The Usenet Virus: a case history.

[Peter da Silva]

In article <12840 at oberon.USC.EDU>, papa at pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes:
> In article <2836 at sugar.uu.net> peter at sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes:
> >			The Usenet virus: a case history.
> >				(A cautionary tale).

> The description fits pretty much the model of virus described in Fred Cohen's
> thesis (date: 1983) and in fact more than one of very similar UNIX viruses
> were built as part of "student projects" at USC.

Much of the best software shows up as student projects... students have a
lot of time and a wonderful support structure surrounding them. I'm interested
to learn that I independently derived the same sort of virus, since I've never
read the paper in question nor attended any of the course you've mentioned
in the past. Perhaps this is an obvious evolution... certainly every decision
I made in putting the article together seemed pretty much forced by my goals.

> So it is a hardly new,
> and divulging such information will have absolutely no effect of whether
> or not such a type of virus will show up on Usenet or on your favourite
> UNIX host.

I doubt if any of the student projects will show up, considering how tracable
they are. Some time or another, though, someone is going to try something
like this. Might I direct your attention to the discussion about UNIX
security... and the metadiscussion about whether such discussion is
appropriate... that is even as we speak winding down into yet another morass
of useless hints.
-- 
		Peter da Silva  `-_-'  peter at sugar.uu.net
		 Have you hugged  U  your wolf today?