Fizzer Virus Pops Up On Kazaa

C/Net ^ | May 12, 2003 | Will Sturgeon

[Paul C. Jesup]

Mailwasher is another good level of protection from virusies.

[discostu]

Back in 1968 a guy that lived in the same neighborhood as Frank Zappa (wow two FZ references in one day, clean living... something like that) told Frank that he'd never have a career as long as he kept saying f#ck on stage.

I generally ignore the top 40, unless I'm hungry for somebody to insult, how are the sales doing? That'll tell us a lot about whether this actually did her career (such as it is) harm.

[John Robinson]

The computer lab on campus was infested with this floppy-based infector. All I had to do was insert my unprotected disk into an infected machine, the infected machine would immediately infect my disk, and then, unsuspecting me, would take that virus home and infect my own machine. Doesn't even need a file to infect. Evil.

That early lesson taught me to be a little more conservative with my file sharing. :-)

But that was back in the days that Apple had marketshare and Microsoft was only (mostly) an applications vendor, IMHO. (Sure, they peddled DOS and a graphical shell they called Windows, marketted to people afraid of DOS, but of little value besides that.)

[Paul C. Jesup]

There is a difference between simply cussing and cussing at someone in a insulting way.

She crossed that line.

This is one of those subtleties that I tried to explain to you about the English Language.

[discostu]

Come on Paul we're being civil here don't ruin it.

Being as I'm neither a fan of hers nore an MP3 downloader I'm unconcerned with the level of cussing in her thing. I think distributing a fake to burn the downloaders is hilarious. If sales drop we'll know she crossed some line somewhere, which is nothing more than the free market in action and that also doesn't bother me. While I think what she did was funny I'm not gonna shed a tear if it inspires a universal boycott of her stuff. The less popular she is the less often her ugly mug is gonna show up on my TV. Either way I win.

[tiamat]

Timesink wrote:

*looks at Mac sitting in front of him, stops caring*

**************************

You and me both! LOL!

Tia

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

Use AVG Anti-Virus. You'll never have another virus again. I found and got rid of my klez worms using AVG. (Sounds like a weird commercial, doesn't it?)

AVG just added the Fizzer virus to its database today. So, thanks for alerting me to the virus. I'll update today.

AVG has a free version, which is what I use. I think the only difference between the paying & the free version is, with the free version you have to remember to go to the website & download the updates yourself, whereas with the paying version, it does it automatically. (I could be wrong.)

[Paul C. Jesup]

Okay, for once, I can agree with what your saying.

[hchutch]

RIAA?

[Bob Buchholz]

Someday, someone with time on their hands will write a Mac virus and infect every one of the 812 macs currently in use.

[tiamat]

Bob Buchholz wrote:

Someday, someone with time on their hands will write a Mac virus and infect every one of the 812 macs currently in use.

*****************************************************

Well, until that happens, me and the other 811 will have a good time!

cheers!

Tia

[rs79bm]

AND I don't have to do dip switches or IRQs

If you're still doing dip switches and IRQ's, then you have not advanced proportionately with the rest of the PC industry.

[rs79bm]

I think the only difference between the paying & the free version is, with the free version you have to remember to go to the website & download the updates yourself, whereas with the paying version, it does it automatically. (I could be wrong.)

You're not wrong, however my Antivirus program (Norton Antivirus 2003)will usually not catch up on the automatic update until the next day. Because of this, it is a good idea to run the update program a couple of times a day to see if there are any new updates. To my knowledge, the Live Update feature of Norton Antivirus will not update automatically when the update is released, but rather many many hours later or perhaps even the next day. Anybody with me on this?

[Timesink]

So, is your Barbie's First Computer tangerine or pink?

It's snow white!

Boy, if you GatesBots are mad now, you're really gonna be PISSED when the 970s come out later this year.

[Timesink]

But that was back in the days that Apple had marketshare...

Read this; Apple's never had big market share for as long as the "IBM" PC has existed, and it's never mattered:

Apple, Market Share, and Who Cares?

by Chuck Toporek
Aug. 22, 2001

There was an interesting roundtable discussion last week on SiliconValley.com, which posed the question: Does Apple Matter?. Sure, Apple might only have a small fraction of the operating systems' market, but on a grander scale, the concensus seemed to be "Yes, Apple does matter."

Apple has continued to take jabs on the chin, in the side, and the occasional rabbit punch to the back of the head. Granted, sometimes its deserved, but not all the time. A recent discussion on SiliconValley.com posed the question to a group of industry pundits and some Apple luminaries, including Gil Amelio, Jeff Raskin, and Jean-Louis Gassée.

What I did read mostly made me believe that people are looking at Apple as the "innovator" in the hardware industry. For example, they're the ones who pushed USB and FireWire, they're responsible for dropping floppy drives from boxes, they're creating software that the average Joe can use to edit and create digital movies, edit sound/audio, etc.

There was also a great discussion on market share and whether it really matters how much of a share of the market Apple holds. John Welch of MacTech had this comparison that I thought was beautiful:

"This only applies to one industry, the computer business, and it is an artificially-created rule. Mercedes has been making cars for over a hundred years; when have they ever had the leading market share? Porsche is the same way. Even Honda. Still, when you think of outstanding automotive engineering, those are the companies that first come to mind. So when are they due to go out of business? Mercedes -- not anything soon I think, they just bought Chrysler.

"Also, comparing Microsoft's R&D to Apple's is just silly. Microsoft is first and foremost a software company. Yes, the X-Box is hardware, but face it, it's a PC in a cool box running custom w/Windows for games. This is R&D? Keyboards, mice? All good products, but 99% of their R&D is software, which is inherently high margin, (I've heard reliable estimates that MS gets 80% margins on each copy of Windows.) So now who's charging the premium?

"So you are comparing a Systems and Applications software company to one of the five companies doing real computer R&D (Apple, IBM, Compaq, HP and Sun. Compaq looks like it's going to turn into Dell or Gateway soon, and drop this list to 4.). And Sun is an excellent example. They don't have a majority market share, yet they certainly matter, and they will continue to matter for a long time to come.

"Any company that creates, and markets their creations and services to its customer base well, regardless of industry, pundits, and stock analysts will succeed, thrive, and matter. BMW, Carver Audio, all of the premium, "niche" companies know this.

"Again, I ask, except for computers, what major purchase do you make solely based on market share?"

I was surprised to see the following (snippet) from Gil Amelio's (only) response about whether Apple mattered and about its market share:

"Just as Steve Jobs went to Xerox to discover the GUI, I went to NeXT to find the new territory on which to build our castle. This meant buying NeXT and bringing Steve Jobs back to Apple...generally over the objections of my staff. I had no illusions...I knew it was a bold and dangerous move...and I was right. I may have lost my job for all the wrong reasons but I believe those decions were correct and enabled us to have a forum on Apple this week!

"A final comment on market share...market share is important but it is also important how you define the market you are measuring your company or product against. Mercedes is only a small part of the auto industry but it is a giant in the luxury automobile market. The trick is defining your space correctly."

The discussion goes on, but the general feeling that I got from the discussion was that yes, Apple does matter, regardless of its market share. As a Mac fan, I've always thought of Apple as the Mercedes of the personal computing market, so to me, their market share is less of a concern. With personal computers, you get what you pay for.

Chuck

Chuck Toporek Chuck Toporek is the lead editor in charge of O'Reilly's ADC/Macintosh book series.

---

Let me repeat that:

"This only applies to one industry, the computer business, and it is an artificially-created rule."

[Petronski]

Madonna has now struck back by flooding file-trading networks with dummy music files that appear to be full-length songs.

Yes, it's collectively known as her latest album, 'American Life.' 'Dummy music files?' You said it brother.

[ElkGroveDan]

I'm in an all Mac office myself, and I'm loving it. No virus worries here, no registration hassles, no routine crashes, no problems at all. Life is good.

Yep we sure are lucky. I don't get viruses on my betamax video recorder, or my 8-track player either. They just hum right along like my mazda rotary engine.

[Glenn]

So, is your Barbie's First Computer tangerine or pink?

Jealousy is such a terrible thing. It makes people downright cruel.

[rwfromkansas]

This is a poorly written article. The headline is about Kazaa, but the article is about how it spreads via e-mail.

[longtermmemmory]

its not poorly written, it was intended to create scandal through misdirection.