Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!rochester!udel!mmdf From: papa%pollux.usc.edu@UDEL.EDU Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: The ultimate fix!!! Message-ID: <4434@louie.udel.EDU> Date: 3 Oct 88 22:24:35 GMT Sender: mmdf@udel.EDU Lines: 58 Received: from CUNYVM by CUNYVM.BITNET (Mailer X2.00) with BSMTP id 4324; Sat, 01 Oct 88 23:51:06 EDT Received: from UDEL.EDU by CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.1) with TCP; Sat, 01 Oct 88 23:50:58 EDT Received: from Louie.UDEL.EDU by Louie.UDEL.EDU id ae23553; 1 Oct 88 4:04 EDT Received: from USENET by Louie.UDEL.EDU id aa23480; 1 Oct 88 3:56 EDT From: Marco Papa Subject: Re: The ultimate fix!!! Message-ID: <12492@oberon.USC.EDU> Date: 1 Oct 88 00:18:08 GMT Organization: Felsina Software, Los Angeles, CA To: amiga-relay@UDEL.EDU Sender: amiga-relay-request@UDEL.EDU 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] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= uucp:...!pollux!papa BIX:papa ARPAnet:pollux!papa@oberon.usc.edu "There's Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Diga!" -- Leo Schwab [quoting Rick Unland] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=