Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnewsc!res
From: res@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (Rich Strebendt)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Why "worm" instead of "germ"
Summary: Worm comes from segmented worm
Keywords: virus vs. worm
Message-ID: <12878@cbnewsc.ATT.COM>
Date: 16 Jan 90 22:47:22 GMT
References: <1476@umigw.MIAMI.EDU> <76929@looking.on.ca> <77443@looking.on.ca>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 16

In article <77443@looking.on.ca>, brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes:
> While it's clear that the Morris program didn't act as a "virus" by grafting
> itself into another program, why the term "worm?"

The original "worm" programs used the segmented worm as the biological
analogy.  These programs were designed to maintain copies of
themselves running on N machines at a time in a network.  If one of
the programs (segments) was killed off, the others would learn of it
and cause another segment to be formed and start executing on another
machine on the network.  The mental image you want to have to
understant the terminology is of a segmented worm crawling through a
network (one segment per machine) by creating new segments ahead of it
while old segments die behind it.

					Rich Strebendt
					...!att!ihlpb!res