post 65

By anders pearson 09 Aug 2000

the Potassium Hydroxide virus is definately the coolest computer virus i’ve ever heard of. when it infects a drive, it politely asks if you would like the data on the drive IDEA encrypted. it’s entirely beneficial and sounds like a really convenient way to encrypt your data if you’re using windows (i know linux already has support for encrypted filesystems but i’m not so sure if windows does).

i really like the idea of beneficial viruses. what someone really needs to write is a virus that secures your system and patches the most common security holes, perhaps also with the capability to watch for and automatically download security updates. hell, maybe even just a vb script virus that when it infects someone, it changes their settings in Outlook so they won’t get infected with anything else. if that one went around once, it would probably catch 90% of the people who would be susceptible to email viruses and would just nip that whole problem in the bud. i’ll stop just short of advocating the linux installation virus…