Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!MITRE.ARPA!mcgurrin
From: mcgurrin@MITRE.ARPA
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: To someone in Brooklyn...
Message-ID: <8809021457.AA12146@mitre.arpa>
Date: 2 Sep 88 14:57:15 GMT
References: <27100@think.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The MITRE Corp., Washington, D.C.
Lines: 10

Dave, if the bill you mention would make virus *WRITING* illegal I'm afraid
I can't agree with you that I hope it passes.  While I don't see much in the
way of a legitimate purpose, except for research, it should not be illegal in
a free society to write any type of code.  Distributing it to unknowing 
recipients is a whole other story, and I would have no problem with making
that illegal (but let's word it carefully, so that a responsible BBS operator
who unknowingly has a virus program posted by a third party is not held 
responsible for damages that occur, if he could not reasonable be expected
to know that the program was a virus at the time it was posted).  Remember,
a lot of lawmakers probably don't know what a modem is, let alone a BBS!