Anti Virus Signatures

With all the discussions on this forum and many others about which Anti Virus programme to use, brings the question about where the signatures in these programmes originate from.
I am sure that not every seller of Anti Virus programmes has a team of coders frantically writing code to neutralize these viruses. I am also sure that somewhere there must be a central bank of neutralizing codes that are shared between the big boys in this area. It would not make sense for every seller to employ coders in this field.

If this is the case, then it would not make much difference which programme you bought, only for minor cosmetic details, and all Anti Virus programmes would do the job. Why pay one company say £50 when you can pay another company £10 for the same basic signatures?

 

They share the malware, not the signatures or detection routines. And as far as i know, taking money for the submission of malware is frowned upon (if not boycotted) by the companies, since it is unprofessional and against the industry code of ethics.

 

Because not everyone does agree (or finds it acceptable) how other people/companies doing their tasks. There will be always a "we can do that better" option. And besides of this fact i don't think it would be a good idea to share one common database for one simple reason: You make one small change and a malware goes undetected for *ALL* products. Got the message?

 

So, Inspector, am I safe in concluding, as per Frisk, that the so-called "READ MY MIND!" oracle is NOT incorporated into your company's (Turing machine =) Markov algorithm for product design?

Dave

P.S.: Congrats on the recent FP 6 comparative scores.

 

No I havent got the message. I can appreciate that all companies are in competition, and all do things in a different way, but are you saying that every company is employing a band of coders to write cures for viruses?

I find this hard to believe.