From:	"A.Appleyard" <A DOT APPLEYARD AT fs2 DOT mt DOT umist DOT ac DOT uk>
To:	DJGPP AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
Date:	Wed, 21 Feb 1996 09:58:18 GMT
Subject:	A real Good Times virus, etc
Message-Id:	<349324F7442@fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk>

Data Fellows Ltd's F-PROT Professional development & support <F-PROT-Support@
DataFellows.com> said:-

> Good Times ... is just a hoax. This rare `worm' ...  more accurately, it was
> an efficient chain letter ... relied on people to pass it along ...

etc etc as people already know by now.

> ... no public e-mail system supports the execution of programs while the
> accompanying message is read ...

This `Good Times' is fictional, but Microsoft Word viruses can spread by email
(if your email reader calls Microsoft Word) and they certainly ARE real!

> In April 1995 an Australian virus group known as VLAD published a real PC
> virus called `Good Times'. This version of `Good Times' is an ordinary file
> virus which infects COM and EXE files. To further confuse the issue, this
> message is included in the virus's source code:-

 ; The act of loading the file
 ; into a mail server's ASCII
 ; buffer causes the "Good
 ; Times" mainline program to
 ; initialize and execute.
 ; Remember to email all your
 ; friends, warning them about
 ; Good Times!

> For obvious reasons, anti-virus programs will not recognize this virus by
> the name `Good Times'. Instead, it has been named `GT-Spoof'.
> A similar incident took place also in the beginning of 1993. It involved a
> rumor about a fictional virus called `Proto-T', which was soon followed by
> the real thing.

>> See also http://www.tcp.co.uk/tcp/good-times/ and
>> ftp://usit.net/pub/lesjones/good-times-virus-hoax-faq.txt.
>> [Mikko Hypponen, Data Fellows Ltd's F-PROT Professional Support]

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