[ale] McAfee Discovers First Linux Virus [clari.tw.comp

[tfreeman]

On Thu, 13 Feb 1997, Jacob Langseth wrote:
<<snip>>
> The author later stated that he wrote Bliss to debunk those still claiming
> that virii cannot exist under unix (though there have been several --
> Thompson's cc/login trojan from Bell Labs, RT Morris's internet worm, and
> one in Ludwig's Giant Black Book of Computer Viruses), and posted a binary
> of the current version (bits fipped, of course).  The 'virus' is not
> linux-specific, btw (though I think it's probably limited to systems w/
> ELF format binaries).

I have a problem, and perhaps the gentle readers of this list can point to
a resolution. The common media usage of computer virus is _any_ malignant
code place on a computer. Thus, Trojans, worms, and such are virii
(viruses?) in media talk. For some reason - to me a virus is a special
breed of malignant code(and they need not be malignant either): code which
attaches to an exicutable file and is executed inplace of or in addition
too the original file's code. (Similar to the incorporation of a biologic
virus into the host cell's genetic material.) Under my understanding then,
worms, Trojans, and such are different creations, biologically more
similar to bacteria and/or parasites.

Am I nuts, or are we going to have to call all malignant code "virus" and
find a language of taxonomy to classify and understand the various
security threats? 

Tom Freeman