Re: Was Cohen the first?

["Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>]

Timothy C. May writes:
> Having said this, Fred Cohen deserves credit for seriously studying
> properties of replicating programs, including viruses. (And I believe he
> coined the term virus, and also showed how it differs from a worm.)

Fred Cohen did not coin the term. "The Shockwave Rider" explicitly
refers to viruses in addition to worms -- indeed, the main character
at several points uses a "phage" (i.e. a virus) to eliminate
information about himself from the global communications
network. Other people used the term "virus" in a number of similar
contexts long before Fred Cohen.

Perry