Book Review

Norton Antivirus 2.0

by Peter Norton

Symantec 1996

Paperback

Rereading this book having discovered it on a bookshelf of long forgotten tomes one is reminded of another age of computing, when malicious and mischievous programmers would exploit the weaknesses of the then dominant PC operating system called Windows 95.

The book tells the story of a war between the users of the Operating System and a world-wide network of hackers, but it also hints at a conspiracy, a plot-line not actually written in the book itself, but hinted at implicitly; That a large corporation whose sole income is generated from the profits of software designed to eradicate these viruses, and who's employees represent the world's foremost experts on the subject, might just be the ones who stand to gain the most by the perpetuation of this 'Virus War'.

As soon as you peel back the bright yellow cover of 'Norton Antivirus', with the shirt and tie wearing be-spectacled Norton smiling smugly back at you, you enter a world of danger, fear and uncertainty. The book starts with a starkly logical piece of concrete poetry, a sort of late 20th century version of "There's a hole in my bucket!"

Does my computer have a virus? Have you installed Norton Antivirus?

No

Install Norton Antivirus. Has Norton Antivirus detected a virus?

No

Scan your disk. Go to Chapter 2, "Using Norton Antivirus"

Has Norton Antivirus detected a virus?

Yes

Remove the virus. Go to Chapter 3, "Eliminating Viruses"

Chilling stuff, I think you'll agree.

One of my favourite stories in the book though is entitled 'Macro Viruses'.

"Many older applications had simple macro systems that allowed you to record a sequence of operations within the application and associate them with a specific keystroke. Later you could perform the same sequence of operations by merely hitting the specified key.

A typical chronology for a macro virus infection begins when an infected document or spreadsheet is loaded; the application also loads any accompanying macros that are attached to the file. If one or more of the macros meet a certain criteria, the application will also immediately execute these macros." -Doh!

This virus could do almost anything from renaming all your files to 'Ethan Frome' to rewriting your autoexec.bat file so that next time you booted up your computer it would execute a full format of the C: drive!

I think this book serves to remind us what computing used to be like in those early days. With it's talk of floppy diskettes, .exe files and modems the size (and bandwidth) of toasters. These were more innocent days when the knocked-up in the garage Operating Systems of companies like Microsoft ran on the majority of the world's computers, which were just starting to become connected through a new medium called 'the internet'.

Here at the end of the first decade of the 21st century it's easy to forget that the computers of the mid-90s were really very fragile things. Once users started demanding better security and stability from their operating systems Windows and Norton must have seen that their days were numbered and they went the same way as the old Blue-Screen-of-Death!

I wonder what that guy in the short-sleeved shirt is doing now, fifteen years on? He's probably off somewhere counting his money with that Gates guy, whatever happened to him?

As for the virus wars, well we all know who won that one. Many of the most 'imaginative' hackers have since gone on to do some of their best work on social networking sites like Facebook, but as for the 'viruses' themselves, the weapons of war you might call them; Like all weapons from wars long gone they are now preserved in a kind of virtual museum formed by the few remaining Windows Operating systems which are maintained by a small but dedicated band of enthusiasts - war veterans of a sort. If you want to find out about the virus wars just ask around and I'm sure you'll find one, if you're lucky they might even show you their collection of viruses and maybe even a copy of Norton Antivirus!