Re: Computer Virus Origins

[pmetzger@shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger)]

> From: Jay Prime Positive <jpp@markv.com>
>   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.

Brunner's novel explicitly mentions the notion of viruses as well as
tapeworms. Remember the "phages"? A phage is a virus.

Perry