn't official yet, so keep using the old address
(1:382/95) for NetMail until you see the new address in the NodeList. As
far as this month's report is concerned, read with care: many extremely
dangerous files have appeared, including another Trojan claiming to be a
McAfee product, and a Trojan game that rips up your hard drive with
blazing speed. Thanks to everyone who has helped put this report
together, and to those that have sent in comments and suggestions.
NOTE TO SYSOPS: The Hack Report may be freely posted as a bulletin on
your BBS, subject to these conditions:
1) the latest version is used,
2) it is posted in its entirety, and
3) it is not altered in any way.
| NOTE TO OTHER READERS: The Hack Report (file version) may be freely
| uploaded to any BBS, subject to the above conditions, and only if you do
| not change the filename. You may convert the archive type as you wish,
| but please leave the filename in its original HACK????.* format. The
| Hack Report may also be cross-posted in other networks (with the
| permission of the other network) as long as it meets the above conditions
| and you give appropriate credit to the FidoNet International Shareware
| and Warnings Echos (and the author <g>).
The idea is to make this information available freely. However, please
don't cut out the disclaimers and other information if you use it, or
confuse the issue by spreading the file under different names. Thanks!
DISCLAIMER: The listings of Official Versions are not a guarantee of the
files' safety or fitness for use Someone out there might just be
sick-minded enough to upload a Trojan with an "official" file name, so
>scan everything you download<!!! The author of this report will not be
responsible for any damage to any system caused by the programs listed as
Official Versions, or by anything using the name of an Official Version.
| On this same note, programs and files listed in this report should not be
| automatically considered dangerous. It is simply impossible for the
| author of this report to receive and test copies of every listed file, so
| many of the reports listed herein are based on information sent to the
| author by individuals in the BBS community. For this reason, neither the
| author of this report nor anyone officially associated with it shall be
| held liable for any losses and/or damages resulting from a listing in
| this report.
Finally, the releases listed as the latest Official Versions may not be
entirely accurate. However, they do reflect the latest version known to
the author of The Hack Report at the time of writing. That's the nature
of the beast we call shareware: authors have every right (and in this
writer's opinion, are well advised) to release a new version without
advance notice of any kind. If you see a version newer than one listed
here, please contact one of The HackWatchers or myself so that we can
keep these listings up to date.
*************************************************************************
Hacked Programs
Here are the latest known versions of some programs known to have hacked
copies floating around. Archive names are listed when known, along with
the person who reported the fraud (thanks from us all!).
Program Hack(s) Latest Official Version
======= ======= =======================
| ARJ Archiver ARJ250 ARJ239F
Reported By: Tommy Vielkanowitz(1:151/2305)
ARJ239E
Reported By: The Hack Squad
ARJ240A
Reported By: Ryan Shaw (1:152/38)
BNU FOSSIL Driver BNU202 BNU170
Reported By: Amauty Lambrecht (2:291/712) (not counting betas)
BNU188B
Reported By: David Nugent (3:632/348),
Author of BNU
DMS Amiga Disk DMS version 1.12 DMS version 1.11
Masher
Reported By: Ben Filips, via Jay Ruyle (1:377/31)
| F-Prot Virus Scanner FP-205B FP-208
Reported By: HW Bill Lambdin
LhA Amiga Archiver LHA148E LHA138E (Shareware)
Reported By: Michael Arends (1:343/54) LHA v1.50r (Regist.)
LHA151
Reported By: Lawrence Chen (1:134/3002)
LHA Archiver (PC) LHA214 LHA213 (non-beta)*
Reported by: Patrick Lee (RIME address RUNNINGB)
| LHA214B
| ICE214
| LHA215
| Reported by: Kenjirou Okubo, LHA Support Rep.
| (Internet address: kenjirou@mathdent.im.uec.ac.jp)
LHA300
Reported by: Mark Church (1:260/284)
MusicPlay MPLAY31 MPLAY25B
Reported By: Lee Madajczyk (1:280/5)
PKLite PKLTE201 PKL115
Reported By: Wen-Chung Wu (1:102/342)
PKZip PKZ301 PKZ204G
Reported By: Mark Dudley (1:3612/601)
Jon Grimes (1:104/332)
Shez SHEZ72A SHEZ89
SHEZ73
Reported By: HW Bill Lambdin
Telemate TM40C TM400-1 through 4
Reported By: Philip Dynes, RIME Telemate
conference, via HW Richard
Steiner
TM410-1
Reported By: Bat Lang (1:382/91)
Telix Telix v3.20 TLX321-1
(Prior to Dec. 1992) TLX321-2
Telix v3.25 TLX321-3
Reported By: Brian C. Blad (1:114/107) TLX321-4
Peter Kirn (WildNet, via HW Ken Whiton)
Telix v4.00
Telix v4.15
Reported By: Barry Bryan (1:370/70)
Telix v4.25
Reported By: Daniel Zuck (2:247/30, via Chris
Lueders (2:241/5306.1)
MegaTelix
Verified By: Jeff Woods, deltaComm, Inc.
Telix Pro
Reported By: Jason Engebretson (1:114/36),
in the FidoNet TELIX echo
TheDraw TDRAW430 TDRAW461
| TDRAW5
Reported by: Ian Douglas (5:7102/119)
TDRAW500
Reported by: Ian Davis, Author
TDRAW550
Reported by: Steve Klemetti (1:228/19)
TDRAW600
Reported by: Hawley Warren (1:120/297)
THEDR60
Reported by: Larry Owens (PDREVIEW echo, 1:280/17)
TDRAW601
Reported by: Jesper Tragardh (2:200/109)
TDRAW800
Reported by: James Carswell (1:153/775)
Wolfenstein-3D WOLF2-1 #1WOLF14
WOLF2-2
Reported By: Wen-Chung Wu (1:102/342)
| * - See the section "Clarifications and Thanks" for details on
| other valid version numbers for LHA.
=========================================================================
Hoax Alert:
| The Hack That Wouldn't Die has reared its ugly head again: XTRATANK is
| still floating around out there, according to a sighting by Mike Ledoux
| (1:132/202). This file was reported in detail in the 1992 Full Archive
| Edition of The Hack Report (HACK92FA), but it seems to be so unwilling to
| go away that it is mentioned again here. For those of you new to The
| Hack Report, XTRATANK is a confirmed and tested hoax that does _not_
| double your hard drive space, regardless of what you might see when you
| do a DIR command. If you have doubts, try the Fitzgerald test below.
|
| *** The Fitzgerald Test
|
| Here is the now-famous Fitzgerald Test, devised by Tim Fitzgerald of
| 1:3800/18.0 and validated through testing performed by Bill Logan of The
| Pueblo Group (1:300/22). Try this if you think you have managed to get
| XTRATANK to work on your system. Follow these simple steps:
|
| 1. Run CHKDSK and write down the free space it reports as free.
| 2. Do a DIR command and write down what XTRATANK reports.
| 3. Copy any text file to a new text file.
| 4. Repeat steps 1 and 2, and compare.
|
| You will see that XTRATANK reports that twice as much disk space is taken
| up by the new text file.
| Michael Toth (1:115/439.7) has located another incident of the Amiga
| Emulator hoax, reported in the 1992 Full Archive Edition of The Hack
| Report as AMIGA. This time, the file was under the filename IBM_AMGA,
| and contained the following internal files:
|
| Name Length Method Size now Mod Date Time CRC
| ============ ======== ======== ======== ========= ======== ========
| README.USA 393 Imploded 338 10 Apr 91 18:07:06 2CF72B62
| EMULATOR.EXE 273947 Imploded 157084 15 Sep 90 01:00:00 02A68881
| ============ ======== ======== ======== ========= ======== ========
| *total 2 274340 ZIP 1.10 158592 13 Oct 91 11:28:00
|
| The file claims to emulate Kickstart 1.2, version 33.192, on an IBM
| compatible. Michael's tests show that this file doesn't do much, if
| anything - 15 minutes worth of waiting after running the program produced
| no results.
Recently, an archive of Frisk's (a.k.a. Fridrik Skulason's) F-Prot Virus
Scanner v2.07 has been distributed with a "registration form" from a
company called JLT. According to Frisk, this is not legitimate. He says
that JLT contacted him in the fall of 1992, asking if they could
distribute F-Prot, collect registration fees, and forward 50% of the fees
to him. Frisk didn't want them to do this, but it appears that an
archive with the "registration form" may have slipped into distribution.
In Frisk's words, "...this version is most certainly not something that I
want distributed."
From the "Not Really A Program, but Interesting Anyway" department, a
"press release" has entered distribution, claiming that PKWare Inc. has
filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The letter is dated Friday, February
26, 1993, and supposedly quotes Mark Gresbach of PKWare in the statement.
However, in a message posted in the CompuServe PKWARE forum on March 1,
1993, PKWare employee Douglas Hay states that this is not true. Douglas
also points out that the perpetrator of the hoax misspelled the word
Milwaukee (as 'Milwaukie'), and that one of the three phone numbers in
the message for PKWare is wrong. In short, ignore the letter - PKWare
has _not_ filed bankruptcy.
Other previously reported hoaxes:
Filename Claimed use/Actual activity/Reporter(s)
============ ==========================================================
PKZ305 Hacked "new version" of PKZip. However, a message in wide
circulation claimed this was infected with a virus called
PROTO-T. This message is the actual hoax: there may be
one or more PROTO-T viruses around now, but none do what
was claimed in the hoax message. This hack, PKZ305, was
not infected with any virus, nor did it contain Trojan
code, per testing by Bill Logan (1:300/22), HW Jeff White,
and HW Bill Lambdin.
RAOPT "Optimizes" your RemoteAccess BBS files and claims to be
from Continental Software. Actually does nothing but read
your USERS.BBS file and report the number of users. The
program is _not_ from Continental Software, according to
Andrew Milner. Reported by Kai Sundren (2:201/150), via
HW Mikael Winterkvist.
SCORCHV2 Claims to be v2.0 of the game Scorched Earth: this version
doesn't yet exist. Actually a renamed archive of version
1.2. Reported by Brian Dhatt (1:3648/2.5).
=========================================================================
The Trojan Wars
You know that sick feeling your stomach gets on a roller coaster, just as
you pass the top of the first hill and start plunging toward oblivion?
That's how things felt here at Hack Central Station when the results of
several file tests came in. And kept coming in. There are a lot of
_extremely_ nasty ones this time around, more than in most issues of this
report. So, hold onto your hat, strap yourself in, keep your arms and
legs inside the car, and read on.
| First, an update on the DEBUG script forwarded by Jack Cross (1:3805/13)
| from the FidoNet BATPOWER echo. The script, which has created a great
| deal of discussion, created an archive (LZH) of the program TinyCache
| (filename TNYCACHE), claiming to be a small disk cache.
|
| As soon as the script was posted, folks started reporting symptoms of
| destructive activity: destroyed FATs and reformatted hard drives were
| been reported after this program was run.
|
| Prior to the publication of the April edition of this report, I tried a
| feeble attempt at analyzing this program myself. However, as I have said
| before to folks who contact Hack Central Station, I'm a reporter, not an
| AV expert. So, I forwarded a copy of this script to HW Jeff White of The
| Pueblo Group for testing. Others ran their own tests, and still others
| forwarded the resulting archive for further testing. The reports (which
| are _far_ too numerous to credit in their entirety - please accept my
| thanks for your help!) had some similar results, but left some confusion
| as to what this file actually is.
|
| All of the reports indicate that the unarchived file, TNYCACHE.COM, is
| compressed with PKLite and that the PKLite ID header was edited out of
| the resulting file. Once decompressed, McAfee's SCAN reported that the
| file was infected with the Taiwan3 [T3] virus, and Frisk's F-Prot
| detected the AnitCAD virus.
|
| This is where things get wierd. Bill Dirks (1:385/17) reported that
| there were two versions of the file - TNYCACHE.EXE and TNYCACHE.COM. He
| also said that the .exe version is actually a renamed copy of the SCCHECK
| Trojan, and that the .com version is "hacked to include a hacked version
| of the AntiCAD virus."
|
| Bill included the following scanner strings for use with McAfee's SCAN:
|
| "2BC00221200961642E6578652004" Pklited-Anticad
| "46048B4E068B56088B5E0CCD261B" Sccheck-Trojan
|
| The second string can also be used with Frisk's F-Prot as a user string,
| as long as you inform the program that it is a .com/.exe infector.
|
| However, Bob Stettina, a user at 1:382/77, had a different analysis of
| this file, based on a report he says he received from Spencer Clarke of
| McAfee Associates. Bob also decompressed the PKLited .com file and
| received a Taiwan3 [T3] report from McAfee's SCAN v102. After this, he
| uploaded the file to McAfee Associates.
|
| The report received from Mr. Clarke said, according to Bob, that this
| file is "a unique/new Trojan, and it is *NOT* actually infected with a
| virus: rather, this Trojan includes a segment of code that is
| accidentally 'recognized' by SCAN as the Taiwan3 virus." The report also
| stated that other scanners gave off false alarms on this file. Finally,
| Bob goes on to say that this file does not replicate: since the ability
| to reproduce is part of the basic definition of a virus, Bob concludes
| that this one fails that test and is therefore a Trojan.
|
| HW Jeff White's test results tended to agree with the majority of the
| reports: the .com file was simply infected with the Taiwan3 [T3] virus,
| and was capable of being "cleaned" by McAfee's Clean-Up v102.
|
| This has been a fascinating study in program analysis. However, I'm sure
| that the folks who were hit by this are not quite as fascinated - the
| word infuriated would be more appropriate. Whatever the program actually
| is, be it virus, Trojan, or whatever, it _may_ have been re-created from
| the DEBUG script by someone, not run on their system, and later
| absent-mindedly uploaded as an archive to a BBS. If you see this file,
| make sure it's the same one we're talking about here: if it is, delete
| first and ask questions later.
| Andy Thomas (1:125/217) forwarded a report from Allan Thomas (Smartnet
| Virus Conference) about an infected copy of the archive BBSLAWS. The
| archive contained two files - NEWLAWS.TXT and README.COM. The .txt file
| seemed to be for real, but the .com file was another story. According to
| Allan, the program displays the following message just before it locks up
| your system:
|
| "Install v1.0 (c) Vivid Imaginations, Ltd. All rights reversed."
|
| As Allan points out, note the spelling of the last word in the above
| quote: quite subtle. The damage you will find after you reboot is not
| so subtle, though - the program at least overwrites your MBR and 1st FAT,
| deletes itself, and overwrites the remnants of itself with garbage to
| hide the evidence. When it overwrites itself, it writes enough bytes to
| cover every sector it used to occupy, resulting in a write of more bytes
| than the original file size.
| Paul Harney (1:107/579) forwarded a message from a user, Rod Fewster,
| concerning a sighting of something claiming to be PKZip v2.04I. The
| file, a self-extracting archive called PKZ204I, shows a "valid"
| authenticity verification on unpacking. However, Rod says both the
| internal files PKZIP.EXE and PKUNZIP.EXE "whack out your CMOS settings
| totally as soon as they're run." No other damage was reported.
|
| Here are the vital stats, as provided by Rod:
|
| "Archive date is 02-22-93 20:35.
|
| "All files are dated 02-22-93 02.04 except pkunzip.exe
| which is dated 02-22-93 20:34."
|
| Rod also provided a comparison between v2.04g and this file's
| executables:
|
| "v2.04g filesizes are: pkzip.exe 42166 pkunzip.exe 29378
| v2.04i filesizes are: pkzip.exe 42186 pkunzip.exe 29398"
| Chuck Gustafson (1:2201/33) forwarded to the FidoNet echo DIRTY_DOZEN a
| report from Brian Buchanan (Brian Buchanan #1 @8251 VirtualNET) about the
| file FDFORM. This appears to be an isolated incident of a Trojan version
| of the legitimate program FDFormat. The .zip archive was only 13106
| bytes long, and contained the files FDOCS.PAK (317 bytes), FDFORMAT.PAK
| (11366 bytes), and FDSETUP.BAT (174 bytes). The .bat file contains the
| following commands:
|
| @echo off
| cls
| echo Analizing system configuration...
| @echo off
| ren fdocs.pak fd.exe
| echo Unpacking files...
| echo (This may take a few minutes)
| fd c:\
| fd d:\
| fd e:\
|
| The problem here is that the file FDOCS.PAK is actually a renamed copy of
| a program called NHUE, which according to Brian is a utility that deletes
| all files and sub-directories in the directory specified on the command
| line. If you look at what happens in the .bat file, you'll note that
| NHUE, originally renamed FDOCS.PAK, is re-renamed to FD.EXE and is called
| for drives C: through E:, potentially wiping out everything on these
| drives.
| Lee Noga (1:3618/23), apparently one of the folks associated with the
| PowerPak Gold '92 Shareware CD-ROM disk, asked that I help warn folks of
| a Trojan file on their disk called MWARS20. This file, which has been
| seen in other locations, contains two files, DEMO.EXE and READTHIS.COM,
| which appear to be the main culprits. According to a report from Scott
| Catterill (Intelec PC-Security conference, via HW Bill Lambdin and based
| on info from Dave Comeau), both files contain the following text:
|
| eat this. REVENGE!. Melting Memory!. Maybe next time, you won't steal
| people's Passwords and get them ****** off at you... I hope you backed
| up your hard drive!
|
| Scott says both will try to low-level format your hard drive. However,
| according to Lee Noga's report, the program acts a bit differently. The
| copy on the PowerPak CD-ROM contains the following files:
|
| MWARS.BAT 128 07/17/92
| MWARS20.EXE 15864 02/15/92
| MWARS20.DOC 2058 07/17/92
| NOTE.DOC 309 01/01/80
| YANG.ME 121 07/17/92
| INSTALL.EXE 39080 06/14/90
| DEMO.EXE 5470 04/22/90
| DOMENOW.COM 937 09/24/90
| READTHIS.COM 5470 04/22/90
|
| Lee says the program does its damage via the .bat file, via DEMO.COM, and
| via DOMENOW.COM - all three are dangerous, as they will scramble your
| hard drive's FAT table. The same message as Scott reports will appear,
| but if you reboot during its display, you may be able to abort the
| Trojan's damage. Lee also notes that the game itself was untouched: if
| you don't invoke it via the .bat file, it will run just fine. Bizarre.
|
| (Editorial - I appreciate the effort taken by vendors to inform the
| public of a problem with their product. Even if the publicity hurts
| sales, the loss can't be worse than the potential loss caused by a
| perception that a company doesn't care about whether or not their product
| is dangerous. This is not an indictment of _any_ company or author: it
| is merely intended to encourage companies and authors to report attacks
| against and/or problems with their products as soon as they learn of
| them. My life would be _so_ much easier. <g> -lj)
| Tom Guelker (1:2250/26) posts in the FidoNet DIRTY_DOZEN echo a report of
| a Trojan called SINBAD. It claims to be a file transfer protocol
| utility, but it actually throws your system into a perpetual loop by
| overwriting your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. The new AUTOEXEC.BAT (as well as
| SINBAD.EXE) becomes read-only and invokes SINBAD.EXE, which again
| overwrites AUTOEXEC.BAT with the same info (apparently turning off the
| read-only bit first <?>), etc. ad nauseum. Definitely sounds irritating,
| but not dangerous unless you don't have a copy of your original
| AUTOEXEC.BAT file: you can bypass the loop by booting from a known
| clean, write-protected system disk, and then use a utility such as the
| MS-DOS 4.01 and above ATTRIB.EXE to remove the read-only bit. This will
| allow you to delete the offending .bat file and replace it with a copy of
| your original, or to re-write it if you didn't have a backup.
| Henry Shaw (1:261/1177, via Jack Cross, 1:3805/13) reports on TAGCRASH, a
| supposed utility or crack of some sort for TAG BBS systems. Henry says
| the archive contained the internal file TAGUTIL.COM, which started off in
| your \BBS directory and "worked its way through the obvious choices of
| \TAG and \MULTI till it found all the .DAT files, .LST files and
| everything else that pertained to a TAG board." These files would be
| deleted when found. An easy way to trash a TAG system, Henry says.
| HW Richard Steiner forwarded a message from the ILink Shareware_Support
| conference by Bob Feldman concerning an archive named HSDIAG. Bob stated
| that this file is a Trojan. Bob posted further details on the ILink
| Virus conference (forwarded by HW Bill Lambdin), and also sent a copy of
| the file to R. Wallace Hale, SysOp of the Driftnet BBS ((506)325-9002).
| Mr. Hale did preliminary testing of the file, and was able to determine
| that it will at least try to overwrite the first 255 sectors on the first
| eight drives in a system, including floppy drives. For the full text of
| Mr. Hale's report, as forwarded by HW Bill Lambdin and James FitzGibbon
| (1:250/301), please obtain the archive version of The Hack Report and see
| the file HSDIAG.RES, located inside the internal archive FILETSTS.LZH.
| HW Jeff White received a file for testing called ANSIVIEW.COM, which has
| apparently been seen inside a couple of archives, most often ANSI
| collections. The copy Jeff received for testing is infected with the
| AIDS [N1] virus, and cannot be disinfected by either McAfee's Clean-Up or
| the AIDSOUT utility. The infection is detectable by McAfee's SCAN. Yet
| another of The Hack Squad's 2048 reasons to check everything you download
| for viruses.
| HW Scott Raymond has cleared up a discrepancy that I had in previous
| reports concerning the file BWAVE_3. This was listed as a hack of the
| Blue Wave Offline Reader, but according to the report received by Scott
| from a user in Australia, the file is actually a Trojan. The user in
| Australia reported that the Trojan trashed partitions and boot sectors,
| in addition to attacking RemoteAccess BBS data files. According to
| Scott, this is the same file reported by Frans Hagelaars (2:512/2).
| Please note that this Trojan was discovered prior to the release of
| BWAVE212, version 2.12 of the reader.
| Vincent Aniello (aniello@gauss.rutgers.edu) reported a "back door" for
| use when logging onto Renegade BBS systems. This file, RGBACKDR, claims
| to allow you to log onto any Renegade board with SysOp privileges.
| Instead, it makes a beeline for several key files on _your_ system and
| deletes them. For the full text of the test results, as performed by HW
| Jeff White of The Pueblo Group, see the file RGBACKDR.RES in the archive
| FILETSTS.LZH, found in the archive version of The Hack Report.
| Maynard Marquis (1:141/328) forwarded a message to the FidoNet Int'l Echo
| WARNINGS from Joel Lambert about a file called TW-CHEAT. This claims to
| be a cheat file for Tradewars 2002, and contains the following files:
|
| TW-CHEAT EXE 6306 03-09-93 9:47p
| SIN COM 535 03-09-93 9:47p
|
| He did not say which file he ran, but one of these displayed "some
| unrelated menu" and then returned to DOS. Apparently, Joel later
| rebooted, at which point the BOOTSAFE program (part of Central Point
| Antivirus) reported that his system had been infected with the Tequila
| virus. Fortunately, he was able to remove the infection. He hopes. I
| hope so too, for his sake.
| Michael Heinbockel (2:242/316) found a file on a BBS in Hamburg, Germany,
| called PARITY. This file renames your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to AUTOEXEC.BAK,
| creates a new AUTOEXEC.BAT file with the single line C:\DOS\PARITY.EXE,
| and then tries to copy itself to your C:\DOS\ directory. It usually
| hangs the system during the copy attempt, resulting in the file not being
| copied. It may be a Trojan that doesn't work, but it is still a Trojan.
| Several reports came in on yet another Trojan attack against McAfee's
| SCAN - this time, under the filename SCANV103. The first report came via
| Eugene Woiwod (Eugen_Woiwod@mindlink.bc.ca), and full test results were
| later received from Bill Logan of The Pueblo Group (via HW Jeff White).
| As a result of this Trojan, McAfee Associates decided to skip version
| number 103, using number 104 as the release which followed SCANV102. For
| a full text of Bill's test results, see the file SCANV103.RES in the
| archive FILETSTS.LZH, found in the archive version of The Hack Report.
| Staale Fagerland (staale.fagerland@euronetis.no) reported a file called
| CES_402, which claimed to be an antiviral program. However, the archive
| contains two files (CES.COM and DONT_!) which are quite suspicious.
| Staale ran the CES.COM file through a program called CHK4BOMB and
| discovered that it uses ROM BIOS routines for direct disk access. The
| file DONT_! contains several messages that relate to corrupting your FAT,
| partition table, etc., and the message, "Mate(s), it simply makes sense,
| make a backup...".
| Ashley Kleynhans (5:7101/55) reports a Trojan called DREAMDEM, which
| claims to be a demo of some sort by a computer group. According to
| Ashley, the group named in the file descriptions is not responsible for
| creating this Trojan. When run, the file displays several messages,
| including ones like, "found PC Speaker," "Found porno GIFs," etc., and
| finally asks whether or not you have a sound card. Ashley answered Yes
| to this question, and received the response, "OH by the way, I trashed
| your hard disk about a minute ago."
|
| Ashley immediately did a DIR command on the C: drive and saw no immediate
| damage. However, the entire disk was gone after a system reset. Ashley
| says this is because the Trojan deletes both your hard disk partition
| table and your boot sector. I'm not sure if this is right, but I
| wouldn't want to try it out on my system to verify Ashley's findings.
|
| Here is the internal file info:
|
| CHECKANS COM 3585 03-10-93 2:43p
| VGADEMO EXE 8892 04-17-93 7:45p
| START BAT 17 04-17-93 1:33p
| Brent Thomas (1:202/226) says in the FidoNet DIRTY_DOZEN echo that his
| system was "taken down" by a file called DRAGON. It claimed to be a
| Public Domain VGA and Sound Blaster supported game. No symptoms were
| reported, except that he had to reformat his hard drive.
|
| Penny Nebrich (1:369/101) confirms this, saying that the program that was
| affected was one called Dragon's Shard. She states that it "created what
| looked like infinite subdirectories with binary names of I think it was a
| dir name of 8 chars. McAfee's scan and Virucide just got stuck in an
| infinite loop. I had to reformat my drive."
|
| I'm still not familiar with any program called Dragon's Shard, so be
| warned that this may be a legitimate program that has had at least one,
| possibly two copies tampered with.
| Josh Burke (1:138/174) reports, via Charlie Sheridan (1:356/18), Travis
| Griggs (1:3807/8), and HW Bob Seaborn, a problem with the file PHYLOX2.
| In what might be an isolated incident, Josh says the file claimed to be a
| "really cool game, VGA gfx and SB sound." However, the INSTALL program
| destroys hard disks.
|
| Bob Seaborn received a copy of this file and forwarded it to me - I in
| turn forwarded it to Bill Logan and HW Jeff White for testing. As it
| turns out, there is an internal file called SETUP.EXE that is identical,
| byte for byte, with the file INSTALL.EXE. Both will trash your hard
| drive with amazing speed, according to HW Jeff White. Also, the file
| PHYLOX.EXE is flagged as a possible infected file. For a full text of
| the test results, see the file PHYLOX.RES in the internal archive
| FILETSTS.LZH, found in the archive version of The Hack Report.
Ryan Tucker (1:290/10) forwards a message from a fellow SysOp, Robert
Pedersen, about ASM2PAS. This claims to create Pascal source code from
an .EXE file. However, from text inside the executable, it appears that
this program tries to delete your DOS directory. It also brags about a
certain anti-viral scanner not being able to detect it.
Valid point, that: practically _no_ anti-viral tools detect Trojans,
with the exception of Frisk's F-Prot and one or two others. Even then,
the Trojan detection is not complete. Your best protection against
Trojans is a religiously maintained set of backups, preferably done after
a check for viruses on your hard drive(s).
HW Richard Steiner forwarded a message from the America OnLine GEOWORKS
forum about the file GEOCOMM. The message, from "GW Steve" (a "GeoRep",
according to Richard), came from a user of GeoComm named J. S. James, and
warned that this archive contains a hacked version of the original
GeoComm program. The file claims to be an "update," but it seems to be a
Trojan which will damage your File Allocation Table (FAT). Not a file to
be kept around, it would seem.
HW Bill Lambdin reports on LAW22 (no description), which contains the
following files:
Length Date Time CRC-32 Attr Name
------ ---- ---- -------- ---- ----
22911 02-24-93 14:13 a4b84cc7 --w- ABOUT.COM
13422 02-24-93 14:44 8f0d1e96 --w- INFO.EXE
126 02-24-93 14:50 68c9463a --w- DESC.SDI
------ -------
36459 3
Bill says that ABOUT.COM contains a virus. Scan 102 labels it as BA101,
which is a 160 byte-long .COM file infector. This could be an isolated
incident of an infected legitimate file, so thoroughly check any such
file you find that has the above files in it before you kill it.
Another report from Mr. Lambdin concerns a file that a user in the
Intelec PC-Security conference sent to him, called PCS204 (PC-Sentry
v2.04). Bill's tests show that this copy of the archive contains two
files, INSTALSW.COM and EVERYDAY.COM, that are infected with a
non-resident "companion" virus that utilizes the Mutation Engine. It
also contains the file PCS.EXE, which is infected with a virus created by
a virus-writing group's "Mass Produce Code Generator."
Bill also reports that our old friend, the Power Pump virus, has
resurfaced inside a file called FX2. Here's the archive info:
Length Date Time CRC-32 Attr Name
------ ---- ---- -------- ---- ----
25846 01-01-92 00:00 2635e28a --w- FX2.EXE
1199 01-01-92 00:00 f61885bd --w- FX2.COM
17354 01-01-92 00:00 02eac55c --w- POWER.EXE
1007 01-01-92 00:00 139e1291 --w- FX2.DOC
------ -------
45406 4
The giveaway here is the file POWER.EXE. For a full documentation of the
Power Pump virus, please see the 1992 Full Archive Edition of The Hack
Report (filename HACK92FA), available from most official distribution
sites.
Travis Griggs (1:3807/8) forwarded a report from a local board called The
Forum (phone number 1-318-528-2107) by a user named Susan Pilgreen. The
message referred to a file called BOUNCE, which she said was infected
with the Beeper (Russian Mirror) virus. The file, according to Travis,
claimed to be a game. Travis has now forwarded the file information on
this archive:
Filename Original DateTime modified CRC-32 Attr BTPMGVX
------------ ---------- ----------------- -------- ----------
BOUNCE.COM 4053 80-01-01 00:02:04 35C562AF A--W B 1
BOUNCE.DAT 119101 92-11-20 23:16:10 247712A8 A--W B 0
BOUNCE.DOC 348 92-11-20 23:21:46 B28557FE A--W B 1
------------ ----------
3 files 123502
Geoffrey Liu (1:229/15) reports in the FidoNet WARNINGS echo on a file
called BWE. This claims to provide a "quick and easy way to exit
Windows." Geoffrey forwards this file info and disassembly report from
John Eady (1:229/15, john.eady@canrem.com):
Name Length Mod Date Time CRC
============ ======== ========= ======== ========
LICENSE.TXT 2656 14 Feb 93 22:01:14 46B50814
ORDER.TXT 2335 12 Feb 93 12:00:18 9D1A705E
README.TXT 3565 14 Feb 93 23:08:08 3EA7548E
BWE.EXE 19517 14 Feb 93 23:02:34 F1729CA4
============ ======== ========= ======== ========
*total 4 28073 14 Feb 93 23:08:08
"After debugging part of the virus, the following text appears (encrypted)
in the infected program:
It's time for a math test curtesy of YAM!
And the question is...
What is 00 + 00 =
WRONG!!!! TRY AGAIN!
Admiral Bailey
"This virus is self-encrypting, but does not use any stealth techniques
(as far as I've seen). It doesn't appear to infect the boot record, or
the boot partition record. It does not appear to infect .SYS files, or
.OV? files.
"If you feel you have been infected, examine any EXE or COM files that you
believe are infected. Check the 4th and 5th bytes in a COM file for the
characters "BA". Check the 12th and 13th bytes in a EXE file for the
characters "BA". If you find a file like this, chances are you have been
infected."
Michael Toth (1:115/439.7) has received a report from a local SysOp, Matt
Glosson of Audio Adrenalin, of a copy of TheDraw v4.60 (filename
TDRAW460) that was uploaded to him with a few "modifications." The file
contained a "ZIP Comment" that had an ANSI bomb embedded in it, and also
had a file called UFO!.COM inside the archive which would perform an
unconditional format on your hard drive. (Editorial - for Ian Davis'
sake, I wish folks would leave TheDraw alone for a while. No one program
or programmer deserves this much abuse. - lj)
Mike Wenthold (1:271/47) found a program under the filename GS2000 which
contained the VCL 3 [Con] Virus. The archive contains the following
files:
Length Date Time CRC Filename
======== ========= ====== ======== ============
1984 22-Dec-91 01:40p 3527B16B GS2000.COM
543 22-Dec-91 01:58p DB83A2C0 GSUNP.DOC
======== ========= ====== ======== ============
2527 2 files.
The compression method (on this ZIP archive) was not included in his
data. According to Dave Lartique (1:3800/22) and Chris Gramer
(1:271/47), the program is an "unprotect" for MicroProse's game Gunship
2000. This appears to be another isolated incident of an infected
legitimate file.
William Gordon (1:369/104) reports BEV105, a file that claims to be a
"Beverly Hills 90210 Adventure Game." This file contains 8 files, but
two seem to be the real culprits: DORINFO.DIR and INSTALL.COM. The
installation renames the DORINFO.DIR file to IDCKILL.EXE and invokes it.
This program asks for some sort of wildcard according to William, then
proceeds to delete everything on your drive that matches that wildcard.
However, it doesn't stop there: it continues on and deletes all .bat,
.fon, .com, .zip, .sys, .ice, .ans, .arj, and .exe files. William also
says the file "comes with the following virii: Bootkill and Genesis."
A copy of this file was sent to Mr. White and Mr. Logan, who were able to
confirm the behaviour that William reported. For the complete results of
their test, see the file BEV105.RES in the FILETSTS.LZH archive, included
in the archive version of The Hack Report.
More from HW Bill Lambdin: he forwards a message from Terry Goodman in
the U'NI Net virus conference concerning the file SCOMP. This was
advertised as a compression utility with better compression than PKZip.
The file passes all virus checkers unless you also check data files in
addition to executables. In short, the executable loads a file called
SCOMP.DAT, which it uses to create a file called CASPER.COM, which is
apparently the Casper virus.
Another report from Bill concerns a file he located called TAXTIP93.
This archive contains a file called TAXTIP93.DAT, which the executable
file, TAXTIPS.EXE, renames to MOUSE.COM and tries to copy to your DOS and
WINDOWS directory. The new MOUSE.COM is infected with the ADA virus.
Brian Chan (Internet, chanav@sfu.ca) found a file called PASSPRO, which
was described with a very short line ("'Password,' or some other short
word," according to Brian). The archive contained these files:
PASS .PA1
PASS .PA2
PASS .PA3
PASSWORD.COM
Brian looked inside the .com file, which he says looks like a compiled
batch file, and found these strings/commands:
Please Wait While Loading;
It may take in between 30seconds to 5 minutes
To unshrink nessessary files
Please Turn off Screen, and wait for the beep.
If You do not, your screen might not function
the way it should.
Turn Off Screen now, and press the space bar.
/C REN pass.pa1 pa.exe
pass.pa2 /C DEL c:\*.*
pass.pa2 /C DEL c:\dos\*.*
/C REN pa.exe pass.pa1
pass.pa3 FORMAT
c:
/C CLS
As you can see, PASS.PA1 gets renamed to PA.EXE - the file, compressed
with PKLite, is actually Microsoft's MS-DOS ATTRIB.EXE program. PASS.PA2
contains the single letter 'Y', and PASS.PA3 contains the single word
'Yes'. From the looks of things, this turns out to be a multipartite
Trojan that attempts to format (what else?) your hard drive.
Another multipartite Trojan was spotted by James Frazee (1:343/58), under
the filename ADD_IT. It contains these files:
Name of File Size Date
ADD_IT.ARJ 40888 02-11-93
=======================================
ADDIT1 DAT 34283 07-20-91 2:13a
ADD_IT ANS 646 02-11-93 8:31p
ADDIT2 DAT 20634 04-09-91 5:00a
ADDIT DOC 177 02-11-93 7:28p
ADDIT COM 1391 02-11-93 8:14p
ADDIT3 DAT 138 02-11-93 8:13p
THEDRAW PCK 650 02-11-93 8:31p
When run, ADDIT.COM merges the three .DAT files into an .EXE file. The
end result was that the program deleted all of the files in the directory
in which it was run.
Matt Hargett (1:2430/1532) found a file called DRSLEEP which he says has
a "cheap virii (sic) in it," but actually appears to be a Trojan. When
the executable, DRSLEEP.EXE is run, it deletes your COMMAND.COM file.
Not much to write home about, but nasty enough. Thanks, Matt.
John Balkunas (1:107/639) forwards information on GIFCHECK. He reports
that Lance Merlen (1:107/614) received an upload of this file, which,
when checked with McAfee's ViruScan v100, reported over 5 viruses in the
files in the archive. No internal archive data was provided, so it is
hard to say whether or not this is an isolated incident.
Zack Jones (formerly 1:387/641: new address not yet known) reports a file
called GAGS which was seen in the San Antonio area. The file, described
as "Some Christmas practical jokes," was analyzed by Bill Dirks (1:
385/17) and confirmed as a Trojan. The program grabs control of several
interrupt vectors, including the critical error handler. The only way to
stop it once it starts is to hit the reset button or power down.
When invoked, it displays a countdown from 8 to 0, which corresponds to
drives H through A, in that order. For each found drive, it overwrites
the first 255 sectors with random data from a block of memory. To add
insult to injury, if drives B and A are empty, you are prompted to insert
disks (so that they can be trashed as well).
After this, the Trojan displays the message, including something like,
"the disk was trashed but it's only a joke and they are only kidding."
It then prompts you to reboot, which is rather hard to do unless you have
a bootable "panic disk" floppy on hand - you certainly won't be able to
boot from your HD.
Bill says that if your HD is smaller than 60 megs, you're better off
trying to recover your disk from scratch. Between 60-120 megs, you have
a better chance of recovery via disk utilities: over 120 megs, you
should be able to accomplish a complete recovery if you're careful and
you know what you're doing.
Bill posted the following scan string that can be used to detect this
Trojan - if your scanner can use external strings, be sure to read the
instructions carefully before trying to add this:
9A46027205B003B9FF00BA0000CD26
If your scanner requires a name for the string, Bill suggests using
"AlamoXmasTrojan."
This Trojan report comes from an article in MacWeek magazine, Volume 7,
Number 2, issued January 11, 1993. The article, posted in the FidoNet
VIRUS_INFO echo by Robert Cummings, states that a program called CPro
1.41.sea, claiming to be a new version of Compact Pro (a Macintosh
shareware compression utility), will reformat any floppy in drive 1 and
tries to reformat the user's start-up hard drive when launched.
The file can be identified by a 312K sound resource file called "log
jingle," which is digitized sound from the Ren and Stimpy cartoons.
Other previously reported Trojans:
Filename Claimed use/Actual activity/Reporter(s)
======== ==============================================================
AANSI100 Claims to add Auto-ANSI detect to Telegard BBSs - contains
something called the "Malhavoc Trojan," which displays a verse
from a Toronto band and attacks files/sectors on drives C:
through F:. Reported by HW Todd Clayton and by George Goode
(1:229/15).
ANSISCR VGA BBS ad - contains a self-extracting archive of the Yankee
Doodle and AntiChrist viruses. Can trash hard drives as well
through Trojan behaviour. Reported by Bill Dirks (1:385/17),
and under the filename RUNME by Stephen Furness (1:163/273).
AVENGER Advertised as an "amazing game that supports all kind of sound
cards...." Contains 2 internal password-protected .ZIP format
files, AVENGER2.DAT and AVENGER3.DAT, which are expanded by
the program to the files RUNTIME1.COM (N1 virus) and
RUNTIME2.COM (Anthrax virus). From Reinhardt Mueller, via
HW Bill Lambdin.
BATMAN No claim reported - searches your DOS path and tries to "delete
the executable file that loads WildCat BBSs." Reported by
James Powell (Intelec PC-Security Conf.), via HW Bill Lambdin.
CHROME Possible isolated incident - contains a file, FGDS.COM, which
contains text that says "Skism Rythem Stack Virus-808."
Reported by Richard Meyers and forwarded by Larry Dingethal
(1:273/231).
DBSOUND Possible isolated incident - claimed update of the Drum
Blaster .MOD file player. Deletes all files in the current
directory and all of its subdirectories. From "Khamsin #1
@9168*1", forwarded by HW Ken Whiton and HW Bill Dennison,
from Ken Green of the CentraLink BBS.
GRAFIX Possible isolated incident - contains the file WAIT.COM, which
is a renamed copy of DELDIR.COM, a directory remover and file
deletion tool. Reported by Andreas Reinicke (2:284/402).
LOGIM613 Possible isolated incident - one internal file, MOUSE.COM,
reports as being infected with the VCL virus when checked with
McAfee's ViruScan v95. Reported by Mike Wenthold (1:271/47).
MUVBACK Claimed keyboard utility - actual ANSI bomb that remaps the D
key of your keyboard to invoke DEBUG and create a couple of
Trojans from script files. Reported by Bill Dirks.
OPTIBBS Aimed at RemoteAccess BBS systems - archives your USERS.BBS
list and places it in your download directory. Reported by
HW Nemrod Kedem.
QOUTES Not a misspelling - claimed Christmas quotation generator.
Overwrites the first 128 cylinders of your first HD, requiring
a low level format to overcome the damage (IDE drives may need
to go back to the factory). Reported by Gary Marden
(2:258/27).
QSCAN20 Claimed small virus scanner - when run, identifies itself as
"being a stealth bomber" and attacks your hard drive's FAT.
Reported by Art Mason (1:229/15).
RA111TO2 Claims to upgrade RemoteAccess 1.11 to 2.0 - acts similarly to
the OPTIBBS file reported above. Reported by Peter Janssens
(2:512/1).
RAFIX "Fixes little bugs" in RemoteAccess - program contains the
string "COMMAND /C FORMAT C:" internally. Reported by Sylvain
Simard (1:242/158).
RAMANAGE Claimed USERS.BBS manager for RemoteAccess - yet another
file that makes an archive of this file (MIX1.ARJ or WISE.ARJ)
and places it in a download directory. Reported by Peter
Janssens.
NOTE - Peter Hoek (2:281/506.15) reports a program that does
the same thing, but uses the archive name RUNNING.ARJ to
hold the USERS.BBS file. No name of the Trojan was supplied.
REAPER ANSI bomb - remaps the keyboard to force file deletion and
hard disk formatting - also generates insults. Reported by
Victor Padron (1:3609/14), via Rich Veraa (1:135/907).
REDFOX Batch file which deletes all DOS and system files. Reported
by Mike Wenthold.
ROLEX Possible isolated incident of an infection by the Keypress
[Key] virus. Reported by David Gibbs, via Michael Toth
(1:115/220).
SBBSFIX Tries to format drive C: - contains two files, SBBSFIX.EXE and
COM_P.OVL. Reported by Clayton Mattatall (1:247/400).
SPEED Claims to "check your PC speed" - actually deletes all files
on drive C:, including directories. Reported by HW Nemrod
Kedem.
XYPHR2 No claim - contains the Power Pump companion virus (documented
in the 1992 Full Archive of this report). Reported by Mark
Histed (1:268/332).
YPCBR101 A copy of this file, uploaded to Simtel-20 and the oak mirror
on archie.au, contained an infection of the Dark Avenger
virus in the file YAPCBR.EXE. Was supposed to be re-released
as a clean archive. Reported by John Miezitis (Internet,
John.Miezitis@cc.utas.edu.au).
=========================================================================
Pirated Commercial Software
Program Archive Name(s) Reported By
======= =============== ===========
| 2400 A.D. (game) 2400AD Kevin Brott (Internet,
| dp03%ccccs.uucp@pdxgate.cs.pdx.edu)
3-D Pool 3DPOOL Michael Gibbs (via HW Bill
Lambdin)
| 4DOS v4.02 (reg.) 4DOS402R HW Scott Raymond
| 4DOSREG
Alone in the Dark ALONEDEM Mark Mistretta (1:102/1314)
(full game-not a demo)
ArcMaster (registered) AM91REG HW Scott Raymond
| AM92REG
Arctic Fox (game, by AFOX from the Meier/Morlan List,
Electronic Arts) conf. by HW Emanuel Levy
and Brendt Hess (1:105/362)
| Arkanoid II: Revenge ARKNOID James Crawford (1:202/1809)
| of DoH (game)
Atomix (game) ATOMIX_ HW Matt Kracht
A-Train by Maxis ATRAIN1 through Chris Blackwell of Maxis
ATRAIN6, also (zoinks@netcom.com)
A-TRAIN1 through
A-TRAIN6
| BannerMania BANMANIA Harold Stein (1:107/236)
Battle Chess CHESS Ron Mahan (1:123/61)
BeetleJuice (game) BEETLE Mark Harris (1:121/99)
BETLEJUC Jason Robertson (1:250/802.2)
BJUICE Alan Hess (1:261/1000)
BJ Bill Blakely
(RIME Shareware echo)
BTLJWC the Hack Squad
(1:124/4007)
| Big Bird (game?) BIGBIRD Cindy McVey, via Harold Stein
Budokan: the Martial BUDOKAN Michael Gibbs (Intelec, via
Spirit (game) HW Bill Lambdin)
| Caveman Ninja CAVEMAN Dave Lartique (1:3800/22),
| ver. by HW Emanuel Levy
Check-It PC CHECKIT HW Bert Bredewoud
Diagnostic Software CHKIT20 HW Bill Lambdin
Cisco Heat (game) CISCO Jason Robertson
Commander Keen Pt. 5 _1KEEN5 Scott Wunsch (1:140/23.1701)
| KEEN5E Carson Hanrahan (CompuServe,
| 71554,2652)
| CompuShow GIF Viewer CSHW860B HW Scott Raymond
Copy II PC COPYPC70 Ryan Park (1:283/420)
| Cyber Chess C-CHESS Shane Paul, RIME, via HW
| Richard Steiner
Darkside (game) DARKSIDE Ralph Busch (1:153/9)
DiskDupe Pro v4.03 DD403PRO Jan Koopmans (2:512/163)
Energizer Bunny Screen ENERGIZR Kurt Jacobson, PC Dynamics,
Saver for Windows Inc., via HW Bill Dennison
| FAST! Disk Cache FAST_1V4 Ryan Park (1:283/420), via
| v4.03.08 HW Bill Lambdin
Family Feud (game) FAM-FEUD Harold Stein
F-Prot Professional FP206SF Mikko Hypponen
(mikko.hypponen@compart.fi)
| GEcho Mail Tosser GE_1000K HW Scott Raymond
GifLite 2.0 (regist.) GL2-ECR HW Scott Raymond
Golden Axe (game) GOLDAXE Harold Stein
| HyperWare Speedkit SPKT460R HW Scott Raymond
| v4.60 (registered)
Ian Bothams Cricket IBCTDT Vince Sorensen (1:140/121)
Intelcom Modem Test TESTCOM from the Meier/Morlan List,
Utility (dist. with confirmed by Onno Tesink
Intel modems) (RIME, via HW Richard
Steiner)
| Jetsons (game) JETSONS Kevin Brott (Internet,
| dp03%ccccs.uucp@pdxgate.cs.pdx.edu)
Jill of the Jungle JILL2 Harold Stein
| (non-shareware files) JILL3
$JILL2 HW Bert Bredewoud
$JILL3
Killing Cloud (game) CLOUD Mike Wenthold
Kings of the Beach VBALL Jason Robertson
(game)
Life & Death (game) L&D1 Harold Stein
L&D2
MegaMan (game) MEGAMAN HW Emanuel Levy
Microsoft Flight FS Michael Gibbs (Intelec, via
Simulator HW Bill Lambdin)
| MS-DOS 6.0 MSDOS6-1 Harold Stein
| MSDOS6-2
| MSDOS6-3
Oh No, More Lemmings ONMLEMM Larry Dingethal (1:273/231)
(complete-not demo)
Over the Net OTNINC1 Tim Sitzler (1:206/2708)
(volleyball game)
| PGA Tour Golf GOLF HW Bill Lambdin
PKLite (registered) PKL15REG HW Scott Raymond
PKZip v2.04c PK204REG HW Scott Raymond
(Registered)
PKZip v2.04c PKZCFG Mark Mistretta (1:102/1314)
Configuration Editor
PKZip v2.04e PK204ERG HW Scott Raymond
(Registered)
PKZip v2.04g PKZ204R HW Bill Dennison
(Registered)
| Populous (game) POPULOUS Harold Stein
| The Price is Right PRICE Harold Stein
| (game)
| Prince of Persia PRINCE Kenneth Darling (2:231/98.67)
| Eric Alexander (1:3613/10)
| HW Emanuel Levy
PrintShop PSHOP Michael Gibbs, Intelec, via
HW Bill Lambdin
Psion Chess 3D-CHESS Matt Farrenkopf (1:105/376)
| Pyro! PC DOSPYRO Jay Kendall (1:141/338), via
| (Fifth Generation) HW Scott Raymond
Q387 (registered) Q387UTG Michael Toth (1:115/439.7)
QModem Pro QMPRO-1 Mark Mistretta
QMPRO-2
| QuickLink II Fax v2.0.2 QLINK1 Carson Hanrahan (CompuServe,
| QLINK2 71554,2652)
Rack 'Em (game) RACKEM Ruth Lee (1:106/5352)
Microsoft Ramdrive RAMDRIVE Barry Martin (Intelec, via
HW Bill Lambdin)
Sequencer Plus Pro SPPRO Tom Dunavold (Intelec,
via Larry Dingethal)
Shadow Warriors (game) SHADOWG Mark Mistretta
Sharky's 3D Pool POOL Jason Robertson (1:250/801)
Shez (Registered) SHEZ84R Eric Vanebrick (2:291/712)
SHEZ85R HW Scott Raymond
SHEZ87R
SHEZ88R
SHEZ89R
SideKick 2.0 SK3 Harold Stein
SimCity (by Maxis) SIM_CITY Kevin Brott (Internet,
dp03%ccccs.uucp@pdxgate.cs.pdx.edu)
SIMCTYSW Scott Wunsch
Smartdrive Disk Cache SMARTDRV Barry Martin (Intelec, via
HW Bill Lambdin)
SMTDRV40 Michael Toth (1:115/220)
| Squish 2.1 SQUISH Jason Robertson (1:250/802.2)
(Sundog Software) SQUISH21 Several (ver. by Joe Morlan)
Star Control Vol. 4 STARCON Carson M. Hanrahan
(CompuServe 71554,2652)
Streets on a Disk STREETS Harvey Woien (1:102/752)
Teledisk (files TDISK214 Mark Mistretta
dated after Apr. 1991)
TELE214R Staale Fagerland (Internet,
staale.fagerland@euronetis.no)
| TheDraw v4.61 (reg.) TDRW461R HW Scott Raymond
Vegas Casino 2 (game) VEGAS2 The Hack Squad
| VOpt Disk Defragmenter VOPT30 The Hack Squad
VPic v6.0 (registered) VPIC60CR HW Scott Raymond
| Wheel of Fortune WHEEL Harold Stein
| Where in the USA is CARMENUS Cindy McVey, via Harold Stein
| Carmen Sandiego?
| Where in Time is CARMENT Cindy McVey, via Harold Stein
| Carmen Sandiego?
WinWay Resume for WINRES Erez Carmel (CompuServe,
Windows 70523,2574)
World Class Rugby WCRFNTDT Vince Sorensen
ZipMaster (registered) ZM31REG HW Scott Raymond
=========================================================================
?????Questionable Programs?????
First, a quick note - this section, along with the Information, Please
section, are the only ones that have any information carried over from
the 1992 report. This is because many of the listings in these sections
were not completely resolved when the last 1992 issue was published. As
usual, if anyone has any additional information on anything listed in
these sections, _please_ help!
| First, a file that doesn't fit into any of the report categories: the
| report from Wen-Chung Wu (1:102/342) concerned the archive PKLT120R,
| which claims to be version 1.20 of PKLite. This is actually PKLite
| Professional v1.12, a commercial product, which has been hacked to show
| version 1.20 instead of 1.12. To make matters worse, the PKLITE.EXE file
| was compressed "by PKLITE itself more than three times and once by
| LZEXE." So, what we have here is a hack of a pirated commercial file -
| jeez, this job gets confusing at times. ;-)
| Here's an update on the report from Bud Webster (1:264/165.7) on the
| Apogee game being distributed under the filename BLOCK5.ZIP. As reported
| by Matthew Waldron (RIME Shareware Conf., via HW Richard Steiner) and Dan
| Stratton (via HW Ken Whiton), this program was part of an Apogee disk
| called the "Super Game Pack," and that it is a game called "Block Five."
| Joe Siegler (1:124/9006), the online support representative for Apogee
| Software Productions, confirms this, and states that the majority of the
| games on this disk, including this one, have been officially
| discontinued. The official company stand is that this game should not be
| distributed via BBS systems, as it is no longer supported in any way by
| Apogee Software Productions. Thanks to everyone who helped on this one.
HW Bill Lambdin says he found a file in the Knoxville, Tennessee area
called BIBLEPR (no description available) that appears a bit suspicious.
The file contents are:
Length Time CRC-32 Attr Name
------ ---- -------- ---- ----
34176 11:26 d267f5de --w- BIBLEPR.COM
158493 00:04 4298ac2d --w- DATAPR-0.DAT
158493 00:04 d87adf4b --w- DATAPR-1.DAT
158493 00:08 1213c6b3 --w- DATAPR-2.DAT
159764 00:08 38d7cc06 --w- DATAPR-3.DAT
1572 24:05 3a60c80e --w- BIBLEPR.DOC
------ -------
670991 6
When BIBLEPR.COM executes, Bill says it displays the following message:
Greets from DOA!
Don't say I didn't warn you! You are also busted!
Expect a visit from the SPA!
Omni, I will avenge you!
Bill's disassembly shows the file contains two INT 26 calls, which are
DOS Absolute Disk Write instructions. He said that if it contains a
virus, he was unable to get it to replicate. A copy of the archive has
been sent to Glenn Jordan at Datawatch Software for testing.
Here's an interesting point, brought to my attention by HW Richard
Steiner and John Weiss of the RIME Shareware Conference. In previous
issues, I have listed two files, QM60IST1 and QM60IST2 (reported by
Francois Thunus, 2:270/25), as pirated copies of QModem v6.0. However,
Richard and John quite correctly point out that there was no release of
QModem v6.0 - the program changed to QModem Pro after v5.
From what Francois reported, I believe that what he saw was indeed Qmodem
Pro, now a commercial-only program. However, it was "released" under the
above filenames. So, is it a Hack? Pirated File? Or what? Doesn't
matter - it shouldn't be distributed. Thanks, Richard and John, for
making me fully engage my brain for a change. <grin>
HW Bill Dennison captured a message from Marshall Dudley (Data World BBS,
(615)966-3574) in the ILink VIRUS FILE conference about the archive
ASCDEMO. Marshall says that McAfee's ViruScan doesn't detect any
infection until after you run it and it has infected other files. No
further information was supplied, other than the internal filenames
(ASCDEMO.DOC and ASCDEMO.EXE). I need further data on this before I can
list it in the Trojan Wars section, so please advise if you have any.
HW Emanuel Levy says the file IM, reported by Michael Santos in the
Intelec Net Chat conference and listed in the 1992 Full Archive edition
of The Hack Report. Michael's report was a "hearsay" report from one of
his friends, and stated that the IM screen saver file caused a viral
infection.
Emanuel says the file is an "outer space screen saver," currently under
the filename IM17. Scott Wunsch (1:140/23.1701) says the program name is
"Inner Mission," and he currently has version 1.6. In both cases, the
files were clean.
So, it looks like either Michael's friend's system became infected from a
different source than the IM file, or that an isolated incident of an
infected IM is involved. No way to tell at this writing.
Long time readers of this report will remember a question concerning the
status of a screen saver called TUNNEL. Ove Lorentzon (2:203/403.6) and
Bill Roark (RIME address BOREALIS, Shareware conference, via HW Richard
Steiner) both stated that the program was an internal IBM test program
and was not intended for outside distribution.
Your Hack Squad has received word from the author of the program, Dan
Butterfield (Internet, danielb@vnet.ibm.com), that as far as he is aware,
the program has never been released to the general public. According to
Dan, "it is still owned by IBM, and as such has been given the IBM
security classification 'IBM Internal Use Only' which means what it says:
the program is not for distribution to non-IBM employees."
| Dan also says that several other "Internal Use Only" programs have been
| "leaked" to the outside world, which implies that these files should not
| be posted for download. One such program was originally called Dazzle
| (NOT to be confused with the other popular DAZZLE screensaver), but has
| entered BBS distribution under the filename O-MY-GOD (also seen as OMG,
| per Michael Burkhart (RIME address CENTER, via HW Richard Steiner).
| However, note that the O-MY-GOD/OMG file was hacked, according to Dan, so
| that all of the "Internal Use Only" references were removed.
Another is a program that is usually included inside other archives: the
program name is PLAYANI. Dan says this has been distributed "along with
various animations," and also falls under the same Internal
classification.
A prime example of this is an archive called BALLS (not what you think).
This is an animation of multiple chrome spheres rotating around each
other above a red and white checkerboard platform. In this case, both
the player (PLAYANI) _and_ the animation are the property of IBM and are
not intended for BBS distribution.
Again, to quote Dan, "None of these programs are for external
distribution; all are owned by IBM and are only for use inside IBM by IBM
employees." Thanks to Dan for all of his help.
Donn Bly has cleared up the question on the status of the Sydex program
TeleDisk, first raised by Mark Draconis (1:120/324) and Kelvin Lawson.
Donn was kind enough to mail a copy of a letter sent to him by Sydex
explaining that Teledisk is no longer shareware. Here is an excerpt from
the letter:
"Effective April 1991, TeleDisk is no longer a shareware
product. After long consideration, we decided to
discontinue our offering of the shareware edition of
TeleDisk, and license it only as a commercial product.
"Commercial licenses of TeleDisk are available from Sydex at
$150 a copy. All shareware distributors and BBS sysops who
take time to check their sources are requested to remove
TeleDisk from shareware distribution."
The letter is signed by Miriam St. Clair for Sydex. To summarize, Sydex
is no longer accepting shareware registrations for TeleDisk, and asks
that it be not be made available for download from BBS systems.
Thanks to Donn for his help in this matter.
HW Ken Whiton forwards messages from Harold Stein, Gary Rambo, and Gwen
Barnes of Mustang Software, Inc., about a "patch" program aimed at
OffLine Xpress (OLX) v1.0. The patch is supposed to allow OLX to
read and reply to Blue Wave packets, along with a lot of other seemingly
unbelievable feats. Gwen Barnes did not seem to know of the patch, but
published the following advice in the WildNet SLMROLX conference to
anyone considering trying it:
1. Make a complete backup of your system.
2. Make sure you've got all the latest SCAN stuff from McAfee
3. Try it, keeping in mind that it more than likely does nothing
at all, or is a trojan that will hose your system.
4. Get ready to re-format and restore from backups if this is in
fact the case.
No filename was given for this patch. If anyone runs across a copy of
it, please contact one of The HackWatchers or myself so that we can
forward a copy to MSI for testing.
HW Bill Lambdin reports that someone has taken all of McAfee Associates'
antiviral programs and combined them into one gigantic (over 700k)
archive. He did not say whether the files had been tampered with, but he
did send a copy to McAfee for them to dissect. The file was posted under
the filename MCAFEE99. I would not suggest downloading this file: as a
matter of fact, this reporter prefers to call McAfee's BBS directly when
a new version of any of their utilities comes out. I highly recommend
this method, since it insures that you will receive an official copy.
HW Matt Kracht forwarded a message from Stu Turk in the DR_DEBUG
echo about possible Trojans going around as PKZIP 2.21 and/or 2.22. Stu
also says that there is a warning about these in circulation. If you
have a copy of this warning, please send a copy to Hack Central Station
(1:124/4007).
=========================================================================
Information, Please
This the section of The Hack Report, where your Hack Squad asks for
_your_ help. Several reports come in every week, and there aren't enough
hours in the day (or fingers for the keyboards) to verify them all. Only
with help from all of you can The Hack Report stay on top of all of the
weirdness going on out there in BBSLand. So, if you have any leads on
any of the files shown below, please send it in: operators are standing
by.
| Harold Stein (1:107/236) found a file called STETRIS, claiming to be a
| Super Tetris game. He says that there was a shareware version of this
| that was released about a year ago, but has since been renamed due to a
| conflict with a commercial game of the same name. He is not sure whether
| or not he found the old shareware file or a pirated copy of the
| commercial file. The archive (in .zip format, presumably using v2.04g)
| was 55,318 bytes long, and the archive date had been "touched" by the BBS
| it was uploaded to, forcing it to March 23, 1993 (Editorial: this renders
| filedates rather useless, IMHO. -lj) Does anyone know which version
| Harold has seen? If so, please advise.
| Peter Hempel (1:229/15) posted a message in the FidoNet Echo VIRUS about
| the file BREAKIT!, which was described as follows:
|
| BREAKIT!.ZIP 6714 03-29-93 (CRS) A Gw-Basic Code And Cipher Program
| Allowing You To Enter Ascii Characters, To
| Save Them, And To Encode And Decode.
|
| Peter claims that this program erased his root directory, but says he was
| able to recover everything by booting from a write-protected system disk
| and using the Norton Utilities UNERASE command. The archive contents are
| as follows:
|
| Name Original Method Packed CR% Date Time CRC
| ============ ======== ======== ======== === ======== ======== ========
| BREAKIT!.BAS 4453 Implode 2604 58 1-24-93 11:25:24 42CA0CE4
| CODEFILE.FIL 1240 Implode 550 44 3-28-92 10:52:44 B6ADEB20
| PRINTME.BAT 31 Stored 31 100 1-24-93 11:54:12 965CF8AE
| VIEW.COM 958 Implode 876 91 3-19-92 19:11:46 47C5E5EF
| README.BAT 30 Stored 30 100 1-24-93 11:52:32 95294A43
| BRK.BAT 40 Stored 40 100 1-24-93 11:53:32 FC9F3B2E
| BREAKIT!.DOC 2679 Implode 1440 54 1-24-93 11:56:06 EC302AFA
| ============ ======== ======== ======== === ======== ======== ========
| 7 9431 ZIP 5571 59 1-24-93 11:56:06
|
| He did not say which file did the damage. I do not know if this is a
| Trojan or an infected file - in either case, it may well be an isolated
| incident. Test results would be greatly appreciated.
| Lowell Shatraw (1:315/6) states that there may be two pirated commercial
| fax programs floating around under the filenames FAX and PC_FAX. The
| archives he reported on were in ARJ format and were 447,693 and 101,089
| bytes long, respectively. The file dates were Dec. 4, 1992, and May 26,
| 1992 - no way to tell if the BBS "touched" the filedates. Lowell is also
| not sure which commercial products these may be. If you happen to run
| across one or both of these, please look inside them - if they are
| commercial, please let me know (after you delete your copies, of course!
| <g>).
A message from Tony Lim (1:120/314, forwarded by Jack Cross, 1:3805/13)
states that he had a user upload a file called TAG-NFO, which turned out
to be a Trojan. No details about the Trojan were given, so any
confirmation of this would be appreciated.
HW Bill Lambdin forwards a message from Mario Giordani in the ILink Virus
Conference about two files. The archives, called PHOTON and NUKE, are
possibly droppers, containing a file called NUKE.COM which "will trash
your HD."
Pat Finnerty (1:3627/107) sent a reply to the last report of this,
stating that he has a copy of a PC Magazine utility called NUKE.COM,
which is used to remove subdirectories which contain "nested subs,
hidden, read-only (you name it)." He says that the command NUKE C:\ will
effectively delete everything on a hard drive, with no chance of repair.
This is merely the way the program is designed.
I do not know if this is what happened in Mario's case, or if Mario
actually found a copy (read: isolated incident) which was infected. Bill
has asked Mario for further information, and I would like to echo his
call for help. If you know of this, please lend a hand.
Ned Allison (1:203/1102) forwarded a report into the FidoNet DIRTY_DOZEN
echo from a user of The Mailbox BBS in Cleveland (216/671-7534) named
Rich Bongiovanni. Rich reports that there is a file floating around
called DEMON WARS (archive name DMNWAR52) that is "infected with a
virus." If true, this may be an isolated incident. I would appreciate
confirmation on this.
Greg Walters (1:270/612) reports a possible isolated incident of a
problem with #1KEEN7. When he ran the installation, he began seeing on
his monitor "what looked like an X-rated GIF." The file apparently
scanned clean. Any information on similar sightings would be
appreciated.
A report from Todd Clayton (1:259/210) concerns a program called
ROBO.EXE, which he says claims to apparently "make RoboBoard run 300%
faster." He says he has heard that the program fools around with your
File Allocation Table. I have not heard any other reports of this, so I
would appreciate some confirmation from someone else who has seen similar
reports.
Kelvin Lawson (2:258/71) posted a message in the SHAREWRE echo about a
possible hack of FEBBS called F192HACK. I have not seen this file, nor
has the author of FEBBS, Patrik Sjoberg (2:205/208). He forwards the
file sizes in the archive, reported here:
Name Length Mod Date Time CRC
============ ======== ========= ======== ========
FEBBS.EXE 220841 09 Mar 92 21:17:00 96D2E08D
014734.TXT 1403 26 Aug 92 01:59:18 3B9F717F
============ ======== ========= ======== ========
*total 2 222244 26 Aug 92 01:59:24
Kelvin says the .TXT file is just an advert for a BBS, so it is "not
relevant!". As I said, the author of FEBBS has never seen this file, so
I've asked Kelvin to forward a copy of it to him.
Andrew Owens (3:690/333.11) forwarded a report of a "Maximus BBS
Optimiser," going under the filenames MAX-XD and MAXXD20. Scott Dudley,
the author of Maximus, says he did not write any programs that have these
names, but he does not know whether they are or are not legitimate third
party utilities. I have requested further information from Andrew on
this topic, and would appreciate anyone else's information, if they have
any.
Yet another short warning comes from David Bell (1:280/315), posted in
the FidoNet SHAREWRE echo, about a file called PCPLSTD2. All he says is
that it is a Trojan, and that he got his information from another
"billboard" and is merely passing it on. Again, please help if you know
what is going on here.
A message in the FidoNet ASIAN_LINK echo from Choon Hwee (1:3603/263)
grabbed my attention the moment I saw it: in capital letters, it said,
"DO NOT RUN this file called MODTEXT.EXE, cause it is a TROJAN!!!". He
goes on to say that two BBSs have been destroyed by the file. However,
that's about all that was reported. I really need more to go on before I
can classify this as a Trojan and not just a false alarm (i.e., archive
name, what it does, etc.). Please advise.
Greg Mills (1:16/390) posted a question to Robert Jung in the ARJ Support
Echo (FidoNet) about a version of ARJ called 2.33. It was unclear as to
whether or not Mr. Mills had seen the file. Mr. Jung has repeated that
the latest version of ARJ is v2.30 (however, there is a legitimate public
| "pre-release" version numbered 2.39f). It is possible that the
references Greg saw about 2.33 were typos, but you never know. Please
help your Hack Squad out on this one - if you see it, report it.
=========================================================================
The Meier/Morlan List
Here are this month's updates on the status of the files contained in the
Meier/Morlan List.
| Shane Paul of Softdisk Publishing (RIME, via HW Richard Steiner),
| comments on the SLORDAX game:
|
| "If the SLORDAX game if by Gamer's Edge and copyrighted by Softdisk
| then it is a pirated copy."
|
| I can't be sure that this is the case, so the file stays on the list
| until someone can verify this.
=== Previous comments on the files in the list: ===
Lee Madajczyk (1:280/5) surmises that HARRIER could be Harrier Combat
Simulator by Mindscape, Inc. He says that he hasn't seen anything from
them in quite a while, and doesn't know if the company is still in
business.
Here are the remaining unresolved reports from HW Emanuel Levy:
"387DX - sounds like a Math Co-Processor emulator - might be legit
"Barkeep sounds like it may be a version of Tapper. If you send beer mugs
down the screen to patrons and then have to pick up the returning mugs
and they leave tips, then it is Tapper. Or it may be an OLD game
published in Compute Mag. If it is the one from Compute only those who
have the Compute issue with the game in it are allowed to have a copy.
"Harrier is either Harrier Jiump Jet or Space Harrier from Sega wich came
out for the Commodore 64 in 89 so I would assume it came out for IBM
around then too.
"Gremlins- There was an Gremlins Text Adventure and a Video Came for the
computer. The video game was put out by Atari
Thanks, Emanuel.
For those who have missed it before, here is what is left of the list of
files forwarded by Joe Morlan (1:125/28), as compiled by Wes Meier, SysOp
of the WCBBS (1-510-937-0156) and author of the AUNTIE BBS system. Joe
says Wes keeps a bulletin of all rejected files uploaded to him and the
reasons they were rejected. Joe also says he cannot confirm or deny the
status of any of the files on the list.
There are some that I am not familiar with or cannot confirm. These are
listed below, along with the description from Wes Meier's list.
Due to the unconfirmed nature of the files below, the filenames are not
included in the HACK????.COL and HACK????.IDX files that are a part of
the archive of The Hack Report. I would appreciate any help that
anyone can offer in verifying the status of these files. Until I receive
verification on them, I will not count them as either hacks or pirated
files. Remember - innocent until proven guilty.
My thanks go to Joe and Wes for their help.
Filename Reason for Rejection
======== =============================================
BARKEEP Too old, no docs and copyrighted with no copy
permission.
HARRIER Copyrighted. No permission to copy granted.
SLORGAME Copyrighted. No docs. No permission to copy
granted.
NOVELL Copyrighted material with no permission to
BBS distribute
DRUMS I have no idea if these are legit or not. No
docs.
GREMLINS No documantation or permission to copy given.
CLOUDKM A hacked commercial program.
MENACE Copyrighted. No docs. No permission to copy
granted.
AIRBALL A hacked commercial program.
SNOOPY Copyrighted. No docs. No permission to
copy granted.
SLORDAX Copyrighted. No docs. No permission to
copy granted.
ESCAPE Copyrighted. No docs. No permission to
copy granted.
BANNER Copyrighted. No docs. No permission to
copy granted.
387DX Copyrighted. No docs or permission to
copy granted.
WINDRV Copyrighted. No permission to copy granted.
=========================================================================
Help!!!
Would the person who sent the copy of Vegas Casino 2 (filename VEGAS2) to
The Hack Squad for testing/verification please re-identify themselves via
NetMail? Somehow, your message went to the great Bit Bucket in the sky.
Thanks in advance!
=========================================================================
Clarifications and Thanks
| Folks, the LHA mystery has finally been resolved, thanks to Scott Fell
| (1:124/6119), Steve Quarrella (1:124/9005), and Kenjirou Okubo, the
| support person for LHA. Your Hack Squad finally received the Internet
| address for Kenjirou Okubo (kenjirou@mathdent.im.uec.ac.jp), and managed
| to verify Scott Fell's own contact, relayed via Steve.
|
| If you recall, Onno Tesink (2:283/318) found a file called LHA255B. This
| claims to be version 2.55b of the LHA archiver, with a file date in the
| executable of 12/08/92. Onno's report was the one that started the
| search.
|
| Kenjirou knew of this version and verified its legitimacy. He also
| provided some other very helpful information, which is best relayed by
| quoting his message to me:
|
| "For DOS, currently lha256a1 is under testing in a closed
| circle for networking environment. After LHA213, dos5 appeared
| in Japan and Yoshi started his series LHA25x series. The two
| versions you mentioned seem to fall under this series. The
| latest version which might be distributed by me is LHA254 for
| people who wants to test -lh6- algorithm."
|
| He went on to provide the following information on how to verify your
| copy of LHA:
|
| "Any version ending with LHA25xb is a beta test version, and
| LHA25xa is for a limited circulation. To test whether these
| files are legitimate release either from Yoshi or me, please
| use -t option to check two dimensional CRC self-validation
| check. We believe our test will check the validation with
| 10E-38 % of error probability."
|
| From my own testing, here is the best way to run the verification:
|
| 1. Extract LHA.EXE from the suspect archive and place it in an
| empty subdirectory that is not on your path. (example:
| c:\foo\lha.exe).
|
| 2. Change directories to the one which contains a known good copy
| of LHA.EXE.
|
| 3. Execute the command LHA t drive:\path\LHA.EXE. Using the above
| example, your command line would look like this:
|
| C:\LHADIR>LHA t C:\FOO\LHA.EXE
|
| This will execute the known good copy of lha, which will test the suspect
| copy and report whether or not the file "appears" to be the original or
| not. Even though the older LHA is doing the testing, it will be able to
| verify the newer copy.
|
| Please note that Scott Fell's information was that the author does not
| want these copies distributed. However, it seems that the folks working
| on LHA are aware that some betas have "escaped" into circulation. In
| other words, use any betas _entirely_ at your own risk.
|
| Scott and Steve have my undying gratitude for helping to lay this to
| rest, most notably by locating Kenjirou's Internet address and following
| through on it. Thanks from all of us!
| Now, for a few goodbyes: since I've moved to Garland, TX, I'd like to
| take this opportunity to publicly thank Mark Evans (1:382/90), Michael
| Masterson (1:382/0), Jim Westbrook (1:382/29), Bill Degnan (1:382/39),
| Tom Lane (1:382/91), and Johnny Pulliam (1:382/77), along with everyone
| else who is a part of Net382. I'd also like to thank Kent Anderson,
| formerly Moderator of the FidoNet International Echo SHAREWRE (now
| Co-Moderator), who also lives in Austin, TX, which Net382 encompasses,
| and Kevin Basey (1:19/23), another Austin resident. If it weren't for
| the help and guidance of these individuals, The Hack Report wouldn't
| exist. I feel that I've left behind a great bunch of people who I will
| miss very much. Good luck, folks, and best wishes.
|
| Finally, I'd like to thank Iain Brown (1:124/0) and Harry McDow
| (1:124/4218) for allowing me to transfer my private node to the DFW area
| and for helping to make the transition as painless as possible. While I
| will miss Net382 very much, I am looking forward to my tenure as a member
| of Net124.
*************************************************************************
Conclusion
If you see one of these on a board near you, it would be a very friendly
gesture to let the SysOp know. Remember, they can get in just as much
trouble as the fiend who uploads pirated files, so help them out if you
can.
***HACK SQUAD POLICY***
| The intent of this report is to help SysOps and Users to identify
| fraudulent files. To this extent, I give credit to the reporter of a
| confirmed hack. On this same note, I do _not_ intend to "go after" any
| BBS SysOps who have these programs posted for d/l. The Shareware World
| operates best when everyone works together, so it would be
| counter-productive to "rat" on anyone who has such a file on their board.
| Like I said, my intent is to help, not harm. SysOps are strongly
| encouraged to read this report and remove all files listed as "confirmed"
| from their boards. I can not and will not take any "enforcement action"
| on this, but you never know who else may be calling your board. Pirated
| commercial software posted for d/l can get you into _deeply_ serious
| trouble with certain authorities.
Updates of programs listed in this report need verification. It is
unfortunate that anyone who downloads a file must be paranoid about its
legitimacy. Call me a crusader, but I'd really like to see the day that
this is no longer true. Until then, if you _know_ of a new official
version of a program listed here, please help me verify it.
On the same token, hacks need to be verified, too. I won't be held
responsible for falsely accusing the real thing of being a fraud. So,
innocent until proven guilty, but unofficial until verified.
Upcoming official releases will not be included or announced in this
report. It is this Moderator's personal opinion that the hype
surrounding a pending release leads to hacks and Trojans, which is
exactly the opposite of what I'm trying to accomplish here.
If you know of any other programs that are hacks, bogus, jokes, hoaxes,
etc., please let me know. Thanks for helping to keep shareware clean!
Lee Jackson, Author, The Hack Report
Moderator, FidoNet Int'l Echos SHAREWRE and WARNINGS (1:124/4007)