Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!super!udel!rochester!cornell!mailrus!ames!elroy!cit-vax!oberon!pollux.usc.edu!papa
From: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: The ultimate fix!!!
Message-ID: <12492@oberon.USC.EDU>
Date: 1 Oct 88 00:18:08 GMT
References: <681@zehntel.UUCP> <3084@hermes.ai.mit.edu> <4197@thorin.cs.unc <9548@cup.portal.com>
Sender: news@oberon.USC.EDU
Reply-To: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Organization: Felsina Software, Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 43

In article <9548@cup.portal.com| dan-hankins@cup.portal.com writes:
|In article <2689@sugar.uu.net| peter@sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes:
|Close.  The first published definition of a computer virus is attributed to
|Dr. Fred Cohen, who experimented with a non-harmful virus on one of his
|university's computer systems. 

Yep, USC's Computer Science Dept. VAX-780, a.k.a. usc-cse.  

| Being first, his definition should really
|be considered the most valid.  It certainly holds the closest to the
|biological analogy:
|
|     A computer virus is a piece of code that hides by attaching itself to
|     other pieces of code, self-replicates by usurping the function of the
|     host code, and may or may not inflict damage to the host systems.  It
|     may or may not have an incubation period, and a specific host trigger.
|
|The biological analogy holds up well:  'other pieces of code' are the
|programs and operating system of the machine, and correspond to cells in a
|body.  Attaching is roughly equivalent to invading a cell.  Replication
|by usurpation (is that a word?) is equivalent to the way a virus replaces
|the DNA of the target cell with its own.  Incubation and triggers have
|obvious analogies with biological viruses.
|
||Or run a protected operating system like UNIX, where a virus has a *much* harder                                        ^^^^
||time of it.
|
|Not really.  Fred Cohen's virus experiment was performed on a protected
|multiuser operating system.  The longest it took a virus to attain system
|priviledges was an half an hour, the shortest five minutes, with an average
|of about fifteen, *even when the users knew a virus was around*.

The VAX-780 that Fred used was running UNIX 4.2bsd.  All of Dan's quotes are
perfectly accurate.  To add some info, after the "controlled ex[periment",
Fred tried to obtain permission to try it out on other systems (in the 
instance, a DEC running TOPS-20).  The local university "authorities" refused.

-- Marco Papa 'Doc'
[willing participant in Fred's controlled experiment]
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