Re: [MiNT] bug/virus???

[Steven Moore <smooreg@essex.ac.uk>]

> All folders/files on all his partitions got cleanly deleted. 

Cleanly? That *doesn't* sound like a virus. A virus would just wipe
the FAT (and I never heard of an XFS aware virus either).

> Anyway, if thi sis not a bug, just be aware that a virus might be
> circulating. 

It's very unlikely. MiNT's not a very attractive target for viruses.
People stopped spreading viruses for the Atari a few years ago - and
although generic unix viruses do exist, they too are rare (and probably
destined to remain so, fortunately).

> Best imo is to run the AES not as root. 

Does n.aes actually *run* as a non-root user? (Oh, and it would make no
difference to a virus, if you had memory protection switched off.)

> That will save you a lot of headaches. Your information is vital, back it
> up.

Of course, this goes without saying - remember that you're probably
running quite a lot of alpha/beta/God-knows-what software. Bugs happen.
Back up. The day that something like this:

root@liquid# cd src
root@liquid# l
    .message    d4k_data/    d4k*    d4k.c
root@liquid# rm -rf *
root@liquid# l
    .message                                  <random swearing>
root@liquid# rm -rf .*            <a momentary lapse of sanity>

      <...this is taking a while...>
^C
root@liquid# ls
ls: Command not found.
      <...OH SH^&!>

... happens to you, you'll know why I say what I say. <grin>

'Course, no-one ever actually *follows* this advice. <sigh> :)