FW: terms "worm, virus, infect" (Was: Re: KLEZ)

[Frank Abate]

Jesse posted:

>>

On Tue, Aug 20, 2002 at 12:10:17PM -0400, Philip Trauring wrote:
>
> Just to keep things on topic, what's the first known usages of the
> words virus, worm and infect in relation to computers?

_worm_ was pretty famously coined by John Brunner in _Shockwave
Rider_ in 1975, so I assume that means that Barry will provide
an example from Datamation in 1959 or so. _virus_ is found in
the early 1970s (and is also in _Shockwave Rider_), and _infect_
doesn't seem to have been researched yet but we have some
mid-1980s cites sitting around.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED

<<

To confirm what Jesse says re worm and virus, I have copied below article
that Fred Shapiro and I did for the WSJ Online ("Word Mine" column for Dec
2001).  The actual earliest-yet-known cites are quoted.

Barry, can you antedate?

Frank Abate

***************************

Word Mine

By FRANK ABATE and FRED SHAPIRO
Special to WSJ.COM
WORD MINE reveals the stories behind the words we hear and read every day in
technology and business, exploring the origins of terms and how language has
evolved. We'll look at words that haven't made it into dictionaries and cite
the earliest uses found from our research.
In today's Word Mine, we look at virus, Trojan horse, worm and firewall –
old words given new meanings in the realm of computer security, each from a
different metaphoric source.

Questions or comments? Write to Frank Abate at word2mine at yahoo.com.

Still to come in Word Mine: clickthrough. . .pixel tag . . . portal . . .
search engine.


virus – a malicious computer program that replicates itself, compromising or
destroying stored data.

Like disease-causing viruses, computer viruses are self-replicating and
spread by contact.  Early outbreaks such as “Brain” in 1986 and “Jerusalem”
in 1988 became widespread in the then-burgeoning PC community.  But we owe
the idea to science fiction, as in this quote from David Gerrold:

“You know what a virus is, don't you? . . . The VIRUS program does the same
thing.” -- 1972: When H.A.R.L.I.E. Was One.

A virus copies itself into files or executable programs, sometimes
overwriting startup files, or simply clogging up disk space or RAM.  The
most common carrier is a floppy disk -- the virus program, accompanying
other harmless data, infects every computer that uses the floppy.  Even more
pernicious are viruses spread by stealthier means:

Trojan horse – a program that appears to have a useful purpose, but that
releases a destructive virus when copied onto a computer.

A Trojan horse takes the form of an application or a computer game,
something attractive to the unsuspecting user.  The term alludes to the
trick used by the ancient Greeks to defeat the city of Troy.  After ten
years of war, the Greeks appear to go home, leaving behind a huge wooden
horse.  Thinking the horse is a divine offering that would protect them, the
Trojans bring the horse within their city walls.  That night a small band of
Greeks hidden in the hollow belly of the horse emerge and open the gates of
Troy, and the Greek army returns to sack and burn the city.  The computer
use can be traced to a 1983 article in Computerworld for November 28, which
discusses the jargon of criminal data access methods, and describes the
"Trojan Horse method" of placing extraneous statements in a program to make
the computer perform unauthorized functions.

With the advent of e-mail and the Internet, malicious software -- sometimes
called “malware” --had the means to spread almost instantly and cause
epidemics worldwide.  A new name arose, evoking an image of parasitic insect
larvae:

worm – a destructive virus designed to spread via the Internet.

As before, science fiction is the ultimate source, this time author John
Brunner:

“I'd have written the worm as an explosive scrambler, probably about half a
million bits long, with a backup virus facility and a last-ditch infinitely
replicating tail.” -- 1975: The Shockwave Rider.

Although often referred to as viruses, “Melissa” in 1999 and “I Love You”
earlier this year are more accurately called worms.  Worms propagate over
the Internet, moving like a parasite from one computer to others via e-mail
or file sharing.

Whatever form they take, viruses are the scourge of MIS managers everywhere.
Even the threat of a nonexistent virus, called a “virus hoax,” can cause a
major upset.  Millions are spent each year to keep viruses from infecting
PCs, LANs, and WANs.  Solutions range from simple virus protection programs
for single PCs to costly systems for large corporations:

firewall – software or a dedicated system through which all Internet traffic
is channeled, to protect against viruses or unauthorized use.

Using various software filters and validation schemes, a firewall screens
all data flowing from the outside world to an internal network, intercepting
viruses and keeping hackers from breaking in.  The computer sense can be
traced back to 1987, in a technical paper titled “Reliability in Distributed
Programming Environments” by G.E. Kaiser and S.M. Kaplan.  The term and the
concept are borrowed from engineering.  In aircraft, naval, and automotive
manufacturing, physical firewalls protect other compartments from the heat
or fire of engines.  The Oxford English Dictionary gives “fire-wall” as an
American term, citing its use in an 1851 passage about smokehouse
construction.
____________________________________________________________________________
__
Frank Abate is a Connecticut-based lexicographer. Fred Shapiro is editor of
the Yale Dictionary of Quotations, forthcoming. Members of the American
Dialect Society, a nonprofit group of language scholars
(http://www.americandialect.org/), also assisted with research.