Re: Computer Virus Origins

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