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From: shz@packard.UUCP (S. Zirin)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,news.sysadmin
Subject: Re: The Internet Virus--A Commentary
Keywords: ethics networks communication computer viruses
Message-ID: <698@packard.UUCP>
Date: 8 Nov 88 20:34:42 GMT
References: <1460@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu>
Reply-To: shz@packard.UUCP
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Liberty Corner
Lines: 19

Just a minor correction:  Substitute "staff" for each occurrence of "man"
in the below fragment, yielding "staff-hours", "staff-weeks" and
"staff-years".

Seth Zirin
att!packard!shz

In article <1460@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu> rodgers@cca.ucsf.edu.UUCP writes:
>The calculable loss in man-hours and computing-hours is considerable, as
>revealed by a simple back-of-the-envelope computation designed to err on the
>side of being too small.  Approximately 6,000 processors
>were affected.  Let us assume (conservatively) that there was one person
>affected for every five machines, and that 12 hours were devoted to handling
>problems arising from the crisis.  This results in an estimate of 14,400 man
>hours lost, equivalent to 360 40-hour man weeks (nearly 7 working man-years).
>This ignores the (presumably considerable) indirect costs attributable to loss
>of computing time per se.  Estimates of up to 100 man-years which have appeared
>elsewhere can be seen as not preposterous.
>
>R. P. C. Rodgers, M.D.