Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!maytag!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Why "worm" instead of "germ"
Keywords: virus vs. worm
Message-ID: <77443@looking.on.ca>
Date: 15 Jan 90 20:18:22 GMT
References: <1476@umigw.MIAMI.EDU> <76929@looking.on.ca>
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 14
Class: discussion

While it's clear that the Morris program didn't act as a "virus" by grafting
itself into another program, why the term "worm?"

A worm implies something that crawls around with on head, and possibly
a tail -- to me this would be a program that moved around from system to
system, never staying in one place.

Morris' program was a "germ" or "bacterium."  It would infect a system,
and then attempt to breed to neighbours by making copies of itself.
Like some germs, it affected its hosts by swamping them.

So why "worm?"
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473