From: Jay Prime Positive <jpp@markv.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 00:57:57 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Computer Virus Origins
In-Reply-To: <9302190714.AA23494@netcom.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <9302220055.aa26050@hermix.markv.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


  It has been a bit of a sore point with me for some years.  When Fred
Cohen wrote his thesis he credited Len Adelman ((the A in RSA) our
professor at the time) with coining the term "virus".  In fact it was
I who did this.  It was I who introduced the class to the concept of
computer viruses.  I developed the idea with a guy named Eric ??? with
whom I worked at the time.  It was in private with Eric that I came up
with the name (or perhaps he may have sugested it).  I based the idea
on the "worm" from one of John Brunner's novels which I had just read.

  The name is a natural choice for this class of program, and I don't
doubt that others may have nearly simultaneuosly come upon the same
idea.  I certainly didn't write the first virus.

j' (computer virus meme source)