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From: jmc@ttrde.UUCP
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre,comp.misc
Subject: Re: What the world needs now
Message-ID: <215@ttrde.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 4-Jun-87 16:32:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ttrde.215
Posted: Thu Jun  4 16:32:00 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 6-Jun-87 11:08:36 EDT
References: <12067@topaz.rutgers.edu> <408@rlvd.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T, Skokie, IL
Lines: 30
Keywords: Paranoid computers
Xref: utgpu talk.bizarre:1986 comp.misc:601
Summary: The Random Glitch

In article <408@rlvd.UUCP>, nbc@rlvd.UUCP (Neil Calton) writes:
> >... is a piece of software that actually makes a computer blow up just
> >like in the movies.  This is long overdue.  "Lay" people are extremely
> >disappointed when a program or system grinds/wheezes to a halt with some wimpy
> >message like "B037X: USER ERROR IN GAPX TABLE" or "CATASTROPHIC SYSTEM FAILURE:
> >BUFFER OVERFLOW INDICATOR OVERFLOW" or "Bus error - core dumped".  They want
> >to see explosions!  
> 

What I find interesting are the stories involving strange or interesting
quirks using computers.  Have you ever heard of the Random Glitch?  There 
apparently was this programmer who used the network to invoke his random
glitch, this program would roam the network reproducing itself and then 
sleep for some random interval then come alive and send "I am the Random
Glitch catch me if you can... HA HA HA HA", to the computer console
and exit.  But the Random Glitch was reproduced somewhere else and would
continue to infect the network.  They could not bring down the whole
network to catch the little bugger so they sent out a destroyer program,
the repentant inventor of the Random Glitch wrote it, to catch the
Random Glitch and destroy all copies of it.  

Hofstader in a series of Scientific American Articles wrote about the
core Wars programs.  Have there been any interesting programs or stories
lately about similar Random Glitches infecting the known computer network.
Maybe some nerd will come up with the equivalent of Computer Aids and
bring down the complete Computer world.  It would be neat to have network
races routing packets to every computer and getting them back the fastest,
could be a great execise in Karmarkar Algorithmics eh Sherlock?

Miami Jan