Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!HUB.UCSB.EDU!bfox%vision
From: bfox%vision@HUB.UCSB.EDU (Brian Fox)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: To someone in Brooklyn...
Message-ID: <8809021901.AA16733@hub.ucsb.edu>
Date: 2 Sep 88 18:58:34 GMT
References: <8809021457.AA12146@mitre.arpa>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: bfox%cornu@hub.ucsb.edu
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 34


   Posted-Date: Fri, 02 Sep 88 10:57:15 EDT
   Organization: The MITRE Corp., Washington, D.C.
   Date: Fri, 02 Sep 88 10:57:15 EDT
   From: mcgurrin@mitre.arpa

   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!

I also disagree with making the writing of any type of code illegal.  This is
akin to censorship, which I know the majority of us do not agree with.

And besides, there is nothing wrong with "virus" code, it is the heinous
actions performed by a few of the (improperly named) "viruses" that we despise
so much.  Note that there are also good purposes for self-propagating code,
such as amusement value (max headroom virus), and system-maintenence
(new-software-release-updater).

I dislike calling someones file-deleter a "virus" program because it gives
that non-person undeserved respect.  Any moron can delete files; we certainly
don't need some idiot to write a program to do it for us.

Brian Fox

Claimer:
	The opinions expressed are those of everyone else, since I have no
	opinions whatsoever.