Vent: Co-workers claim the distributed.net client is a virus...

[John]

I have tried several times to convince these people that they are full of sh!t. I built 3 demo pc's at the office over a week ago, and installed the distributed.net RC5 client on 2 of them. Yesterday I get a call saying the network is down and they found a virus. They even formatted one of the HDD's to try to kill it ! Of course they blame it on the RC5 "cow". Jeysus, I am sick of incompetence !!

Any thoughts?

 

[bonkers325]

<< I have tried several times to convince these people that they are full of sh!t. I built 3 demo pc's at the office over a week ago, and installed the distributed.net RC5 client on 2 of them. Yesterday I get a call saying the network is down and they found a virus. They even formatted one of the HDD's to try to kill it ! Of course they blame it on the RC5 "cow". Jeysus, I am sick of incompetence !!

Any thoughts? >>



oh my

 

[Adul]

OMG, you got to be kidding me. Morons... Have they heard of seti? Well same concept, use idle pcs to do work for a project. It is not a virus, and it has very very little load on a network. If they want to blame a harmless program on netowork problems then obviously they do not know what they are doing. hell can server several hundred PC with a modem running rc5.

 

[John]

I have already explained it several times, and they know where the dnet homepage is. In fact they used the wormfree.exe to scan the pc's.....

::yawn::

 

[mechBgon]

Uh, if I were a virus writer, the last thing I'd do is try to take down the network. How would my virus spread with the network down? Call me crazy...

If it were me, I'd refer their questions to the network administrator who gave me permission. If you don't have permission, better leave it off of any PCs that would send the data over their LAN, even if they're your PCs. I know that's how JonB has had to go... he has a cabinet stuffed with his own equipment, and he sneakernets it in order to not make waves with the powers that be.

 

[networkman]

Hey mech: You're crazy!!

You said it man!

 

[John]

Hehe, I am the network admin.

 

[otlg24]

McAffee reports dnetc as a possible virus, and given the dnetc worm, you can't really blame them.

Steve

 

[ViRGE]

Ya, but they're running the wormfree utility. How can you still call it a worm when Dnet's utility says otherwise?

 

[IsOs]

In situation like this, you might play it safe and remove RC5. Replace it with SETI running as service. Sometimes, a worker that keeps on complaining about a virus might get into the owner's/higher up's nerve and force you to remove it - can even cause you problem later.

A number of virus scanner &amp; worm scanner have listed dnetc.exe as a possible virus. Your other option is to use an older version of the client - rc5desg.exe, which is not listed as a virus.

 

[otlg24]

Virge,

Remember we are talking about paranoid corporate america here.. I just got a call from an old site yesterday.. haven't been for >2 years.. they had one running and are all freaked out... <sigh>. clueless morons.

Steve