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From: roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin,sci.bio
Subject: Re: The virus
Summary: Why a worm instead of a virus?
Message-ID: <3595@phri.UUCP>
Date: 9 Nov 88 16:25:41 GMT
References: <5330@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>
Reply-To: roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith)
Organization: Public Health Research Inst. (NY, NY)
Lines: 15

spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford) writes:
> (Note -- it's a worm, not a virus, since it can replicate itself and
> does not hide itself inside other code.)

	Several people have mentioned that it's a worm and not a virus.  I
tried to explain this to my wife (who is a molecular biologist who works
with biolgical viruses) and she didn't like the term worm.  She says that
the distinction of not hiding inside other code is better described by
calling them lytic viruses and lysogenic viruses instead of worms and
viruses.  Anybody for electronic transposons?
-- 
Roy Smith, System Administrator
Public Health Research Institute
{allegra,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers}!phri!roy -or- phri!roy@uunet.uu.net
"The connector is the network"