On Fri, 29 Aug 2003 01:32, Wouter Verhelst wrote: > > I disagree with your conclusions regarding putting viruses in Debian. I > > think it would be a useful service for people who analyse such things to > > have copies of viruses in usable form. > > The EICAR.COM test pattern exists solely for that purpose. I wouldn't > have any problem with putting testpatterns in packages that are supposed > to do some security tests (or something similar), but putting viruses in > the Debian archive is a bad idea.
Test patterns can't be executed and thus miss most of the value of a live virus for analysis purposes. I know that most people would disagree with me strongly on this issue, so I wouldn't bother pushing it even if it wasn't for the issue of Debian packages not being for arbitary binaries. > If I misunderstood you, please ignore this mail :-) I think you simply disagree with me so greatly on this issue that you couldn't believe I meant what I said. It's no big deal. As I have other reasons for thinking that live viruses don't belong in Debian we can at least agree to not have them, even though we disagree on the reasons for not having them. PS Before someone raises the issue of license of viruses. I believe that anyone who distributes a virus does so with the desire that it be installed on as many systems as possible and that the implied license permits you to have a copy of it for whatever purposes you desire. People who wish to limit the use of their software in any way should make it refrain from installing itself on hundreds of thousands of machines without the consent of the owners. :-# -- http://www.coker.com.au/selinux/ My NSA Security Enhanced Linux packages http://www.coker.com.au/bonnie++/ Bonnie++ hard drive benchmark http://www.coker.com.au/postal/ Postal SMTP/POP benchmark http://www.coker.com.au/~russell/ My home page
