At 7:15 AM +0000 8/11/02, olympus-digest wrote:
>Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2002 13:14:14 -0700
>From: Jim Brokaw <jbrokaw@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: [OM] OK, so who's got the virus ...
>
>on 8/10/02 9:41 AM, Jon Mitchell at jon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
> > Got me thinking. How long
> > will it be before Digital Stills Cameras start getting viruses ? They keep
> > getting connected to PC's to download the pics, so is it possible ?
> >
> > Another reason to stick with my film gear (OM of course) for as long as
> > possible ...
> >
> > Jon
>
>Seems like every camera is going to use a different operating system... each
>model of camera would need a special virus written for it. I think the
>processors in the cameras are probably programmed versions of 16- or 32-bit
>embedded controllers, they may be programmed in 'machine language' to save
>memory space. I suspect until the cameras are made user-upgradeable it would
>be difficult to get a virus to work. Probably similar to making a virus
>attack on a VCR or microwave oven... there's a processor in there but you
>can't really attack it.
At a meeting in July 2002 in Boston, I met the owner of a small Japanese
company (30 or 40 people) that writes firmware for digital cameras and the like
on contract. He said that his company had programmed the Olympus Cameda 720,
which has a 10-MHz Transputer chip running 30 KBytes of code, written in C (not
C++) that runs directly on the metal, without any operating system.
It would be pretty difficult for a virus to infect such a thing. Not to
mention pointless.
>I am however getting 'blank messages', two or three so far, which I assume
>are virus-messages being stripped by the server. Most of them won't attack a
>Mac anyway (I hope!)
Macs are generally safe from viruses, which are almost exclusively aimed at
Microsoft products. Outlook and Outlook Express seem particularly vulnerable,
though Windows gets lots of attention.
I run Eudora on a PowerMac G3 under MacOS 9.1, all behind a LinkSys
router/firewall. This setup seems to be effective against viruses and hackers,
but ineffective against spam.
Joe Gwinn
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