DEN0@LEHIGH.BITNET (Dean E. Nelson) (01/02/90)
There has been some discussion in past digests about similarities between biological and computer viruses. I guess that is where the name came from. There is one big difference, however. Biological viruses have been around for much longer. This fact, in itself, is not very useful, but because they have been around longer, there is a much longer history of human response to them. The initial human response to viruses was not scientific. People got ill and suffered. They would blame themselves, family members, or perhaps the stars for their mallady. Often they would seek divine (or supernatural) intervention. I'm sure we can all think of users who consider the action of their computers magic and viral attacks within the same realm. As science increased our understanding of the human body, viral infections became better understood. The medical profession became more and more able to combat viral infection and even impute immunity before an attack. This was possible because of an understanding of the causal chains associated with viruses. By the very nature of computer viruses (they are programs), the causal chains associated with them can be made much clearer in a much shorter period of time than with biological viruses. Therefore, the research done to understand the computer virus is much faster and more complete than with its biological counterpart. The resulting interventions are also more complete and failsafe than their biological counterparts. Given all that, perhaps there are still techniques used to combat biological viruses that haven't been used with computer viruses. After all, we have been at that much longer and against a more insidious foe. After some thought, I can only think of things that rely on data analysis. Given the data, we could determine which prevention techniques were most effective, and we could better understand the effects of different interventions and the factors which aid or inhibit spread of the infection. I agree with Mr. McMahon (vol 3. issue 1) that data collection is a good first step (in trying to minimize the *effect* of viruses) . I also believe that Mr. Murray (same issue) makes a useful analogy when he refers to the study of virus spread as an Epidemiological pursuit. The preceding paragraphs were written to make that very same point. Dean Nelson, Lehigh University Computing Center DEN0@vax1.cc.lehigh.edu DEN0@lehigh.bitnet (215)258-4988