Re: confused here

band beyond description wrote:
>
> > i got a virus on my PC last year on Azearus BT and wiped my HD and lost
> > some dig pix that could not be replaced but no biggie. everyone hear
> > trust torrents or back to snail mail?
>
> well, there are torrent sites, and there are torrent sites. the kind,
> GD-oriented ones will not do you in, in the manner that you described.
> check them out, and don't cut of your nose to spite your face.

I'm not sure who you were replying to (for whatever reason, that
person's post wasn't picked up by newsguy), but I think whoever it was
was feeding you a line of bull***. Here's a few reasons why:

1) The majority of viruses that have been in circulation for the past
few years are geared towards network disruption, not disc corruption.

2) What type(s) of files were downloaded? If they were only
shn/flac/txt files, as found in most music torrents, double-clicking on
them will only bring up the appropriate application (MKWAct/Shorten For
Windows/FLAC Frontend/Notepad) -- which in turn would refuse to do
anything to the file as the wasn't the proper file type.

Think I'm kidding? Make a copy of any executable file (.exe) or
screensaver file (.scr) - these are the most common file types used to
distribute viruses - and put it on your desktop. Change the extention
to .shn (you'll see the icon immediately change to the appropriate one
for an shn), then double-click it. MKWAct/Shorten For Windows won't do
anything to it as it's not a real shorten (shn) file. The exact error
from each (respectively) are: "Error reported by Shorten: No magic
number." and "Shorten error code 1: Input is corrupted or is not a
Shorten file"

So...if he actually did get himself infected with a a nefarious "hard
drive wiping" virus* from something he downloaded through bittorrent, he
was most likely downloading pirated software (warez), not music or
video. Oopsie...

3) If his drive was supposedly "wiped," he'd have no way of knowing for
certain what infected file did it, or that it was something that was
included in a torrent.

4) If he'd been running some sort of virus protection, a warning would
have popped up and named the infected file long before he ever had a
chance to dink around with it and infect himself.


The stink of bull*** is thick with this particular tale of woe...

Just sayin...

~Ted



*Anyone else remember those stupid emails that used to be forwarded
around the internet (primarily by) by AOL users who'd revceived a
forwarded a virus warning email that supposedly originated from a guy at
IBM? Those emails were about the only place anyone ever heard of
horrible new viruses that "wiped" hard drives.
.