On Fri, Aug 29, 2003 at 12:03:34AM +1000, Russell Coker wrote: > On Thu, 28 Aug 2003 21:35, Karsten M. Self wrote: > > Which is a damned good reason for Debian not to package > > viruses and spam mailers. Or tools which can be readily subverted as > > such. > > My Postal program can be used for DOS attacks on mail servers, and has been > used for such on at least one occasion (*). > > I disagree with your conclusions regarding putting viruses in Debian. I > think > it would be a useful service for people who analyse such things to have > copies of viruses in usable form.
The EICAR.COM test pattern exists solely for that purpose. I wouldn't have any problem with putting testpatterns in packages that are supposed to do some security tests (or something similar), but putting viruses in the Debian archive is a bad idea. If I misunderstood you, please ignore this mail :-) -- Wouter Verhelst Debian GNU/Linux -- http://www.debian.org Nederlandstalige Linux-documentatie -- http://nl.linux.org "Stop breathing down my neck." "My breathing is merely a simulation." "So is my neck, stop it anyway!" -- Voyager's EMH versus the Prometheus' EMH, stardate 51462.
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