[Ham-Computers] An invisable virus??

[Jim Isbell]

An invisible virus is out there ? ? ?

In the past week several incidents lead me to believe that there is an 
Invisible Virus in the world.

I t appears to have the following characteristics:

1) designed to be invisible to the normal methods of detection.
2) designed to have no signature
3) designed to do something that is rather irritating but not really 
indicative of a virus.
4) occasionally can be stopped , temporarily, by removing the memory 
from the socket.

First, my system runs behind two firewalls, the cable companies and XPs. 
 Second I run AVG daily to remove virus infections. Third I run a scan 
program that looks for "bad" cookies several times a day (More times 
when I am on the internet all day).  And finally I run Big Fix all the 
time to keep XP upgraded on the hour.

I have NEVER discovered a virus on my computer.  

But a week ago my wifes laptop started shutting down randomly (checked 
for Sasser and it was not there) which was cured by removing the memory, 
cleaning the pins and replacing it.  I did this only as a last ditch 
thing because I remember from back in the Dark Ages of computers, that 
the TRS-80 Model 1 had this problem.  But I have not seen it in the past 
20 years!!!

I thought that was that.  Then two days later the desktop started having 
the same symptoms.  A scan showed no virus, Sasser or other. Netscape 
would shut down and return to the desktop randomly with a click of the 
mouse button.  It was never the same operation that was being done.  The 
only commonality was that it was a click of the left mouse button.  I 
suspect, but its been 15 years since I was in the business of designing 
computers, that there is a register somewhere that has a random timer 
attached to it that detects left button clicks and crashes the system 
randomly.  This is the virus.

I cured this one ALSO by removing the memory, cleaning the pins with a 
pencil eraser and replacing it.  (This is a cure that I haven't used or 
heard of using since 1980)  But only temporarily.  It came back.  Again, 
its been 15 years since I was designing computers and things change but 
something must be happening when the memory is removed and replaced, I 
don't think the cleaning has anything to do with it, that causes a reset 
of the virus.

A complete cure required the reinstallation of Windows.

In the past week several of my friends have reported shutdowns that are 
similar and are NOT related to the Sasser virus. and the complete shut 
down of the server that runs this list also occurred over the week end. 
 I don't know the symptoms of that one or the shutdown of the Delta 
Airlines computer, but all happened mysteriously and in the same week 
and no one has blamed a virus.

Maybe its an invisible virus????  A diabolical idea.