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Do you have anti-virus software installed on your computer or mobile device? Computer viruses are everywhere, and people are afraid of accidentally stealing important personal information. Everyone calls “computer virus” a hit, but the people who originally defined it don’t think so. Fred was the first academic to formally propose the definition of computer virus. Cohen is one of the few outliers who believes that viruses can do good. He believes that these things may be closer to “living programs” than “viruses”.
Text/Scott. J. Shapiro, translator/Liu Weiren, Lu Jing
The popularization of the term “computer virus” comes from David. David Gerrold’s 1972 science fiction novel “When HARLIE was One”. “HARLIE” is the abbreviation of “Human Analog Robot Life Input Equivalents”. It has built-in all human knowledge and has a mind equivalent to that of an eight-year-old boy.
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In the company that produced Harry, there was a short-sighted manager who wanted to dismantle Harry and sell it for cash. When Harry found out, he used a program called a “virus” to hack into the company’s system to threaten the top management and prevent Harry from making money. this action. According to Gerald’s own account, the word virus came from a joke he made to a programmer when he was chatting with him in the summer of 1968.
Nowadays, people are familiar with computer viruses. As long as there is something wrong with the computer, we will immediately wonder whether it is infected with a virus. We even think of computer viruses as malicious code, or malware in general. As long as it is a hateful program that goes against our interests, it is called a computer virus.
Malware is not the same as a virus
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So what do you call a security expert? There are many different opinions, but everyone agrees that malware is not the same as a virus.
First, viruses have the ability to replicate themselves, and not all malware can spread in this way. Fred is the first employee to formally propose the definition of a computer virus. Fred Cohen, for example, believes that a computer virus is “a program that can modify the contents of the host by “infecting” other programs and thereby continue to evolve.” According to this definition, a computer virus can insert itself into a command file , and the Vienna virus that replicates is a computer virus.
And even if it can replicate itself, it may not be considered a virus. Viruses must not only be able to replicate themselves, but also be able to replicate recursively, passing on the ability to replicate to future generations and forever. In other words, only those programs that can replicate themselves, and the copied programs can also replicate themselves, are considered viruses.
This kind of recursive replication is an important characteristic of computer viruses and worms, which can cause the number of programs to explode rapidly. When you are infected with virus V1, after a cycle, V1 gives birth to V2, and the virus becomes two. In the second cycle, V1 replicates once to give birth to V3, V2 also replicates once to give birth to V4, and the two become four; in the third cycle, V1 gives birth to V5, V2 gives birth to V6, V3 gives birth to V7, V4 gives birth to V8, and the four becomes Eight; in the fourth cycle, eight becomes sixteen, and in the fifth cycle it becomes thirty-two. After ten cycles, there will be more than a thousand viruses in your computer.
This is called “exponential growth.” There are only sixteen viruses in the fourth cycle, but there will be more than one billion in the thirtieth cycle. And this is because the preset number doubles every cycle. If it triples every cycle, the number will exceed one billion in the nineteenth cycle. If it becomes ten times, then nine cycles are enough. Viruses are so scary because they can multiply rapidly in a very short period of time, threatening countless files and computers.
Are viruses necessarily malware?
At the same time, this also shows that there are conditions for becoming a virus. If malware cannot recursively replicate itself, it is not a virus. But you must be thinking at this time: What about the other way around? Are viruses necessarily malware?
Most antivirus experts would say “yes” and they don’t believe there are benevolent viruses in the world. Viruses can disrupt the delicate operation of programs, leading to unpredictable results and even disasters. Speaking of which, the English word “virus” actually comes from the Latin word “poison”, which in ancient times even specifically referred to snake venom. Have you seen Kind Snake Venom?
However, Cohen, who popularized the term “virus”, has a different view. He is one of the few who believes that viruses can do good. He regretted using the word to describe computer viruses, because something that replicates itself and spreads itself is supposed to improve society. He believes that instead of calling these things “viruses”, they may actually be closer to “living programs”.
The reason why the term “virus” spread like wildfire may be related to the AIDS crisis in the American gay community at that time. In 1983, scientists discovered that AIDS is caused by the HIV virus, which infects human T cells and uses the functions of T cells to replicate itself and continue to infect other cells and other people.
This discovery caused an uproar and made the word “virus” known to everyone. The next year, Cohen happened to use the same word to describe computer viruses.
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*The excerpt of this document comes from “Fantasy bear fishing online“, reprinted with permission from Yuezhi Culture, and also agreed to TechOrange’s preparation of the introduction and revision of the title.
(Editor: Chen Kechun)
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2023-10-16 01:15:01
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