Talk:Computer virus

Note: revisions of this article between June 28 and September 11, 2002 are at Virus (computing) (/w/wiki.phtml?title=Virus_(computing)&action=history).

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I think the term Computer Virus originated much earlier than 1985. My high school maths teacher explained the concept to me and used the term in 1979 or 1980. I got the impression it was not exactly a new thing then, although the actual number of viruses that had spread in the wild at that early date must have been very small.

Perhaps the worm paragraph should make the distinction between viruses and worms clear while also noting that the two concepts are often conflated in general use. -- Taral

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How about some advice on how to protect your computer from a virus? Such as: turn off the feature in Microsoft Office that automatically runs a virus (er, macro) when you open the document. Ed Poor

How is this pertinent to an encyclopedia? What you are suggesting seems more suitable for a tutorial. Perhaps there's a Wiki for practical, DIY type information.--branko

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Instead of branding Microsoft as a monopoly (which may provoke controversy), why not research its market share in the types of programs that tend to spread viruses? For example, you could say that 83.7% of American workers use Microsoft Office and are thus vulnerable. Ed Poor

What about the Microsoft antitrust case? Kind of official "branding"!

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Why was the link to Elk Cloner's source code removed? GregLindahl

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I probably did that accidentally when I reorganized the article. I restored the link. I also cleaned up some of the text at the end about Microsoft vulnerability. Sure, it's something that ought to be said, but it doesn't need to be said three times in different ways. Just the facts. --LDC

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Cunc, I think you're way overstating the Microsoft case, to point of absurdity. It is a true, accurate, and useful observation about computer viruses that whoever has a market-share lead in desktop OSes is going to have the most viruses. That used to be Apple DOS 3.3; now it's Microsoft Windows. It's not at all appropriate to single out Microsoft in an article that's not really about them: it just happens that they have a current monopoly position that makes them vulnerable. It's also totally incorrect to single out their "closed source" development environment, because almost every commercial software company has that problem: MacOS viruses and Solaris viruses are more dangerous than they might be if the OSes they infected were more open and easier to update. I've been personally Microsoft-free for years, running Linux on two machines at home, and the lax security of Microsoft products is a big reason for that. But let's not change an encyclopedia article into a platform for preaching the Linux religion, shall we? --LDC

There are a couple of issues here:

-There are two reasons for vulnerability of Microsoft software, one being that MS have got the monopoly on the desktop, the other that MS apps have holes in them the size of a something very large. Together they form a potent brew.

-Never before has so much virus damage been inflicted on the world. I have no exact numbers at hand, but I am sure you will be astonished once you find out. Why does everybody remember the Titanic? Surely, boats have sunk before? And what's so special about Galileo saying the earth revolves around the sun? Surely many others have said it before him? It's the impact that counts. Of course, the Titanic and Galileo are subjects close to Western culture and I would not want to advocate that a page about great disasters should link to the sinking of the Titanic, nor would I argue that a page about astronomy should link to Galileo. But computing is pretty much an originally Western affair, and the vulnerability of Microsoft product users to virusses, whatever may be the reason, should be mentioned, IMHO.

Well, yes, Microsoft's monopoly causes something of a monoculture; yes, Microsoft software has bugs and security holes you can drive a truck through. But let's not pretend that the media's present virus-mania represents any major change in the nature of virus attacks, or that it's specifically due to Microsoft. Indeed, the first time the news media made a big deal about a virus that caused a lot of damage was the Morris worm, and that only infected Vaxen. The last few major viruses were macroviruses for Microsoft Excel, Word, Outlook, Outlook, and Outlook. OK, so Microsoft Outlook sucks. That's hardly big news to folks in the business, and it certainly doesn't represent anything like a major flaw in the nature of the Internet (after all, Microsoft servers are still a minority on the Internet), or a threat to national security or something. I think the article does a good job now of explaining why you might want to consider not having the same e-mail program as your neighbor, and that's a good thing. --LDC

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In reference to the term "monopoly", I already did weasel out and say "near monopoly", but I think it is important to the point being made that we use much stronger language than "market leader", because mere market leadership isn't enough to cause the monoculture problem. The problem really is caused by the fact that a huge majority of people have Word, etc. Besides, the term "monopoly" is a legal fact now, even though they can't yet decide what to do about it, so Microsoft has utterly no standing to complain about it (as if they would anyway) You can't let irrational and uninformed fear of libel suits guide production of encyclopedia articles. Grow a damned spine and write the facts; after they sue, maybe we can change things. --LDC

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OK, OK, I see where you're coming from. I just didn't want to see Wikipedia become the place where Linux and Mac advocates voice their bitter hatred towards Microsoft... it is an encyclopedia areticle, after all. Anyway, I was thinking, shouldn't we mention something about antivirus programs? Surely that in itself has become one of the larger software selling points- most new computers come with an antivirus program.

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Yes, there should be more on that than the present brief mention. I'll see what I can do. --LDC

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Cunc, I still think "near monopoly" is the better term here, because I'm using "monopoly" in the sense of "no alternative" to emphasize the monoculture problem, not in the legal sense of "anti-competitive business" which is irrelevant to this article (except to the degree that the latter leads to the former). In that sense, clearly unadorned "monopoly" isn't true, because there have always been alternatives, they're just not commonly used. In other words, what I'm trying to say here is that a Word macrovirus is especially dangerous because almost everybody has Word and passes documents around. That "almost" isn't just a weasel-word thrown in to be PC, it's important to keep the statement factual. --LDC

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Just curious, Cunc, but what do you have against paragraphs? Each of your edits seems to add subheads every few sentences, and every sentence its own paragraph. You're stealing all my screen space! :-)

Paragraphs are evil. I'm not really against paragraphs, but I feel it's important to separate individual ideas as much as possible, so that we don't let confusion/vagueness/ambiguity of one idea infect another. Sometimes I'll try to recombine things into paragraphs; sometimes I try to break things apart. This entry seemed to need some breaking apart to discern the separate issues, which could then be broken off into separate entries. --TheCunctator

The ideas are separated: by periods, into sentences. Sentences are then grouped into overall topics, which are called paragraphs. It has worked quite well for centuries, and I suggest you try it. Certainly macro viruses as a separate entry makes sense, and other topics will split off as more information about them is provided. But a paragraph of only one sentence shows a basic misunderstanding of English prose structure, and subheads every 2-3 sentences is just silly. Please, let the writers write. --LDC

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The legal sense of "monopoly" is not "anti-competitive business". It's "having enough market share to be a) immune from competitive pressures and/or b) able to act anti-competitively." It's certainly true that b) doesn't have much to do with computer viruses, but a) does.

"Near-monopoly" doesn't seem to quite capture what you mean; I don't think one can reasonably talk about near monopoly, just degrees of monopoly.

In that sense, clearly unadorned "monopoly" isn't true, because there have always been alternatives, they're just not commonly used.

Rather, I'd say it certainly is. "Monopoly" doesn't mean no alternatives, it just means not enough alternatives for free market pressures to be effective: it means exactly what you wrote after "because".

If you don't buy my argument, we could always change it to "market dominance". --TheCunctator

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"Monopoly" is not one of those words that has degrees--it's like "unique", either it is or it ain't. It's not possible to be "very unique" or "slightly unique", but it is possible to be "almost unique" or "nearly unique". Likewise "near monopoly". I realize it's been watered down a bit now that its meaning has been usurped by the economic version, but that's not the primary meaning of the word. The word really does literally mean "no alternatives", and it still has that connotation to my ears (and probably to others of my age). That's a fine point of English usage, but I want to get it right. --LDC

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Is it correct that Linux has far less viruses than Windows? --User:Hirzel

Bluntly, yes. There are several thousand known viruses for Windows, as can be seen in browsing Symantec's encyclopedia of viruses (http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/vinfodb). In contrast, there have been only a handful of true viruses that run under Linux, all of them confined to experimental settings.

A true virus is unlikely under Linux, because it must be run by a user and infect either an executable file, a library, or the boot sector. All of these are owned by root, and an ordinary user doesn't have write access to them! The distinction between root and an ordinary user in Linux is much stronger than that between the Administrator user (or "system context") and an ordinary user in Windows. (It could also be said that the Linux/Unix permissions system is much less flexible than Windows's!)

There have, however, been a number of network worms infecting Linux systems, such as the Ramen worm and the recent Slapper worm. Windows, however, has had a great many more worms, including last year's infamous Code Red and Nimda, and the endless torrent of email-based worms such as Klez, Snowhite, and ILOVEYOU.

The media have been making comparisons between Slapper and Code Red as if they were similar in their spread. They aren't. Slapper has infected a few thousand systems in a week or so. Code Red infected that many in an hour, and within a few days had spread to over half a million systems! Slapper's innovation is not its spread, but its payload -- a unique sort of DDoS program based on P2P design principles.

I hope this clears things up a little. --Fubar Obfusco

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Why on earth was this article renamed from computer virus to Virus (computing)? --Brion 11:23 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

Good question! That sounds like a better place for it to me ... --FOo

I've moved it back here. No one would ever spontaneously link virus (computing) or let it appear in the text of an article without piping it, while computer virus is used constantly. --Brion 01:05 Oct 24, 2002 (UTC)