Rants about various topics
Coming soon....
Coming soon....
I remember when there was a distinction between the terms "virus", "worm", and "trojan".
No longer.
Now anything that does something bad is called a virus.
Which is a bit sad, considering most present-day "viruses" are really trojans, with a few being worms.
In fact, I can't remember the last time I heard of a virus.
For those of you who might not know, the distinction is:
- trojan: standalone code that depends on a user running it to spread
- virus: code that attaches itself to other executables in order to spread
- worm: code that spreads automatically over the internet
The distinction used to indicate something about the skill required to create it:
a trojan is a trivial program that spreads based on the stupidity of users.
A virus must have the ability to attach itself to other executables, which is a far more difficult task.
Even a worm requires a fair amount of intelligence on the part of the coder, since it must automatically exploit a vulnerability to spread, something a trojan doesn't need to do.
Despite the obvious distinctions, the world has chosen the term "virus" for everything.
Why?
Because the world is made up of stupid people, who fall for the trojan every time.
If they call it a trojan, then they must acknowledge that they were tricked -- something they don't want to admit.
Instead, they call it a virus.
Who could be responsible for the actions of a virus?
It's alive, isn't it?
Surely the user shouldn't be blamed for running it, since it is clearly alive.
Yeah, right.
Thanks for listening to my rants. I feel better now.
Damian Menscher -- menscher@uiuc.edu -- http://www.uiuc.edu/~menscher/