Are We About to Witness a Real OS X virus?
Linked by Amjith Ramanujam on Thu 24th Jul 2008 18:01 UTC, submitted by Ward D
Bugs & Viruses Mac Antivirus developer Intego might have stumbled across an OS X specific virus being offered for auction that targets a previously unknown ZIP archive vulnerability. From Intego's posting, it appears that an enterprising auctioneer seems determined to make sure that his name is one that is not forgotten when it comes to Apple security, claiming that his exploit is a poisoned ZIP archive that will "KO the system and Hard Drive" when unarchived.
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RE: It's Not Possible!
by looncraz on Fri 25th Jul 2008 06:14 UTC in reply to "It's Not Possible!"
looncraz
Member since:
2005-07-24

Exactly, even BeOS ( with its incredibly tiny market share ) had a couple of viruses

which brings me to 'virii' vs 'viruses'

I learned the plural of virus as virii, but the d**n spell checker says it ain't a word, and most people don't understand it, so with the general rule being 'common usage,' I use 'viruses' to avoid confusing the confused even more than I already confuse them with my long words ... and my small... difficult... words.

--The loon

Reply Parent Score: 3

They are viruses not virii!
by unclefester on Fri 25th Jul 2008 10:40 in reply to "RE: It's Not Possible!"
unclefester Member since:
2007-01-13

Virus is an English word based on a Latin stem meaning 'alive'. The plural is therefore viruses not virii. In medical terminology they are always referred to as viruses.

Reply Parent Score: 2

Soulbender Member since:
2005-08-18

Hey, when you're dumbfsck virus creator virii sounds much cooler. And after all, that is what counts.

Reply Parent Score: 1

RE[2]: It's Not Possible!
by LB06 on Fri 25th Jul 2008 23:54 in reply to "RE: It's Not Possible!"
LB06 Member since:
2005-07-06

If you use the word "virus" as something that has been incorporated into your own language then of course the regular grammar rules apply. So it becomes "viruses" in English, "virussen" in Dutch etc etc. But if "virus" was still being used as a word in its untranslated Latin meaning (like etcetera, mens rea, ergo, etc, etc ;) ) then the plurar form would be viri, virorum, viris or viros, depending on its function within a sentence. Much like the german language.

"These three viri infected my computer" (nominativus)
"My virus scanner will delete these viros" (accusativus)
"My PC was infected by these viris" (dativus)
"One of the properties of these virorum is that they delete all data" (genitivus)
"With these viris I can DOS an entire server" (ablativus).

So far what I remember from my Latin classes regarding this subject. But since virus was adopted by almost any language we can safely use viruses.

Edited 2008-07-25 23:57 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[3]: It's Not Possible!
by looncraz on Sat 26th Jul 2008 16:11 in reply to "RE[2]: It's Not Possible!"
looncraz Member since:
2005-07-24

See!?!? THAT is why I wanted to take Latin, sadly no school I went to offered it. :-(

All I got was Quebec French, something like German, or mangled Spanish.

Fortunately, I just so happen to speak the most important language: C++ :-)

--The loon

Reply Parent Score: 2