full-disclosure - Re: DOS all platforms

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Message-ID: <401261C3.4128.700721@localhost>
From: etomcat at freemail.hu (Tamas Feher)
Subject: Re: DOS all platforms

Hello,

>>Causing Physical damage to equipment?

There was a virus for the Commodore C-64 platform, that sent commands to the 
1541 external floppy disk unit to move its read-write head out of the normal field 
of movement. The FDD needed to be disassembled to manually push the head 
back onto the rail. A 5 minute work, if you know what to fix. But indeed many 
people didn't. Later it turned out, that a guy, who ran a C-64 repair shop, 
actually wrote the virus to boost his business.

Early Linux was dangerous for vintage CRT displays, often overclocked them 
until they smoked.

The Chernobyl (CIH) virus can fill your PC BIOS with garbage, so the computer 
won't boot. Some motherboards use square-shaped flash IC, not the usual brick-
shaped, socketed large DIP package. Squares are tricky to reprogram, 
especially if they are soldered directly onto the PCB. And not all otherboards 
have the reboot-dead-BIOS-from-FDD routine. I think several companies 
actually abandoned some older CIH-infected PCs, instead of trying to fix them.

Modern motherboards have variable speed fans. What scares me is that these 
are under logic control (e.g. the OS can stop them in ACPI sleep mode, etc.) A 
truly analogue control (diode/thermistor connected directly to the fan) would be 
more reassuring. Some early high-speed AMD CPU had slow internal themal 
protection. If your CPU cooler block ejected itself from the die, it would melt 
before the core could turn itself off (fan retainer pins are made of loosy plastic).

Considering that next-gen Pentium will require an incredible 150 watts to run, 
any malware playing foul with the PC cooling subsystem, will have a good 
chance instantly burning the CPU. Please observe that even biological virii 
sometimes aim for the almost total eradication of their victim base (e.g. AIDS, 
Ebola). There is no reason some VXer won't try this feat. The industry better 
revise this issue before a killer heatwave hits computers.

Regards, Tamas Feher.