Virus Risk??

[IanPearson]

One of the great advantages of the Casablanca range was, that not being connected to the net, virus risk has been practically zero. However, with the ever growing use of external media input to our units, is the risk of a virus now a possibility or even a probability?

Photographs and graphics have in the past been a major carrier of viruses, particularly from the less well known sites. Whilst most of us have virus protection, or at least should have, we should be reasonably safe in transferring data to our Cassie’s, via flash cards, fire wire, ether net, CD, DVD or USB.

Any of the above methods generated by ourselves is a lesser risk, however, what about third party, e.g. a customer supplying their photos on a flash card. Yes, we can run a virus check on any of the transfer media, before sending to the Cassie, but how many do?

I’m not trying to be a scare monger, but should we now be more aware and is there a real potential risk? I also realise that we can do a complete re-install, but would this remove a virus?

Just a thought.

Ian

[LouBruno]

Jörge stated that :

.Downloads are restricted

.The internet portion is partitioned so as not to corrupt the editing portion of the HD.

.Firefox is the browser thus a smaller chance than IE to "catch" a virus.

.Possible but not probable

[Beachy]

Lou,..... The Titanic sink? ......possible, but not probable.......

[IanPearson]

Lou
I am not talking about the partitioned part of the unit, I am referring to the normal editing side of the our Cassie’s. A virus imported through a photo or graphic, say via flash card or photo CD.

Ian

[chetdavis]

Ian,

I appreciate the question and concern - it is my understanding that traditionally the computer virus will have succes only in a system where the user (and thus the virus) is granted access to modify, change and affect the operating system. As you know the Macrosystem approach is to provide our customers with a system that frees you from dealing with needing to modify, reset and configure the basic parameters of operation of our sophisticated edting devices - this also thwarts the computer virus as it also has no access to the core level machine functionality.

Also, it is my limited understanding that the majority of computer virus' are written to 'attack' a specific operating system... the virus creator must know and understand the OS to know how to design an effective weapon. Again, due to the design and approach of Casablanca this is much less of an issue since the OS is not accessible,even for viewing to the public.

The above is truly for the current Casablanca products as well as the Next Generation of digital editors.


This being said - I know the adage 'Never say never'. Let me make it clear this post is not, in any way a challenge or dare to a young, overly intelligent computer science grad student

Regards,
Chet

[IanPearson]

Chet
Thank you for your response.

As you may guess, my knowledge of computer programming is somewhat limited, but your reply makes sense and is somewhat comforting.

As you say, never say never, but hopefully the limited circulation of our system will not interest the more malevolent of the computer world. However, as a belt and braces (suspenders in the US) individual, I will continue to run any unknown media through my AVG system.

Ian

[TimKennelly]

Anything is possible as Chet admitted, but the chances of problems here are unlikely.

Heck, the Mac people have bragged that they don't have virus issues (a bit untrue), but it has nothing to do with their operating system design and everything to do with relative to the PC world their operating system is a minority one that simply does not draw the vindictive hackers that attack the PC world.

Our new system will consist of a very small following even compared to the Mac making it too obscure for hackers in general to bother about.

Add to that the hurdles MS is adding with the OS being partition protected and download limited and you cannot get any safer 'xcept to stay disconnected from the net.

This of course will always remain an option.

Viral strategies of incorporating code into photos as you mentioned only works feasibly for wide internet propagation of generic work which is not our normal source of photos as videographers.

Also, as previously mentioned, virus and such must be designed to address the specific operating system to work (again, why the Mac has far, far less viral attack issues than the PC) making it even that more unlikely that we will experience any problems along this line.

Could a bright, determined and degenerate individual work specifically to create a target virus as well as devise a means to implement it to our systems, sure.

The difficulty as well as the required, dedicated desire and know how is about equal to what it would take to do the same with our existing VxWorks based system.

Difficult, yep, possible, yep, likely, nope.

[Beachy]

Tim Kennely wrote,
"Could a bright, determined and degenerate individual work specifically to create a target virus as well as devise a means to implement it to our systems,

So you didnt name names Tim But I knew who you meant!
Anyway, I'm far to busy..

[rocker]

My Cassie got a virus once....So I put an asprin on it...Shut it off ...and let it rest while I went on ho;iday for 7 days.
When I returned, it was fully recovered!
John Kay