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From: shane@pepe.cc.umich.edu (Shane Looker)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Trojan Horse a Myth?
Message-ID: <405@tardis.cc.umich.edu>
Date: Mon, 7-Dec-87 10:17:04 EST
Article-I.D.: tardis.405
Posted: Mon Dec  7 10:17:04 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Dec-87 13:21:08 EST
References: <459@gtx.com>
Sender: usenet@tardis.cc.umich.edu
Reply-To: shane@pepe.cc.umich.edu (Shane Looker)
Organization: University of Michigan Computing Center, Ann Arbor
Lines: 37

In article <459@gtx.com> al@gtx.UUCP (Al Filipski) writes:
:I just read a newspaper article by Clarence Peterson of the Chicago Tribune
:in which "Jan Harold Brunvard, University of Utah Professor of folklore
:and author of three books about urban legends" dismisses the "Trojan Horse"
:computer program as an "Urban Myth".  He says "I think there probably have been
:some programs like that cooked up, but I can find no evidence that it's
:actually been done, and it isn't as though it couldn't be detected and
:destroyed."
:
Obviously, this guy does not live with computers.
:
:It seems to me that the Professor is being quite naive.  We all know
:how easy it would be to create a Trojan Horse Program, and even, with a
:little more difficulty, make it infect the user's system in subtle
:ways.  As for the question, "has anyone actually been hurt by one of
:these?", I only know third-hand accounts.  Can anyone relate a
:first-hand account of damage done to his/her system by a malicious
:Trojan Horse?
There was a posting to Risks last week about a virus which has be put into
COMMAND.COM files.  This should qualify as a Trojan Horse.  There is a
file sitting on some BBSs around the country called PACKIT2 (for the 
Macintosh), which is supposed to be a Trojan horse.  

I have a friend who wrote a Trojan horse login screen on a TOPS-20 system
(or was it a TOPS-10?) several years ago.  A friend of his managed to collect
a large number of logins and passwords before they caught him.
:
:    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
:   | Alan Filipski, GTX Corp, 2501 W. Dunlap, Phoenix, Arizona 85021, USA |
:   | {ihnp4,cbosgd,decvax,hplabs,seismo}!sun!sunburn!gtx!al (602)870-1696 |
:    ----------------------------------------------------------------------


Shane Looker                       |  "He's dead Jim,
shane@pepe.cc.umich.edu            |     you grab his tricorder,
uunet!umix!pepe.cc.umich.edu!shane |     I'll get his wallet."
Looker@um.cc.umich.edu