[funsec] "Perspective: Wresting free from a software straitjacket"

[Rob, grandpa of Ryan, Trevor, Devon & Hannah]

> > Young, Keith wrote:
> > 
> >  Do you know when John Make-A-Fee 
> > sold the first copy of Scan (then called ViruScan IIRC)?

Right.  You've forced me back into the archives for research.

First mention I have of him is a query circa July of 1988, at which point he was 
associated with Interpath, and the Computer Virus Association (later to become 
the Computer Virus Industry Association).  By November of 1988 Johnnie was in 
trouble for a) using a "simulator" to evaluate AV software (of competitors), b) 
grabbing a perfect score on said simulator for his own product (unnamed in that 
report), and c) distributing viruses via his BBS.  (I have a later message that refers 
to a November 1987 timeframe for McAfee's "C-4.")  Messages in April 1989 
were still referring to C-4.  First mention I have for Viruscan is July of 1989.  (In 
June there was mention of the MDISK BSI cleaner.)  In August of 1989 somebody 
did a quick review of Viruscan noting that is detected about 25 programs.

======================  (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer)
rslade at vcn.bc.ca     slade at victoria.tc.ca     rslade at computercrime.org
If you keep your mind sufficiently open, people will throw a lot
of rubbish into it.                              -  William A. Orton
Dictionary of Information Security  www.syngress.com/catalog/?pid=4150
http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev/rms.htm