Homework submissions with viruses

[Philip Johnson <johnson@hawaii.edu>]

A student writes:

> In order to avoid unnecessary inconvenience, please scan the file for the 
> virus first. I have already scanned the file, but because my virus clean 
> software is very old, I am not sure whether it can detect the virus.


This is not acceptable.  Please update your virus software immediately.  My
current policy is that if I detect homework with viruses, I will discard the
homework and you will receive no credit.  

If you are working from an institutional machine, you should inform the system
administrator that the virus detection software is old and requires immediate
upgrades (and that your grade depends upon this.)  If you are working from your
home machine, you simply have to accept the (very reasonable) one-time cost of
buying virus detection software (after initial purchase, you receive monthly
updates for free). 

Cheers,
Philip