[SuSE Linux] VIRUS WARNING
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I have just received this warning from a trusted source- I do not know if it is genuine, nor if it affects Linux boxes. However, if true it may save someone some hassle.
VIRUS WARNING !!!!!!!! If you receive an e-mail titled " It Takes Guts to Say ŽJESUSŽ" DO NOT OPEN IT. It will erase everything on your hard drive. Forward this letter our to as many people as you can . This is a new, very malicious
virus and not many people know about it. This information was announced
yesterday morning from IBM; please share it with everyone that might access the internet. Once again, pass this along EVERYONE in your address book so that this may be stopped. Also, do not open or even look at any mail that says "RETURNED OR UNABLE TO DELIVER." this virus will attach itself to your computer components and render them useless. Inmediately delete any mail items say this. AOL has said that this is a very dangerous virus and that there in NO REMEDY for it at this time. Please practice cautionary measures and forward this to all your online friends ASAP.
¡¡¡ CAUTION !!!
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Hi, this is another HOAX. See <A HREF="http://www.icsa.net/services/consortia/anti-virus/HOAX.Jesus.shtml"><A HREF="http://www.icsa.net/services/consortia/anti-virus/HOAX.Jesus.shtml</A">http://www.icsa.net/services/consortia/anti-virus/HOAX.Jesus.shtml</A</A>> for more details... Bye, LenZ On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, TJM wrote:
I have just received this warning from a trusted source- I do not know if it is genuine, nor if it affects Linux boxes. However, if true it may save someone some hassle.
VIRUS WARNING !!!!!!!! If you receive an e-mail titled " It Takes Guts to Say ŽJESUSŽ" DO NOT OPEN IT. It will erase everything on your hard drive. Forward this letter our to as many people as you can . This is a new, very malicious
virus and not many people know about it. This information was announced
yesterday morning from IBM; please share it with everyone that might access the internet. Once again, pass this along EVERYONE in your address book so that this may be stopped. Also, do not open or even look at any mail that says "RETURNED OR UNABLE TO DELIVER." this virus will attach itself to your computer components and render them useless. Inmediately delete any mail items say this. AOL has said that this is a very dangerous virus and that there in NO REMEDY for it at this time. Please practice cautionary measures and forward this to all your online friends ASAP.
¡¡¡ CAUTION !!!
- To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e Check out the SuSE-FAQ at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A">http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A</A>> and the archive at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A">http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A</A>>
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------ Lenz Grimmer SuSE GmbH <A HREF="mailto:grimmer@suse.de">mailto:grimmer@suse.de</A> Schanzaeckerstr. 10 <A HREF="http://www.suse.de/~grimmer"><A HREF="http://www.suse.de/~grimmer</A">http://www.suse.de/~grimmer</A</A>> 90443 Nuernberg, Germany - To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e Check out the SuSE-FAQ at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A">http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A</A>> and the archive at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A">http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A</A>>
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On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, TJM wrote:
I have just received this warning from a trusted source- I do not know if it is genuine, nor if it affects Linux boxes. However, if true it may save someone some hassle.
Well, then you know that this source is not to be trusted, when it comes to virus warnings. Either (s)he doesn't know anything about how viruses or e-mail work, or (s)he was deliberately trying to trick you.
VIRUS WARNING !!!!!!!! If you receive an e-mail titled " It Takes Guts to Say ŽJESUSŽ" DO NOT OPEN IT. It will erase everything on your hard drive. Forward this letter our to as many people as you can . This is a new, very malicious
virus and not many people know about it. This information was announced
yesterday morning from IBM; please share it with everyone that might access the internet. Once again, pass this along EVERYONE in your address book so that this may be stopped. Also, do not open or even look at any mail that says "RETURNED OR UNABLE TO DELIVER." this virus will attach itself to your computer components and render them useless. Inmediately delete any mail items say this. AOL has said that this is a very dangerous virus and that there in NO REMEDY for it at this time. Please practice cautionary measures and forward this to all your online friends ASAP.
¡¡¡ CAUTION !!!
- To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e Check out the SuSE-FAQ at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A">http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A</A>> and the archive at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A">http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A</A>>
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There are two giveaways in this virus warning that it isn't genuine: 1. The reference to information "announced from IBM" with nothing specific about where in IBM it came from. 2. The fact that the virus is supposed to erase a hard drive without knowing what kind of operating system or hardware it's running on. I have yet to hear of a virus that affects both Windows and Linux, for example, let alone both the PC and the Mac. Paul - To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e Check out the SuSE-FAQ at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A">http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A</A>> and the archive at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A">http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A</A>>
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On 4 Mar, Paul W. Abrahams wrote:
There are two giveaways in this virus warning that it isn't genuine:
1. The reference to information "announced from IBM" with nothing specific about where in IBM it came from.
2. The fact that the virus is supposed to erase a hard drive without knowing what kind of operating system or hardware it's running on. I have yet to hear of a virus that affects both Windows and Linux, for example, let alone both the PC and the Mac.
Paul
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Dont word macro virii affect all brands of word that they come into contact with? We used to support large numbers of PC and MAC users and the word concept and macro virii seemed to move at will because people were not careful and did not upgrade virus protection. Nothing against, macintosh users but it seemed that our biggest areas of infection were the areas that had the most mac users. Perhaps I am wrong, but I always thought that the macro and concept virii could infect either mac or msdos systems. -- Michael E. Perry mperry@basin.com -------------------- - To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e Check out the SuSE-FAQ at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A">http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A</A>> and the archive at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A">http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A</A>>
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Michael Perry wrote:
On 4 Mar, Paul W. Abrahams wrote:
There are two giveaways in this virus warning that it isn't genuine:
1. The reference to information "announced from IBM" with nothing specific about where in IBM it came from.
2. The fact that the virus is supposed to erase a hard drive without knowing what kind of operating system or hardware it's running on. I have yet to hear of a virus that affects both Windows and Linux, for example, let alone both the PC and the Mac.
Dont word macro virii affect all brands of word that they come into contact with? We used to support large numbers of PC and MAC users and the word concept and macro virii seemed to move at will because people were not careful and did not upgrade virus protection. Nothing against, macintosh users but it seemed that our biggest areas of infection were the areas that had the most mac users.
Perhaps I am wrong, but I always thought that the macro and concept virii could infect either mac or msdos systems.
I was perhaps being too subtle (and maybe not even correct <g>). Microsoft Word doesn't run under Linux, in general, so Word virii shouldn't affect Linux. But there is one wrinkle: some versions of Word *might* run using a Windows emulation package such as Wine or Wabi. Whether the virii would survive in such a transplanted environment I have no idea. Paul - To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e Check out the SuSE-FAQ at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A">http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A</A>> and the archive at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A">http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A</A>>
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Not to belabor this virus hoax thing (which is to say, I don't care if I'm belaboring this virus hoax thing, listen to me, dammit!), but it seems you two are missing the point, at least in terms of this particular warning. It says absolutely nothing about binary attachments; it claims that one can get do damage to a computer simply by viewing an ASCII text file! This is clearly absurd. It's like saying you're in danger of having your eye poked out if you look at a photograph of a cue stick. Our friend the "VIRUS WARNING" could be called a virus itself, but even it is only capable of causing minor irritation and congestion in one's emailbox. jason P.S. - Actually I can think of a time that it *was* possible to do damage to data just by displaying a text file. This was back in the dark days of DOS 3.3 (or so): if you had "ansi.sys" loaded, you could become a victim of a maliciously coded ansi file that would remap your keyboard to send a data-deleting command to the DOS prompt, while changing your screen colors to something like white on white to obscure what it was doing... while all the while you thought you were going to see a pretty Atari 2600-stye picture. But, of course, I was somewhat of a neophyte back then, so perhaps that too was just a hoax, a BBS legend, as it were. ;) On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Paul W. Abrahams wrote:
Michael Perry wrote:
On 4 Mar, Paul W. Abrahams wrote:
There are two giveaways in this virus warning that it isn't genuine:
<huge and extremely prejudiced snip> - To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e Check out the SuSE-FAQ at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A">http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A</A>> and the archive at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A">http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A</A>>
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Jason McFarland wrote:
Not to belabor this virus hoax thing (which is to say, I don't care if I'm belaboring this virus hoax thing, listen to me, dammit!), but it seems you two are missing the point, at least in terms of this particular warning. It says absolutely nothing about binary attachments; it claims that one can get do damage to a computer simply by viewing an ASCII text file! This is clearly absurd. It's like saying you're in danger of having your eye poked out if you look at a photograph of a cue stick. Our friend the "VIRUS WARNING" could be called a virus itself, but even it is only capable of causing minor irritation and congestion in one's emailbox.
Assume that the hoaxster gives it to 10 sincere people who want to help protect their 10 best friends, each of whom give it to 10, each of whom give it to 10, each of whom give it to 10, each of whom give it to 10 each of whom give it to 10 Now you've got a million people passing worthless info around the net, slowing it down, wasting bandwidth. Multiply by the number of hoaxes and now you see the damage. Add to this mess the messages like mine and yours explaining (for the umpteenth time) what a hoax is and how it really works and...... It amounts to nothing more than turning people into unwitting spammers. Jerry - To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e Check out the SuSE-FAQ at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A">http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A</A>> and the archive at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A">http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A</A>>
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On 04-Mar-99 Paul W. Abrahams wrote:
But there is one wrinkle: some versions of Word *might* run using a Windows emulation package such as Wine or Wabi. Whether the virii would survive in such a transplanted environment I have no idea.
Paul
MS Office for Win-3.1 runs fine under WABI. (At any rate as fine as under Windows). I assume that whatever a Word macro woud do if Word were running under Windows, it would also do if Word were running under WABI. In fact, When "Word is running under WABI" Word is really running under Windows which is running under WABI. I've received a lot of Word files (which is why I run WABI anyway) but so far have had the luck to avoid macro virus troubles, so I can't report objective evidence about my assumption above. (Maybe I shouldn't have said that). Cheers, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Date: 05-Mar-99 Time: 11:37:20 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------ - To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e Check out the SuSE-FAQ at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A">http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A</A>> and the archive at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A">http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A</A>>
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I suspect people may be taking these virus warnings too lightly, and giving knee-kerk "This is a HOAX" responses. Please read the following, and maybe think again. Best wishes to all, Ted. ==================================================================== This just in.... -----------------o<----------- FROM: laocoon@doomgloom.edu TO: Trojan Army Listserv < Trojans-L@troy.org RE: WARNING!! BEWARE GREEKS BEARING GIFTS! Hey Hector, This was forwarded to me by Cassandra--it looks legit. Please distribute to Priam, Hecuba, and your 99 siblings. Thanks, Laocoon WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! IF YOU RECEIVE A GIFT IN THE SHAPE OF A LARGE WOODEN HORSE DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT!!!! It is EXTREMELY DESTRUCTIVE and will overwrite your ENTIRE CITY! The "gift" is disguised as a large wooden horse about two stories tall. It tends to show up outside the city gates and appears to be abandoned. DO NOT let it through the gates! It contains hardware that is incompatible with Trojan programming, including a crowd of heavily armed Greek warriors that will destroy your army, sack your town, and kill your women and children. If you have already received such a gift, DO NOT OPEN IT! Take it back out of the city unopened and set fire to it by the beach. FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW! Poseidon =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= FROM: hector@studmuffin.com TO: laocoon@doomgloom.edu RE: Greeks bearing gifts Laocoon, I hate to break to you, but this is one of the oldest hoaxes there is. I've seen variants on this warning come through on other listservs, one involving some kind of fruit that was supposed to kill the people who ate it and one having to do with something called the "Midas Touch." Here are a few tipoffs that this is a hoax: 1) This "Forward this message to everyone you know" crap. If it were really meant as a warning about the Greek army, why tell anyone to post it to the Phonecians, Sumerians, and Cretans? 2) Use of exclamation points. Always a giveaway. 3) It's signed "from Poseidon." Granted he's had his problems with Odysseus but he's one of their guys, isn't he? Besides, the lack of a real header with a detailed address makes me suspicious. 4) Technically speaking, there is no way for a horse to overwrite your entire city. A horse is just an animal, after all. Next time you get a message like this, just delete it. I appreciate your concern, but once you've been around the block a couple times you'll realize how annoying this kind of stuff is. Bye now, Hector ==================================================================== -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Date: 18-Mar-99 Time: 20:54:03 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------ -- To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e Check out the SuSE-FAQ at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A">http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A</A>> and the archive at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A">http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A</A>>
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I have to raise a question, or two. I often receive similar messages, but I must assume that a virus is a program of some sort and must be able to run in order to be able to carry out its intended function. So my understanding is that a virus must be attached to email and must first be dettached and caused to run before any damage may occur. In the case of macro virus' an inffected spread sheet, for example, must first be opened by the application. Is there some sort of virus or worm (I used to believe there was some sort of difference) that may merely "hitch hike" on email and not be required to be dettached and run? Also, it seems to me that if that were the case, a very clever way to spread a virus would be to attch one to an email of just the nature of a warning, with the explicit instructions to send it to everyone in one's address book. BTW, I am not giving anyone a hard time, but raising some valid questions. Regards, Bob Russell TJM wrote:
I have just received this warning from a trusted source- I do not know if it is genuine, nor if it affects Linux boxes. However, if true it may save someone some hassle.
VIRUS WARNING !!!!!!!! If you receive an e-mail titled " It Takes Guts to Say ŽJESUSŽ" DO NOT OPEN IT. It will erase everything on your hard drive. Forward this letter our to as many people as you can . This is a new, very malicious
virus and not many people know about it. This information was announced
yesterday morning from IBM; please share it with everyone that might access the internet. Once again, pass this along EVERYONE in your address book so that this may be stopped. Also, do not open or even look at any mail that says "RETURNED OR UNABLE TO DELIVER." this virus will attach itself to your computer components and render them useless. Inmediately delete any mail items say this. AOL has said that this is a very dangerous virus and that there in NO REMEDY for it at this time. Please practice cautionary measures and forward this to all your online friends ASAP.
¡¡¡ CAUTION !!!
- To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e Check out the SuSE-FAQ at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A">http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A</A>> and the archive at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A">http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A</A>>
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On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Robert Russell wrote:
I have to raise a question, or two.
I often receive similar messages, but I must assume that a virus is a program of some sort and must be able to run in order to be able to carry out its intended function. So my understanding is that a virus must be attached to email and must first be dettached and caused to run before any damage may occur.
In the case of macro virus' an inffected spread sheet, for example, must first be opened by the application.
Both these assumptions are quite right, unless there is some specific security flaw in the receiving a mailer-daemon or mail user agent. For instance some mail programs allow for spawning a shell and execute commands if the message contains a specific character sequence. I believe Outlook Express and Netscape Mail for Win95 have a security flaw like this. (It might have been fixed, but I don't know)
Is there some sort of virus or worm (I used to believe there was some sort of difference) that may merely "hitch hike" on email and not be required to be dettached and run?
Not with current e-mail technology, but this may be coming soon. Think of a HTML-email with java(script) that runs some malicious code. It is up to the programmers of e-mail clients to prevent this from being possible. It will however still have to be run to do damage, but the mail client might do this automagically.
Also, it seems to me that if that were the case, a very clever way to spread a virus would be to attch one to an email of just the nature of a warning, with the explicit instructions to send it to everyone in one's address book.
How right you are. They could even be attached as executables, claiming to remove the (non-existant) virus the mail is warning of. Try to imagine a Happy99-like virus/trojan sending automatic virus warnings to everybody. Scary! These hoaxes are in fact computer viruses, which just use biological agents for spreading. They are completely independent of operating systems, and unfortunately they have very small requirements.
BTW, I am not giving anyone a hard time, but raising some valid questions.
Regards,
Bob Russell
Yes, these questions are certainly valid. I just hope that my answers will prevent just a few people from forwarding a just a few hoaxes. Remember to protect your computer! Practice safe hex! Regards Ole Kofoed Hansen - To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e Check out the SuSE-FAQ at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A">http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A</A>> and the archive at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A">http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A</A>>
participants (9)
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abrahams@valinet.com
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grimmer@suse.de
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jlkreps@navix.net
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k01164@ko.hhs.dk
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karmacop@4thdimension.net
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mperry@basin.com
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risch@tir.com
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saki@telinco.co.uk
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Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk