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Promoting Safe Macs (9/4/98)
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Hands up, how many of you are aware of the first real Mac virus to hit the scene in a few years, the Autostart 9805 Worm? Okay, keep your hands up if you're regularly scanning your Mac for its presence and taking precautions to guard against infection. We only ask because it continues to spread like wildfire, despite several relatively easy (and free) methods of protection; MacInTouch reports that two commercial CD-ROM's recently shipped with the worm on them, and we also personally witnessed-- and squelched-- an outbreak at our day job company.
The very simplest thing you can do is open the QuickTime Settings control panel and uncheck the option that says "Enable CD-ROM AutoPlay." That should prevent infection on your system (at least in theory), and it's not a feature you're likely to miss. Ten seconds and you've significantly reduced your risk; it doesn't get much simpler than that. If you're willing to spend a few more minutes protecting the health of your Mac and the integrity of your data, take the time to download and run any of a multitude of freeware Worm detectors and eliminators. We use EarlyBird, ourselves. (Of course, if you are conscientious enough to be running a commercial virus protection package like Virex, make sure you're using the latest available data file.)
We find it a little ironic that the AutoStart Worm has spread so effectively, given how relatively simple it is to detect and remove. If the Mac weren't such a virus-free platform to begin with, the Worm probably wouldn't have even made it to the U.S. The simple fact of the matter is, Mac users aren't used to worrying about viruses-- but we'd better learn fast. (This has been a public service announcement brought to you by AtAT.)
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SceneLink (992)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 9/4/98 episode: September 4, 1998: It looks like the iMac may be a little too popular for its own good. Meanwhile, Apple's quietly updating its speech recognition software for the Mac OS 8.5 release, and the Autostart Worm continues to infect Mac users worldwide...
Other scenes from that episode: 990: Psst, Wanna Buy an iMac? (9/4/98) For some reason, Macs and theft go together like peanut butter and banana. Two examples spring immediately to mind: the first is the way in which thieves will often walk right through a room full of PC's and spend extra time and effort to break into the room where the Macs are kept... 991: Cat Got Your Tongue (9/4/98) Remember back when the Macintosh platform had the edge when it came to speech recognition? Okay, maybe it never really held the lead when it came to actual dictation of spoken text, but at least all Power Macs were capable of understanding spoken commands after the simple installation of some free software from Apple...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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