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Sad to say, but don't even assume that new CDs (as well as floppies, et
al) are virus-free.
Back in the mid-to-late 1990s, I received, via office mail, a 3.5-inch
floppy with some data from my company's engineering department. I popped
it in the drive, copied the needed files to my hard disk, powered down
(company policy or something, I think) and then split for lunch.
Upon returning and booting up the system, it (the computer) could find
NO Drive C (that's my hard disk!). So, here I am facing a deadline, and
my system craps out BIG TIME!!
The good folks in the IT department scanned the system and found, of
course, it was a virus that jumbled my system into not being able to
recognize the hard disk (drive C). They also found the virus had come
from -- wait for it -- the floppy disk from the engineering department!
So, it took maybe another hour to undo the damage to my system (remove
the virus, locate the then-rather new software to reset the system to
recognize the unpartitioned Drive C, etc. -- lots of lost time, and _I_
looked like a careless fool to my boss (but that's another story . . .).
I phoned the young lady from the engineering dept. who sent me the
floppy and told her about the entire episode. Her response: Well, it was
a brand new floppy, right out of the box, so it's not my (her) problem.
As a matter of fact, NONE of the engineers cared one whit that they were
now using and distributing possibly virus-laden floppies to others in
the company. No, I didn't expect them to run around like wild banshees
screaming ohmygodWemustfixthisrightnow! But surely the young admin still
had that box of floppies and could have-should have either trashed the
rest of them or in her (more than enough) spare time, ran the same virus
scanning program on the other 5 or 6 floppies to keep or trash them.
To this day, I don't know which ticked me off more -- the virus-infected
floppy right from the box or the totally cavalier attitude of the entire
engineering department.
Another day, another vent.
-- Kenpo in Atlanta
P.S. -- To former co-worker Carolyn who's also on this list -- I think
you were in the office next to me at the time, and every word of this
account is true.
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+poshedlyk=polysius -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+poshedlyk=polysius -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of Erika Yanovich
Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 1:44 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: 'Virus-free' declaration
Hello Whirlers,
Customers asked us to declare that the CDs accompanying our products
(documentation) are virus free. They haven't been able to send me an
example of declarations from other vendors they are happy with, and need
no particular wording. This doesn't seem such a big task, still some
examples could help. The more important question is how is one supposed
to make sure the CDs are virus free? Is there any 'standard'? Should
they be checked with an anti-virus app? They contain a GUI and some PDF
files.
TIA
Erika
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