[MacDV] Update: FCP, Mac Email, Viruses, and Norten

[Ryan K Sutter]

I believe you that something is going wrong with your system, but you're wrong about the cause.  

PC viruses cannot infect a Mac for very specific reasons.  Viruses cannot operate on their own.  They require an environment to run in.  Some virus attachments have extensions like .pif or .scr which invoke the Windows command interpreter or the Windows screen saver engine.  These files are incapable of doing anything on a Mac.  Other viruses make use of the Visual Basic scripting capabilities built into Microsoft Word.  Again, these viruses are incapable of functioning on a Mac because there are no Visual Basic scripting capabilities present.  Files with .exe attachments are similarly incapable of running on a Mac because they are PC executables requiring an Intel compatible processor and a Windows environment.  Viruses are not magic.  They are simply cleverly written programs that make use of other programs on a computer.  The programs they make use of do not exist on a Mac so the viruses cannot infect a Mac.  This is analogous to a virus in nature.  It can do nothing without a host cell.  The host cell has to be a cell that is from the proper species in order for the virus to interact with it.

Sometimes it DOES appear that Mac email users are spreading viruses, however.  Here is why.  Email viruses that infect a PC often read a users address book and spread to all the email addresses in it.  They often make themselves appear to originate from the addresses in that list.  It is entirely possible, in fact it is the only possible scenario, that somebody has your email address in their address book and a virus has infected their PC and is propagating itself but it appears to have been sent from your address because the virus is faking the "From" address.  When a Mac user gets a report of a virus email sent to somebody from their address it means that somebody with a PC and their address in their address book has become infected, not that your Mac is infected.

The only possible ways for a Mac user to transmit a PC virus is to manually forward the message (with attachment included) knowingly to another user or for said Mac user to use Windows on VirtualPC (in which case the Mac is still not infected, it is your Windows installation that is the environment for the virus).

In case you are wondering how I can be sure of this stuff, I have been programming computers since I was 8 years old (22 years), the last 10 professionally.  I am a Chief Systems Architect and expert Mac, Windows and Unix user.  While I professionally use PC's most of the time, I have personally used Macs exclusively since 1998.  I fully understand exactly how viruses are written, how they work and how they spread.  

I have seen many many computer problems over the years blamed on viruses and rarely seen them actually caused by them.  I have never once in the last 6 years seen or heard of a single verifiable instance where a PC virus had any effect whatsoever on a Mac.  Your problems with your eMac coinciding with the email you received are simply coincidental.  There is likely a real cause of the problems with your eMac, but you can safely rule out the possibility of a PC virus infecting it.

One final note.  Macs are not immune to viruses IF the virus is written for the Mac.  However, as of this writing, there is not a single known virus written for Mac OSX and the OS9 viruses that exist are exceedingly rare.  As for your sysadmins being paranoid about viruses, that is the right thing to do.  They should scan everything because there is no way they can know if an email originated on a Mac or not.

Cheers,

Ryan

http://www.ryansutter.net
http://www.nucleargopher.com



--- animal <animal at cuug.ab.ca> wrote:
Though everyone keeps telling me PC viruses cannot damage a mac, I had 
to completely erase and re-update software on my Emac after opening a 
PC infected attachment.  I'm never opening another attachment!

Anyways, FCP seems to be working fine again, along with the previously 
troubled hard drives.

HOWEVER - I'm now discovering that several large companies we deal with 
now process all mac originated emails as attachments and none of our 
emails are readable by these companies.  I believe this is because 
their PC computer people are sharp enough to realize that macs can 
spread PC viruses.

I don't know about you, but we cannot afford NOT to have our email 
readable.  Plus I don't want to spread viruses to people - especially 
potential clients!

UNLESS NORTEN and MAC does something to prevent this, I will be forced 
into using a PC for internet access.  I don't really understand how 
antivirus software works on a Mac but why can't Norten Antivirus also 
watch out for and fix PC viruses - especially when they buggered this 
Emac?  Is it just laziness?  This is starting to give Mac a bad name 
among PC users who catch a virus via a Mac.

Lynn

PS:
  The same person sent me an email yesterday - with another infected 
attachment and my system went weird again - erased all the emails in my 
box.  So far the Emac is working.  I just hope I don't have to recopy 
the hard drive again.  Norten recognizes the email as uninfected.


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