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Old December 24th 06, 12:16 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics
BoaterDave
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 82
Default Thank you.

I appreciate your help, Ken. Thank you.

I will relay the comments which you and others have made and see what his
response is!

Cheers,

David
_______________________________________
"Ken Blake, MVP" wrote in message
...
BoaterDave wrote:

Thank you for your view, Ken.

.............. so if they *could* be, would they be identified by an
anti-virus scan?

I think not. You may know different - I'm still willing to learn!



Others here have called you a troll. I don't know anything of your past
postings, so I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, unless or
until you convince me that you are trolling. You are close to convincing
me of that, but I thought I would invest one more message before being
sure.

So here's the story:

It's likely that many kinds of malicious statements in a bat file would
not be caught by a an anti-virus program. There are many kinds of
malicious software, and the kind you might find in a bat file would not be
a virus, and might not be caught. Anti-virus software does not catch
everything, and if you rely solely on anti-virus osftware for protection
for security, you are kidding yourself.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that I want to create a file that
would delete the contents of an important folder like c:\program files. I
could write a batch file to do this, I could create an exe file to do
this, I could create a file that masqueraded as a jpg file (or any other
type) to do this. Regardless of how I did it, a virus checker might not
catch it.

The point is that all of the various ways I might write something to
perform this malicious act are equivalent. There's nothing special about
the bat file, and that particular kind of file is no more risky than any
other type of file.

Over and above the points made above, you said "One thing he mentioned
recently was '.bat' files. He was absolutely adamant that, with only two
exceptions, other such files indicate that a PC has been compromised,
often without the knowledge of the user. I have tried to convince others
of this, but none believe me. "

Your young man's statement is *completely* false. There is risk in bat
files, as there is risk with any kind of files. With bat files, as with
all other files, you need to know what they are and where they came form
before you can trust them. The risk is not greater with bat files and the
statement that "with only two exceptions, other such files indicate that a
PC has been compromised" is complete and utter nonsense. If you are
putting your trust in someone who says that, you are very clearly trusting
the wrong person. He has no idea what he is talking about.

Feel free to disbelieve everything I, and everyone else here, has told
you, and trust your young man instead. It's entirely your choice.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup



_________________________________________________
"Ken Blake, MVP" wrote in message
...
Although it's possible that such
commands *could* be mailicious, there's nothing about their being in
a bat file that makes them so, and most bat files by far are
completely innoucuous.


Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup





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