textfiles/magazines/CRISNEWS/cnews-1.001

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Atrical Written By:              
Michael Paris (Cris)
Edited By: Joy (Cris Staff)

              
              How Did Cris Start, Where Is It Going?
                             
                              The story
                          From The Beginning

Cris hatched out of a virus concept, I, The sysop of the Cris BBS first
started running a bbs in 1989. This was a shareware bbs running on
an XT 8088 machine with a 65 meg hard disk. I still remember the fear 
that I had for virus from back then.

I remember one day a user logged on and posted an ad requesting viruses,
he came about this in a nice way, and explained that these viruses he 
got would be used for research reasons only, they would not be given to
anyone, and they would be used ONLY on a machine set aside for this reason.

It took me about two minutes to take his account off the bbs and delete his
message. This fear was in me for these things. I remember thinking back of 
telling one of my friends when the topic of scanning for virus came up, 
that if I ever came up with one, I would never trust a scanner to clean it,
but would format my hard disk! Even then I was not sure if this would be
enough, I might need to buy a new computer.

This fear that some (not all) AV people put in our minds is still out there. 
(The Michael Angelo virus was a good example of that.)

In 1991 I was over at a fellow sysops home, he had a small collection
of viruses, and unzipped one into a directory, I stood there with amazement
as he scanned with the latest version of scan. His computer did not blow up!,
it detected the virus, then he ran the clean, and the virus was gone! I was 
amazed that he could do this on his computer (unzip a virus) and not trash
one thing. That night I took those viruses home with me.

I began testing them, ie: unzipping and running them on my computer. They did 
not damage my computer. It began to be fun to see what they could do, and
see if i could contain them from my other files, once in awhile one would
infect one of my dos files or some other file in the computer, but i would
just delete, clean or replace it! No harm done! (read a research guide before
doing this yourself).

I began to advertize for viruses :), I became bored with the ones I had 
and wanted to see what was out there. I started experimenting with trojans,
memory resident files and some stealth files. It took a long time before
I began to meet people where I could get the ready access to them, but there 
was enough around that it kept me busy. Groups that I always heard of seemed
far away, I could only dream of coming into contact with NUkE, Phalcon/Sk,
or other groups around then.

I had an area on the BBS where I had virus files, but this was like the 
normal viruses I had, to that point in time. three hundred files at the most.
Then one day I heard that the group nuke was local here in the Chicago area,
and at about the same time I saw a bbs ad on advertizing nukenet. I called 
the number on the advertizement and applied for the access. It was about
two days latter I heard back from them. It seems that i did this at the 
right time, the chicago board was not able to connect to their hub to get
their mail from Canada or the US.

I was offered to hub the net for Nuke so Nowhere man, one of the main 
programmers for nuke (for those that do not know) could get his mail. 
I jumped at the opportunity! So here I was, Green to all of the politics, 
not knowing what was really going on in either world, reading the nuke 
administration bases, seeing how they worked, what they were doing from the 
inside out. Also at this time I started talking to people allot on the phone, 
ie (big bills), calling Nuke members and others voice really opened my eyes 
as to what was going on in the AV & VX worlds. If those people gave out 
diplomas I would have graduated with flying colors, and the phone bills I 
got would have paid my way through collage. 

The politics in the group really made me grow weary of what was going on.
There was allot of things going on in the group that was not legal, there
were people in there that were trying to fix it, but for the most part in 
the end it seemed to be something that could not be fixed. I began to tell
these people that I was leaning more toward the AV side and views on things. 
They thought this was ok, as long as I did not cross certain boarders.
like for example, talking to caro members, the whole idea here was to get 
in to it a little bit, but not all the way. In time I was told that AV
people could not be trusted, and to stay away from them. They were all liars
and deceivers. "They are going to stick it up your ass"!

Well I will never tell anyone that, but there are people in any group
that are like that. I am always watching my back (from both sides). 
To make this long story a little shorter, I started talking to people like 
Sara Gorden. (this person is great for not really taking a side in a 
conversation) She just told me straight out what was going on in her eyes, 
well this helped allot to see more of what was going on, and believe me I have 
spent many hours thinking this thing out.

It was not long before I began to see that this situation had no resting 
place, there was no middle ground, it was either black or white. you are 
either AV or VX! This might be why so many people were so confused for so
long. Also this added more fire to both sides, now their are spies, moles, 
etc. when you are on an AV board you are AV and when you are on a VX board 
you are VX. 

So it is true, there is not really a term `VX' for the nuke type groups, 
but who am I to change that, this is their war, not mine. But anyone can see 
that allot of the AV out there do VX (Virus Exchange), but this is only among
themselves. But the fact is still there, allot do vx and sometimes the files 
get around to the nasty part of this VXing realm, No one is perfect, sooner
or latter down the thread the files that the `AV' share will end up in the
hands of the ones that they shun and send away. Yes I also have files with 
AV authors signatures in them also.

So some Av are Vx'ers, funny when you see this. Well this is the way I have 
seen it, This all comes down to an individual thing. Some of the people in
the VX world (as we know it) are not bad people, they do not do damage to 
peoples machines nor do they like to see it done. But these same people want 
to exercise their right to have and hold their virus collection, or play
with their viruses in the privacy of their own home. Tell me that there are
no AV people out there that have fun playing with viruses. There are many
I am sure that enjoy tracing a file through memory, and just the plain old
challenge of beating it.

So why should we deny someone else of this `fun'? What gives one person
the right to tell another that I can have this and play with it but you 
cannot! This reminds me of a selfish kid wanting to have all of the toys to
himself.  There are other things coming into play here, there is an ELITE
group here called AV, they only exchange among their circles. In other words
one AV `Click' will share around themselves, while another will not. It is a 
hard life to live (this AV thing), if you want to test viruses you either
get them from your friends in the AV, or from a mole, or a VX board out 
there.

I have heard several AV talk about the other AV person, saying "oh that
person, I would never give him a virus". but this is a friend, echoing in
the same AV nets, doing the same research, but not in that personal 
pedicular `Click'.  This is a shame if you ask me. But what this all comes 
down to is the fact that there are people all over that want to research,
collect, play, etc... If these people cannot fit into a click somewhere,
they will more than likely end up on a (termed) VX bbs somewhere. Is this
where they belong? (I do not think so)

Now there are some misconceptions that I have seen, AV people have rumored
what VX boards are like. 

              Some AV Mis-Conceptions about (termed) VX Boards

        1. ALL VX boards are boards where all the users use handles (alias
           names).

        2. ALL of the VX'ers are people that are looking to destroy your
           data or crash your computer.

        3. ALL VX'ers are doing things against the law, ie Hacking,
           Phreaking, Carding, PBX'ing, Making Bombs or teaching people
           to do so, the list goes on.

Yes, it is true that allot of these boards are promoting such things, but 
Cris does see that not all on these boards are into illegal things like the
above, but the AV as we know it today must share some of the blame for 
what is going on in there. Yes, for every person that they did not 
welcome into their `click' that went their way into the VX scene. now 
these people are going the only other way that is left, if they want 
to have these files for themselves.

There are some in the VX world of things now that DO NOT want to do 
damage to anyone's machine, they will not even give a virus to someone
that says that they will. Allot of these people change after a while into
a full pleaded nuk'em type person after a while. My grandmother used to
say, "if you play with poo poo, your going to stink", and this is what
happens, someone with morals hangs around long enough, they will loose 
these morals after a while.

So after seeing all of this, I and others that saw the same thing, started 
A group called Cris. (Computer Research and Information Service).


Cris sees this middle ground very clear. We are very AV, or AVvX, if you
will. Here are some short Cris definitions of the way cris sees the
politics of the thing.

The problem here is that there are allot of VX people that do not fit
into this AV `Click' but still have the "proper ethics". They have no
intention of doing any damage or giving the files to people who do. They
are VX, because they exchange viruses (just as the AV do), but they are
people with "proper ethics" (AVvX)

AV'ers   = Someone that is against viruses doing damage to someone's
           machine, against anyone that would attempt to bring about
           this act, against anyone that would help aid a person in this
           act. Someone that will assist others in the prevention of
           this act (ie: AV software).

AVvX'ers = All of the above + Will virus exchange with any interested
           person that is to be trusted (in their eyes), AV authors,
           programmers, researchers, collectors. But not clear cases of
           un-ethical people.

VX'ers   = None of the above. Their work is to undermine AV research and
           programming, they will assist people attempting to damage
           systems, no ethics apply here. Not all but many of these
           users are hackers/phreakers/carders, most of this group has
           no respect for the law and tend to have an `underground' way
           of thinking.

Remember, Virus exchange is not against the law (YET), AV'ers and
AVvX'ers do not want to see this happen, very few in the av group want
to see this happen, most of them are taking a stand against it. (we'll
know more on this after the upcoming hearings...) Only a select few are
pushing for it. we see these as AV_CONFUSED!

AV_Confused  = Those individuals in the AV community who want to make it
               illegal to own and exchange viruses (or virus code), 
               UNLESS you are an "approved researcher". 

The questions that remain unanswered are: Approved by who? What criteria 
would one have to meet? As long as viruses are clearly labeled as such, 
who has the right to tell anyone (in a democratic society) what kind of 
code they may, or may not, keep on their own personal computer? The only 
thing that will happen if viruses are made illegal is that the VX community 
will go deeper underground. The above are the reasons why we call the 
individuals that want to see viruses made illegal AV_CONFUSED, we fail to 
see the benefits of their plan. All we see is people wanting the Government 
to tell us what we may or may not possess on our personal computers. This 
sets a dangerous precedent.

Cris has gone through allot of changes, Growing into what it is today.
We have not finished yet, we are still growing. If you see an area that 
we need to grow in be sure to let us know. You will not be shunned or turned
away, we are always looking to grow, and come closer to some truth or idea.

Here are some of the changes that have taken place.

   Access used to be allot easier then what it is now. It seemed that we
   started a little naive. Anyone that logged on the board and filled out
   a research application that looked ok we gave access to viruses right
   away. Now this has changed. It seemed that users were filling out research
   apps to get the viruses, Not really caring about research work. they just 
   wanted to download. Now if someone fills out a research application, they
   will be assigned one virus to research at a time, until they become 
   regular with the work.

So for the most, things are changing, as we run into problems, always someone
looking for a way to get something for nothing, weather it is free files 
without uploading, special privileges for being a research member, and doing 
no work, etc. We try to be more then fair with everyone, but there comes a 
time to smarten up, we do not take advantage of anyone and we feel that 
others should not try to do it here.

We have made it easier on collectors and people that just want to Collect. 
Before we neglected this area, we saw the research desire here, and neglected 
to see the honest collector that fit into this AVvX concept, so we have added 
it into the bbs. After being an `approved' collector, ie someone that is
clearly a virus collector, can prove it, and someone that (in our eyes) is 
not a malicious person that will use the files in the wrong way, he will have
access to a ratio of upload/download for virus files. 

Crisnet has grown quite a bit also, this started as vinenet from the old Vine
bbs, it was basically a warez net, with allot of boards echoing from around the
USA and Canada, this net and the board were a jumping place, servicing allot
of users, never enough time for all to do what they wanted, when the bbs and
the net went to the AV concept we lost 80% of the net and users. But now in 
return we have been paid back with allot of new users and connections, AV 
people from all over the world have connected to this mail echo crisnet. You 
will find nodes from Africa (most of these with the AVvX concept), and AV 
nodes in Germany, Malta, Canada, and all over the USA, this is growing like
wildfire. 

          So Where Is Cris Going, And What Are Our Future Goals

Cris is taking this "New Trend" in AVvX, all the way. We will stay out of 
the AV and VX world of confusion, mistrust, and politics. We will stick with 
our AVvX concept as long as the `AV' continues in the way it is going. Some 
day who knows maybe they will open up into this trusting scene and open 
their minds to some of the normal every day people out there that want to
get involved and exercise their right to have any code they want on their own
computer, (as long as these are ethical people).

Cris will continue putting out the Crisnews newsletter, We also have plans 
in the working of coming out with some AV products ourselves. One will be a 
complete anti-virus package, we will first start with a simple scanner 
though we have allot of ideas and feel that we will forge ahead and get 
these things done in a reasonable amount of time.


We plan to give the crisnet to any bbs in the world that wants it. there are
message areas in there now for both the AV, AVvX, and VX posting. Some 
handles are aloud (special cases) of virus programmers, sometimes AV 
researchers like to ask these virus programmers some questions and trying
to find them with their real names could be a problem, so we allow KNOWN
Virus programmers in the net with their aliases. Although we personally know 
the people, and have their real info, in the net this would serve them best 
to be who they have been, and go by the names that the world recognizes them 
as. Crisnet will continue to be an open forum to all alike. It will not 
matter what world you are coming from, you will have the right to express 
your view in a moderated forum. If anyone gets carried away (has not yet 
happened) the node will be removed from the echo.

Well for the most part this has been something hard to write. trying to cover
all of the areas you might be wondering about is a task. If you have any
other questions they might be better answered via netmail, you can get 
in touch with Cris in the following ways.

Netmail 1:115/863, Crisnet 77:708/0, or log on the bbs at 708-863-5285
you may fill out some on-line questioners, or download from the file area
crisnet/info. magic words for freq-ing are as follows: filelist, nodelist, 
cris, and help.  All of these are freqable if you are in the fidonet or 
crisnet nodelist. No virus or virus code can be freqed.

Michael Paris
Cris WHQ



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