Can the ctx303 get a virus???

[fredm]

A friend asked me if the ctx 3030 can be infected with a virus since it is a computer based detector....sorry if this has been asked and answered-my search did not reveal any info in this regard.
fred

 

[GKMan]

Most likely technically true if you had the means to upload malicious content to the device. I have so little concern about something like this happening though that I don't even think about it....

 

[fredm]

I don't know why anyone would...but, he was wondering about downloading programs form other people than the official minelab site...
thanks
fred

 

[mblemmy]

well I ended up with a virus when my detector drugg me out of the house on a cold and windy day and I ended up with a cold !! lol LOL !! HH

 

[GKMan]

Haha! Good one... They will do that...

 

[Roland58]

From what little I know of computers (I built mine) and the fact that some programming can be done to the CTX, I would say that, yes, it could conceivably get a virus. But, what would someone have to gain by writing one? It would be senseless vandalism, at best. And, you would have to download and install said virus. Just don't think it would be worth the effort for anyone.

 

[GKMan]

I would hate to see some porn pop up on my ctx. Ha or something telling me i had to punch in my credit card number to unlock it...

 

[Nes (south Coast-CA)]

Some will laugh at the idea, but my virus program informed me one day that the XChange2 program on my computer was infected with a virus one day after a full scan. I uninstalled the program, rescanned the computer, and reinstalled the program again. I have no idea what the virus was, or why it was there, but I do know this... there are people out there that hate people who metal detect, just like some people who dislike other things that active people do as a hobby. Most people I meet at the beach are interested in what I am looking for and why. Foreigners are the most interested for they don't see much detecting where they come from. I always make a point of satisfying their curiosity. I find coins at the beach from many countries, since San Diego is a major tourist stop... nes

 

[GKMan]

I work in the IT field. Every so often we have our Symantec anti virus flag some files as infected. We just set them to ignore it. Now for the average person seeing a virus warning can be scary. It has happened before where a application is in fact infected by something that isn't in fact innocuous .I believe digger had the exact cause for this behavior with the exchange software. Not that it will mean much to the average person

 

[Nes (south Coast-CA)]

I didn't worry much about this one either because I hadn't signed on the Minelab site for awhile and it was a simple matter to eliminate the program, rescan, reload off of the disk and rescan again. There is a lot of weird stuff on the Internet these days that you must be aware of to survive, and I keep my computers pretty clean... nes

 

[Roland58]

There were a couple of different virus programs that recognized the eXchange2 software as being or having a virus. It has been proven to be a false positive due to an error in the heuristics of the scanner and, I believe, has since been fixed. IIRC, Symantec and BitDefender were two of the virus programs that reacted to the Minelab software. My scanner did not react, but, if it had, I would have done a little Net searching on the topic and ignored the warning.

I believe you can sleep easily knowing your CTX is safe.

 

[vancemetaldetecting.com]

Its something to think about I guess, I hope a bunch of our Archeology buddies never get together and decide to destroy all the ctx's in the WORLD!! haha

 

[GKMan]

Ha, good one Vance!

 

[Southwind]

Pretty much all detectors today run "software". Some run from software burned into chips(ROM) others run software from programmable chips such as RAM. Any writable chip(RAM) could have malicious code introduced or a virus. Not likely, but possible.