-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Since this doesn't have much to do with encryption or cypherpunks per se, I am hesitant to respond. Interested people may obtain the software from me. Perhaps I should have doctored the text included with the program I received and termed it an automatic encryption program, which encrypts your hard drive and floppies with your permission. We would possibly be spared some of the fears of viruses. 1) the program asks for permission before performing any action
I'd be rather perturbed (especially since I use a Mac :-), since the question would probably be completely outside of the context of what I was trying to do (eg. run a GIF viewer, checkbook balancer, compiler, whatever), and would not provide sufficient notification of potential ramifications from answering in either the negative or the affirmative.
2) perhaps the program should include the standard disclaimer that ALL SOFTWARE INCLUDING COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE includes, usually in the beginning of the documentation, or on a separate card. You know, the one that says essentially that the the authors are not omniscient, cannot predict all circumstances the software shall be used under, and thus disclaim any damages. This warning is included in all the commercial software I own. Actually, the disclaimers simply say that you use the software at your own risk, damages are disclaimed. I have yet to see software which attempts to explain all potential ramifications of its use. I very much doubt I would be using software at all if I were to wait for such packages to appear.
Now, if a smart compressor/encryptor wrote itself along with the files it was treating, and then wrote a nice README file which explained that files on the floppy were compressed/encrypted, would be automatically decompressed/decrypted, and that the treatment could, if you wished, be performed on your hard drives and/or other floppies by making a backup and then executing the following command, that would be perfectly fine.
3) the program does not do this, much like Stacker does not create README files which explain that your disks are now compressed. This is left to the documentation that comes with the program, some appearing in a booklet, some as a text file (this practice occurs in every single commercial package I own) Now, I realize that since the author chose to call his program the "potassium hydroxide virus" that alarm bells sound. Maybe he should have posted the source to this list, describing it as a CryptoStacker program, which after installation encrypts floppy disks after prompting. Why, the whole thing would be so much better if MSDOS could run background processes - he could have written it to work like a unix daemon. As I said before, I posted this since I know some people are working on a similar program and may be interested in one which purports to do all this. Interested people may obtain the program, hex debug, and read.me file from me. I don't have the source code but maybe I can contact the author and ask for it. I don't have the tools or expertise in assembly to do the disassembly myself. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLG8N8IOA7OpLWtYzAQFk5AP/TDib1SwkADkfk1D/WDwIk4gwpYLOIax/ sZ6WqrwDIl+Wpu9cO6sfIpxlO5iOqLVGhHeGxYfgaIKKr+IrS3x/t9HwWOV3vo7F 8zu5gPObI3J8yJ7C1xAgyKZ3kJ0ZfCX3fMYEK/zUt47W61qbfAp6QqGoo1jlE4D4 4HDp8uF3wzg= =BDLa -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----