Computer Virus Origins

[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.

  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)