jon@chiron.UUCP (Jon L. Griffeth) (11/30/88)
While home for Thanksgiving I noticed an article in the September 26th issue of TIME magazine. The article dealt with computer viruses. What perturbed me most was that near the end of the article they strongly implied that Ken Thompson was responsible for the recent proliferation of viruses. They gave a brief (and somewhat misleading) description of Core War and stated that the initial players vowed "never to reveal to the public the details of their game". The article went on to state that Ken Thompson broke this "unspoken vow" and that "the revelation was further compounded by Dewdney's landmark article in the May 1984 issue of Scientific American, which described Core War ...". The implication is that the revealing of Core War lead to our current problem with viruses. Soon software viruses began appearing in university computer systems and in the widely proliferating desktop computers. I apologize if this has already been hashed out on the net. If so, I apparently missed it. These statements struck me as highly inappropriate if not entirely lible. Jon L. Griffeth jon@chiron.UUCP =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Works Cited Elmer-DeWitt, Philip. 'Invasion of the Data Snatchers!'. TIME Magazine, September 26, 1988