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20 Years of Virii
DenOfEarth writes "News.com has an article outlining that it was around twenty years ago that a computer security reasearcher coined the term 'virus', and how the things have been running amok. Interestingly enough, when said researcher applyed for research funding to look into a blanket solution to this possible 'virus' problem, he was turned down."
Virii is not a word.
Drive safely.
heh these first posts have become a virus, shame they are not in the article...
From dictonary.com:
Q. What is the plural of virus?
A. Viruses.
It is not viri, or (which is worse) virii. True, the word comes directly from Latin, but not all Latin words ending in -us have -i as their plural. Besides, viri is the Latin word for 'men' (plural of vir, man, the root the English virile). There is in fact no written attestation of a Latin plural of virus.
If you would like to pursue the subject further, see the excellent article What's the Plural of `Virus'? at Perl.com. If you have some knowledge of linguistics and Latin, you might be interested in the morphological analysis of the word from the Perseus Project.
Put enough people into a system and it starts to behave like an organic system rather than individuals each doing their thing.
Viruses, worms, trojans are way past the point of being expressions of individualistic derangement.
They represent the nasty side of the biology of the Net: the fact that any simulated or real ecosystem produces more parasites than non-parasites, and that non-parasites have to spend a significant amount of energy fighting off the bugs.
Two decades is not significant in itself, but it should be a stark warning that viruses are not going to go away, that the Net is turning "wild", and that we need something other than daily antivirus updates to keep our systems safe.
However, while it is an improper Latin conjugation of 'virum', it is the proper term for a collection of computer malware (recognized since 1996.)
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
'Virii' is not the plural of 'virus.' 'Virii' is not even a word.
There is 'vari' in Latin, but it's the nominative plural of 'vir,' meaning 'man.' There's also a Latin form of 'virus,' 'viri,' but it's not a nominative plural, it's a genitive singular.
For there to be plural 'virii,' there must first be a singular 'virius.' There isn't. The proper plural of 'virus' is 'viruses.'
That's like a blanket solution to terrorism. You either make massive defenses and have every person watch out for themselves, or go get rid of the people who do this sort of thing. As far as I'm concerned, antivirus software is just playing catch-up to what's already been unleashed.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
Viruses were much cooler in the early nineties. They didn't spread as wildfire on the internet, but at least they did cool thing as code morphing to foil antivirus programs.
And why is this guy surprised that he doesn't get a grant for a "blanket solution" for viruses? I've got a blanket solution for world hunger and cancer, but I'm not getting any reasearch funding either.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
I still find it amazing that people who put so much into lerning about computers also have the immaturity to damage them.
With great power comes great responsibility: be it spiderman, karate, or coding.
The plural of "virus" is neither "viri" nor "virii", nor even "vira" nor "virora". It is quite simply "viruses", irrespective of context. See here
Interestingly enough, when said researcher applyed for research funding to look into a blanket solution to this possible 'virus' problem, he was turned down."
While I really doubt that this researcher would have been able to find a blanket solution, perhaps he would have been able to at least create awareness about virii/security problems, and maybe we wouldn't have these holes in SMTP and everything...
the damn fool didn't patent the idea and save many people a lot of bother :-)
Up to a certain point, virii generally relied on some form of human intervention or mistake by which to proliferate themselves.
It seems that many of the early viruses were trojans, hiding in other software or with games. A few were hunter-seeker variants, looking for new places to infect but generally relying on either a weak user to infect to "climb the ladder" or a trojaned machine.
Today, virii can get an unpatched machine from halfway across the world without requiring anything more than it be on with an internet connection (and unpatched). How's that for scary evolution?
I still remember the days when virii were transmitted on diskettes with boot-sector infections. Don't really worry much about those anymore today, though it really is interesting how a stealthy virus that sneaks in under the radar compares to many of todays obvious virii that take advantage of the dumb (e.g.. those clicking the attachment).
Still, I suppose that:
This is a new game I made 4u.
Pleaze click here to play my fun game
Isn't really all that different from early virii hiding inside trojanized games... both taking advantage of human elements.
Simpsons Quote wins again! You must be praising the wrong god.
is spreading like a... yeah.
I posted this same damn article yestarday...
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
Users on a multi-user computer system behave like viruses, utilising the hosts resources, sometimes even going wild and destroying the host itself.
Get your own free personal location tracker
I though when I read the headline was "I'm betting more than half of those first posts are people whining about the use of the word virii", I was right.
While reading the live memory, I found a message stating "Tequilla and Beer forever" along with an address in Switserland if I recall correctly. Ah, those where the days.... Where viruses were no lame email worms but appended themselves to executables.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
When he asked for funding from the National Science Foundation three years later to further explore countermeasures, the agency rebuffed him.
A typical problem with getting research funded (or published) is that the gatekeepers, the people who decide what gets funded/published, often choose what is worthy based on their own research interests. One generally has to have established a track record to become a gatekeeper, which means that new ideas are often shut out, while researchers pursue what they think are the current "fashions."
James Gleick (author of Chaos) tells how he was warned by professors that he'd ruin his career wasting his time with this "chaos" nonsense. (Fortunately, he ignored them.)
You know, I always wondered how in the world they came up with the word "virus" for harmful code that renders a system useless after infecting others...
Cover your eyes and click this link!
There is no way there is a double in the plural of virus, even in latin the plural nominative would probably either be viri, or viruses. In english though it is definitely viruses see what the dictionary has to say
Here's the company which created the first computer virus for the PC architecture. Interesting story on this page.
Banu
For the longest time, it was not in the OED,
Neither were cunt, spam and a thousand other words that have come into the living language. Take reefer for instance. is reefer a word? what is its origin? who authorized it to be an excepted word?
Since these words have become accepted in modern use, I suggest you fuck off, cunt, and take your spam with you! Smoke some reefer and mellow out, befo I get jiggy wif yo bas ass!
[/obligatory Windows bashing]
In all seriousness, this is an interesting story...though not a new happening, the phenomena of research abused is always a reminder of the responsibility that any great thinker has. This was a great research project in 1984, and now it's the bane of networked systems. Not to say that we should all boo Skrenta, and I'm sure he wasn't the only person at the time to have the idea. In fact, in this case, Skrenta tried to take initiative and research methods of plugging the holes, come up with fixes and the like, but the governemnt, in it's wisdom, stimied the project.
And the thing about Darwin...
I've been toying with the idea of self replicating code that incorporated the experiences of code that had gone before (sort of a cyber descolada for Orson Scott Card fans out there). This would be an evolving, assimilating code snippet that could be distributed and make blanket changes. Unfortunately, the very obvious problem is quality control, and the fact that somebody (for whatever reason) might not want whatever changes I want to make. So, bad idea.
And then I remembered that that's what Microsoft wanted to do with it's mandatory Window's Update service.
#define CLUE 0
The word applied has been spelt as applyed. I can understand blatant abuse of the English language in the posts by slashdot users but on the main of slashdot - typos are just not acceptable.
"Do you remember the VIRUS program?" ....etc. etc.
"Vaguely. Wasn't it some kind of computer disease or malfunction?"
"Disease is closer. There was a science-fiction writer once who wrote a story about it--but the thing had been around a long time before that.
(p. 175, in the 1975 Ballantine paperback reprint: I think I have the 1972 serialization in Galaxy somewhere in a box upstairs, but I can't be arsed to dig it out)
Actually, as described in the succeeding pages, VIRUS was more of a worm (a term coined by John Brunner in "The Shockwave Rider", but you knew that already); but the idea of malware called a virus was around in the early 70s at least.
Any time you read an article and see Fred Cohen's name, you can stop reading right there, because you know another so called "journalist" has fallen hook, line, and sinker for this guy's self-aggrandizing line of bullshit. Note that you'll never find an article quoting X as saying Fred Cohen is the father of computer viruses, unless X is Fred Cohen. He's shilling for his security consulting firm, plain and simple. He no more "invented" the computer virus than Al Gore invented the Internet. Please, Slashdot, stop feeding this buttplug's enormous ego!
Cantankerous old coot since 1957.
Viruses, not virii. Just thoughgt I'd let you kno.
17 people jump into the discussion to say that "virii" should be "viruses".
Yet no one complains that "applyed" should be written "applied".
Strange.
Alright, alright...enough people have commented on my misspelling of the plural form of virus, rightly so, as their dictionaries tell them 'virii' is not a word. Also, I did misspell the word 'applied' as 'applyed'. I used to get A's in spelling when I was younger, but maybe I'm getting rusty, sorry for that. Maybe I shouldn't smoke dope before posting stories...
My question is whether it really matters or not. I don't think the blurb of text is incomprehensible, and since it's not a legal brief or anything like that, there is no binding meaning to the words. I've looked at the comments, and some people have also used the word 'virii', probably without thinking it was wrong. Is there anybody out there who read '20 years of virii' and didn't know what that meant? I'm really interested, as I would be willing to bet that most people who read that statement would be thinking within seconds that the story concerned a plural form of the virus being around for 20 years, or something very similar (unless they were a native latin speaker, in which case they might have been a bit fucked up).
I'm not trying to slam on the nitpickers or anything, but really, what is communication? Is it being able to form coherent thoughts in another human being's brain, or is it following a bunch of rules that need to be updated every once in a while to keep up with our own language mutation that takes place daily?
hehe...I've never been put on a soapbox before because I made spelling mistakes, so to those who really take offense to my spelling, I'm sorry that you weren't able to understand the words I wrote, and to those that 'got it', I hope you thought the story was interesting.
Learn to read and write your own language.
If only cohen had've patented the computer Virus'
that virii may well end up in the dictionary, not as a true latin word, but as a modern slang term or 'latinism' simply because its use seems to persist so much. Virii may become a word in the moredn living english language even if it was never one in the latin tongue.
(Warning, ignorance ahead.)
I think a capability system (ex. EROS) is theoretically invulnerable because a virus would never have the rights it needs to infect. I barely understand how a capability system works, but I think it goes like this:
Your e-mail client (for example) can't see anything but itself and e-mail (not even the file system), and it doesn't have authority to write onto itself.
This is possible because every process or program has it's own set of "keys" that grant it rights to see/read/write/modify/execute a file, resource, or process. This is in comparison to giving universal rights/limits to users which apply equally to every process and program run under that username.
I've been looking at FAQs and asking questions here and there, but never got a grasp at how it secures without disabling the ability to administer a computer or what it means for viruses.
Anyone?
I thought it was applIEd ? :)
you may find the Higgs in this signature.
does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
I was having a red wine fuelled conversation with some friends on the subject of viruses, worms and Internet security the other day. We were discussing how connectivity has changed the landscape with regards to the impact of viruses, bugs and worms. In the eighties and early nineties there was less connectivity than we have with the modern Internet. The obvious analogue to human viral pathogens and the rise of jet aircraft travel between countries shows how this will only get worse as more devices are connected to Internet and how inoculation and prevention together with secure coding practices (something which has no human virus equivalent at the moment, but who knows where DNS techniques will take us) are becoming mandatory. Should all devices connecting to the network be licensed and approved as cars travelling on roads today must be?
The most interesting point raised was when (if?) we reach the point where viruses are classifiable as sentient beings. Do we then have the right to arbitrarily exterminate them? I could in my stupidest dreams foresee a court case where the latest Internet Explorer 99 bug is arguing for it's continued existence, social welfare and the right to bear children.
Also, watch my blog for the upcoming article, "20 years of people finally getting to use something from their high-school Latin class."
Look, it is really, really simple:
;-)
It doesn't matter if it's latin. It doesn't matter if it's correct latin. It doesn't matter that the plural is viruses in english or not.
When are you guys going to realise that english (and any other language) is stuffed with words from other languages, wrongly used words, words that never existed, words that were wrong at the time but became commonplace, words that are currently written the way they are because they used to be too lazy to write them properly, etc.
A lot of words you (now) think is correct english, (and where you are keen to point the dictionary to), were dead wrong 100 years, or maybe even only a decade ago. Now, that's a fact, and I don't think even the contra-virii will deny this.
Thus, whether something is considered a word or not, is SOLELY depending on the use of it. If people use it, it becomes a word, point. The origins and the wrong or rights of it don't enter the picture anymore, just as it doesn't with the words you use everyday now, but were once seen as equally wrong as you now claim 'virii' is.
Now, people claiming it's necessary to 'nip it in the butt' are severly lacking the understanding of how a living language works. First of all, nipping everything in the but that doesn't is in the dictionary already is a sure way to become a dead language. And secondly, it's not possible to nip a word in anything by discussing and writing about it.
And thirdly, while the use may not be whidespread yet, it is becomming more and more so (and, as indicated, it can't be stopped just by saying you don't like it). Do a search on google: there is a lot talk about virii already. Maybe, what now is still the use of a subgroup, will become common language for a certain meaning of the word, namely the plural for computerviruses (as in contrast with biological ones). Now, I can't see why that would be thus wrong. A word in first instance defined by the kind of use it is made, and in turn this has to do with (and if) people understand the meaning of the word.
Now, nobody can deny that, in this respect, virii scores very well; even those that opose it so vehemently know EXACTLY what it stands for and what it means (or portrays to mean). So, the general recognition of the meaning of the word is already there, the rapid adoption of the word is already there...it's just going the same way as all those other 'wrong' words that are common usuage today.
So, pls, get a grip. Not liking the word has nothing to do with the viability of it becoming a 'real' word.(Certainly not when using the word while demonstrating that it shouldn't be used
And no, my native language ain't english, so spare me the bad jokes of the quality of my english words.(Which will probably be much higher then the quality of your french anyway, with the odd exeption, no doubt)
We DO use proper latin plurals of some latin words..
but in latin, Virus had no plural, it was a mass-plural itself, ie "slime" or "pestilence" or "mold". They didn't know about what we now call viruses... so there is no reason at all to call it virii. It's not a word.
First the virus infects the human host with the desire to write the software for the virus. Then the software virus infects multiple computers and multiplies. Then another person sees the power/attention garnered by the virus and is themselves infected. And so the cycle goes -- infecting both humans and computers.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
There is one solution to the 'virus' problem that everyone in the networking and security field knows about, but which few professionals endorse due to conflicts with business and commerce.
The solution to 'viruses' is diversity in systems. This stems from the biological viewpoint which makes us realize that while one type of system may be vulnerable to a specific flaw, a mix of different systems (each with their own properties) will offer greater resilience.
Think of the Internet, and how much trouble has been caused by Microsoft Windows viruses. Because of the Microsoft monoculture, the Internet has come to the brink of disaster several times (worm outbreaks; flooding of DNS root servers; and most notably, spam and increasingly fragmented global communications as a result).
Speaking of virus it has always been somewhat mysterious. I remember when I compiled my first dos virus in assembling it was such a painful task. From the initial assumption to the final accomplishment it took me more than 3 months, but what I had compiled was still at mess. Recently I come up with the idea that virus ultimately is something that affects other files and spreads itself, so it would not be too complicated to compile a virus by shell. Then I conveniently compiled the following script. Its functionality is to affect other shell programs.
This program is of little practical significance, but it is helpful to visually understand the virus spread mechanism. Therefore, its instructive significance is more important than the practical one.
Read the rest here.
You can use -either-. Don't forget, English is by no means a perfect language (colour, color anyone?) Check your head and you -may- just see the light.
befo I get jiggy wif yo bas ass!
Why on earth would you want to fuck my donkey?
I was having problems with Opera - unless I emulated Lynx using my User Mode CSS stylesheet picker. Interestingly, I didn't get modded down for any of that (AFAIK - it was all AC).
(pointless going there - my server's down right now)
Did you read that? BTW, if it were up, it probably would have went QUICK. Also, no-ip is free, whereas a static IP isn't.
wwwwwell jesus, you shouldn't be using opera. fucktard!
next time a clickable link! bozo!
I'm helping police Slashdot right now, and I figure blowing some karma should prove how devoted I am to offing this guy (from Slashdot). I'm posting with karma bonus for a reason - my posts can last longer that way.
Yes, I know it's stupid to fight in a trollwar with a non-troll account (my only account, too) with Excellent karma (~48), but I have to do it.
Moderators, don't mod me down or funny, but I won't be pissed - I know what I'm getting into here.
virii scores very well; even those that opose it so vehemently know EXACTLY what it stands for and what it means
It roughly translates to "I'm a complete fuckwit"
Congratulations, you are now officially a fuckwit.
Umm... if I just said bhtooefr, you could have found it almost as quickly. Besides, it's down due to hardware failure (2nd channel IDE and graphics card failures), so I'm not scared - you're pinging my router - which isn't public accessible.
God dammit, I'm in a trollwar, and now it's a browser holywar too?
Opera is the best browser for my needs. Why should I run Moz just because someone's doing pagewidening? BTW, I said emulating Lynx made the page wideners not work.
That 'merkins would -even- begin to talk about proper English.
Is it, "I was sat" or "I was sitting"
The point being, all this talk of "virii" or "viruses" is pointless. Dr. Johnson created a dictionary to bring a certain commonality to the language, but it is by no means precise. One of the great things about the English language is that it's ever-changing and dynamic. Afterall, we're no longer speaking (or spelling) in medieval tongue, are we?
Bottom line, if a word comes into usage and is widely accepted (or used) by society, wrong or not, it will become part of the language.
Sorry to burst any bubbles here.
wwwow, get a life. at least I have an excuse !
GOD DAMNED GEEK ASS BASTARDS!
How many of you have ever said "boxen"? I rest my case. Shut the fuck up, viri and virii are fucking slang terms. Fucking hell.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
Life is like surrealism: if you have to have it explained to you, you can't afford it.
I think the point alot of people are trying to push across is that 'Virii' is not currently a word, and they don't want it to be. Ever.
Yeah, words can become part of a language through repeated and common use, but the posts here are trying to prevent that from happening by pointing out that 'Virii' is not a word. It's useless to try and keep using a sequence of letters when you know it isn't a word.
And I agree with them. 'Virii' is not, and should not become, a word. May as well break the headlights and deflate the tires on the 'Virii' bandwagon before it has time to pick up steam.
shit! time to go change my IP address !!
If anyone is following this thread, mod either parent to +4 or grandparent up. This will allow more moderators to see this and blow out the damn pagewideners.
But, in reality, you too know what the term stands for, thus my argument is not false. I'm afraid you let your personal (dis)likings color your judgement, but the fact that you recognised the term for what it wanted to be meant, namely, the plural of computerviruses, can hardly be denied.
;-)
(Or rather, it can, but it's unlikely to be true).
Even when it indicates to you that the user is a fuckwit, you still have recognised the meaning of the word.
btw, I didn't know anonymous cowards like us could make something 'official'
bhtooefr@NoSpaM.softhome.net
http://score-1ot.no-ip.com/
AOL IM: bhtooefr (Add Buddy, Send Message)
Yahoo! ID: bhtooefr (Add User, Send Message)
ICQ UIN: 145451418 (Add User, Send Message)
Jabber: bhtooefr@myjabber.net
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GCS d-() s:+ a-- C++ UBL P+ L+(++) E- W++ N o? K- w@ O-- M- V-- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP(+) t(+) 5? X? R tv++ h+ DI(+) D+(++) G e- h! !r !y+
-----END GEEK CODE BLOCK------ you know youre not supposed to use the karma bonus on offtopic posts, right?
Yes, but I'm using it anyway. I've STILL got Karma 48 (possibly because this whole thread is hidden). It's OT, but I know what I'm doing. BTW, I'm not logged in to any of the IM services (I didn't list bhtooefr@hotmail.com - no room) - haven't been in a couple months. As for the geek code, decipher it. Now.
nah, ive gotta go feed marks cats/fish. no one can see the thread. no editors are in the /. office. everyone wwwill forget about this soon enough. yes, even you :-)
No more will you be able to use the word Virus anymore. I find that the only meaning that word brings out is the bad that is in this world, and I have filed a petition with the government to have ALL references of the word "virus" removed when referring to anything having to do with computer software, hardware, or anything similar. Viruses only cause death in the world and the term causes great pain to those who have dealt with these problems. So please, in the future do not use the word virus, and instead refer to it as "Bill Gates Sperm". Failure to do so will cause you to get your asses sued to hell. Have a good day.
The plural of virus IS virii
5 19 437
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=86514&cid=7
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
I fully understand the (rather emotional) drives that some people have to dislike the word and not wanting to use it.
But there really is little objective basis to exclude it from becomming a 'real' word. You argument that it isn't a word. Indeed, but, as I indicated in my post, this is not detrimental for it to become a 'real' word. There have been words before that, strictly speaking, weren't a word...yet, they are used today as if that fact didn't matter...which it doesn't. So, if you look at it in an objective way, you will have to acknowledge that, since you use common words today that weren't considered a word in the past, it follows that virii to can become a commonly used word in the future, wheteher it's deemed a word now, or not. In fact, even a 'sequence of letters' can become a word.
Thus, agreeing with them (that the word is incorrect) or not, is not a reason on itself why it 'should not' (let alone 'will not') become a real word. this leaves no objective argument why it can not or should not become a valid and commonly used word.
As for the other other reason given, this is a purely emotional one 'not wanting it to be'. This to, I have explained in my post: whether perons want it or not is of little effect, as long as they use the term themselves. To give a clear example: imagine, for instance, that somebody wrote a book "virii is not a word" and explaining extensively why it shouldn't be a word. Well, chances are, by writing a book about the subject, he actually augmented the chances of it becomming a real word, even if he himself is against it.
Why? Because it's the USUAGE that is the biggest determinator of when a word becomes common enough or not. It's, indeed, a catch22, of some sort. The only way to counter this is 1)forbid it by an official language-censorship authority (far from being succesfull in most cases, and involves a power to control the use of the word, which, on the internet, is extremely difficult), 2)ignoring or opposing the use of it, but without using the word itself.
Thus, indications thusfar are, that, due to the general recognition of the meaning of the word, and the rapid usuage of the word (even by those that opose it), it makes a good chance to become a commonly used word (and eventually a 'real'-dictionary-word). And neither is their an objective reason why it 'should' not become so. As I've indicated, the current context-usuage of the word will probably amount (if it gets common) to a specific meaning of a plural of computerviruses (as oposed to biological ones). thus, it will have a discriminatory meaning, which, again, will augment it chances of adoption (because words that already have no niche-use, but mean exactly the same as an already commonly used word, have less chance of being adopted broadly).
In this respect, as someone who studied languages, I'm rather thrilled at this prime example of word-usage, and I fail to see the inherent disdain it evokes by some, seeing that this *is* the way language evolves, after all. I mean, the arguments given are really moot, I repeat; the same arguments have been given about other words, and maybe a lot of persons of 300 years ago would get a heartattack seeing the 'corruption' of todays english...but it doesn't stop you from using those very same words today, without even a blink of an eye.
Thus, the fact that they liked it or not was on itself irrelevant in regard to the broad use these words aparently enjoyed, which is in reality, the only parameter that determines whether or not one can speak of a 'real' word.
The very first computer virus I faced was the Stoned Virus.
Mind you, it wasn't the very first virus I heard of, no, the first one I heard about was the Jerusalem virus.
Anyhow, when I discovered that nearly ALL the machines in our office and just about ALL the diskettes we had were infected with Stoned and reported it to my boss, he actually found it funny!
Even when I explained the damage and data loss that Stoned could cause.
What a dumbass.
Actually, it wasn't HIM that spent hours disinfecting everything.
No, that was MY job, so maybe he was right to laugh...
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
20 years since the invention of the word Virus (in the computing sense of the world)
... or may be just incompetence?
22 yeads since the invention of the world Anti-virus (in the comercial create-a-market for us sense of the word.)http://slashdot.org/search.pl?topic=95
People using virus-friendly operating systems like m$ ones do all kind of weird modifications to their 'os' to try to avoid viruses. why don't just create a stronger environment which actually enforces permission checking and restrict virus-importing software like m$ mail client and browser?
or why they don't create a better binary format that makes infection dificult and keep track of binary file modifications via some kind of checksums ??(it would be a trouble for us, for example, to move from ELF, but for them it won't be such a trouble, since a) they update to yet another new backward incompatible version once a year and b) anything will be easier, faster and easier than having 6 antivirus software running at a time.)
I smell bussines behind this
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
By 1982, there were mutant versions of Apple ][ DOS that were called viruses.
By 1986, the DoD was soliciting RFPs through the SBIR program for people to write viruses.
Cohen and News.com are completely and totally **WRONG** about the coinage of the term. An academic and a news outlet: nobody should be surpised they're full of sh!t.
Is this comment really from the same breed of people that take enormous pride in pluralizing "box" to "boxen", and use other jargon terms that tend to be playful about language rules ("coolitude" etc) - but that are clearly deviant English - just to make a point of knowing how to talk the talk, to make a point of being one in the group?
"Virii" is a niche pluralization, but one that is defacto used, and - more importantly - one that conveys belongingness to a group. I believe the writers use this pluralization; I haven't seen others use it in daily speak.
Again: this is a form that is defacto used. I don't care if you think it's ugly (I sure do, but that doesn't matter).
Allow me to tell the impatient what amazingly INSIGHTFUL comments are coming up:
;-) )
* 39 people reminding you that viruses is the corrent plural, not virii (of which 9 point to dictionary.com)
* 13 people stating that no, virii is correct
* 9 people questioning the manhood, charachter and evolutionary level of the people who defened virii.
* 14 posts about the "good old days"
* 6 comments on how someone should have patented viruses
* 14 informational posts so far
* and only one good joke (hint, you're reading it
(BTW: I'm too lazy to actaully count posts, all of the above numbers are 100% statistical, that is to say, 100% fiction.)
"The Internet itself is the true 'common' threat, not Microsoft. You can't blame Bill Gates for the success of a Linux worm... "
-- Rob Rosenberger
Do you use Ximian instead of Outlook? Beware.
Use Evolution instead of Outlook? Bewa
I believe you meant to say "nip it in the bud", which is a saying that has its roots in gardening.
..wayne..
If people use it, it becomes a word, point.
a-eye. (read "Alright")
Agenda is neuter plural of gerundive agendum. Any latin nerd knows that.
If you are desireness of wordywise playfulings, begart a topics for thems. Nonebody willed complainted thens. If yous postwill factuish artics, use properized English, lestward we thinkage you a cuckwitted moronid semi-literaged drok.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I was told to hand it off to our sysadmin group, and gave it to someone I'd never met before, named David Smith. The day later when I got it back, I was driving home when I heard that someone in NJ named David Smith had been arrested for releasing the worm. While I laughed about the coincidence, and assumed it was someone else since his town in NJ was many miles from my employer, sure enough a few hours later I got mail at work saying a contractor there had been accused of it.
The epilogue is that in the last day he was working there, he worked on at least two computers: mine and that of the head of the lab. And while I was a bit nervous, I'm pretty sure he just did a fine job, and didn't leave any surprises in the systems he was tinkering with at the time.
Robert T. Morris (of the 1988 worm fame) is now a professor at MIT. I wonder what Mr. Smith will be doing a few years from now? (And please avoid the one-liner.... "time" :)
Definitely not "viri". That means "men" - the nominative plural of "vir" (man), a 2nd declension noun. Not "viruses" in Latin either, that's 3rd declension and besides it would almost certainly be "vires". The Latin word "virus" (stink, swamp, poison) OTOH is 4th declension. The plural would be spelled "virus" but pronounced with the "u" stretched out (like "viruuus") if there was a plural - but the surviving Latin literature does not contain a single instance of "virus" in the plural, so it might have been a defective noun (not existing in the plural), or we might just be unlucky. No way to tell now.
Anyway, it's pretentious to use a Latin plural when speaking English, especially when the English meaning has precious little to do with the Latin meaning.
Nope. "agendum" in Latin means "a thing to be done", the gerundive form of the verb "ago" (do, act). "agenda" is the neuter plural "things to be done". Each item on your agenda is an agendum ...in Latin.
that most of the hily modded comments are spended yakking about speling virii (Did I spel it right??? Ask me if I giv a rats ass) Wat I'd like to kno is wat's everybody's faverit free anty-virii program?? AVG, AntiVir, or watever??
What?
I believe you meant to say "nip it in the bud", which is a saying that has its roots in gardening.
True. We want to distinguish it from "nip it in the butt", which clearly takes it's roots from the S & M scene. Or goatse man.
Yes, please, we really want to distinguish from that.
I think the spelling "virii" is a great way to differentiate the organic molecules from the electronic menace. I would even say "virii," as a word is as viral as its namesake. This is also reminiscient of the argument about "hacker" and what being a true hacker is about. The fact is that the press won and the common usage now is exactly the one "real hackers" fought against for years. Of course, the self-appointed English mavens are still bitching about "to boldy go" Give it a rest! Its not the "King's English" anymore.
Damn, bad enough I mispell boldly- I also call the mainstream media "the press!" hoe anachronistic! I just can't do nothun' right!
This month's issue of ACM Communications had an article on enforcing POLA (the Principle of Least Authority) on processes to vastly reduce the amount of damage a virus or worm can do. The idea the article touts is that it is inevitable for programs to have exploitable flaws (like buffer overflows) that allow things like a virus to execute code at the user's level of permissions. In this scheme, no matter what highjacks your email reader program process, it cannot modify normal.dot, erease all your spreadsheets or goof with any other file that that the process doesn't have permission to mess with. Apparently a 'fully functional desktop' and 'prototype Web browser' that do all this has been implemented using the E language. www.erights.org
If "virii" is used as a word, then, yes, it is indeed a word.
HTH.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
...at least have the decency to refer people to my original Slashdot journal entry.
Thank you.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
You sure it's not because of a macro virus?
More than mere navel gazing.
No he had it right, he's French remember (or possibly French-Canadian, which is just the bastard son of being French)
Worms are programs that are self replicating.
Viruses are a type of worm that hide themselves inside other files.
Virii is a blanket term for (usually malicious) worms + viruses.
I've seen a couple people saying "what happened to the playfulness of words in hacker culture", sometimes with references to words like "boxen".
I don't mind "boxen". I usually do mind "virii". The difference is intent. No one *really* thinks that the plural of "box" is "boxen", it's just used for fun. However, too many people sadly think "virii" is the real plural of "virus".
Word playfulness is fine. Ignorance is annoying.
(The same thing applys [ha! It's a joke, son.] to spelling errors. An obvious typo, like, say, "applyed", is fine. When people really think that the contraction of "you are" is "your", then it's annoying.)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
walrus - walruses!
virus - viruses!
GET IT?
Stop using this stupid word "virii". It means nothing and is not a real word!
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
Despite being an AC, the person is precisely right. Gerrold's wonderful book is the first thing I thought of when reading the original article. Twenty years ago indeed! The virus/worm concept was probably thought of a couple of weeks after ENIAC.
For instance...
/. still can't figure out that the plural of virus is viruses.
20 years, and
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
We make new words out of old ones all the time;
we verb anything;
we create words like "tintinabulation" just because of how they sound, or add words just to have another one that means the same thing;
we create euphemisms for euphemisms;
there is even a word or two with roots that come from two different languages;
we have only a few words to describe the qualities of sounds (mostly only distinguishing good sounds from bad ones), and between the qualities of smells (mostly only distinguishing good smells from bad ones);
we can make gramatically correct sentences that are difficult to parse - in fact, it has been proven that we can make such sentences that are impossible to parse.
All these things are, of course, ridiculous.
Why not add one more thing to the list of ridiculii?
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Klerk !? :)
How's life ?
For many people in the UNIX community, the Morris worm was the great wakeup call that the 'net was no longer a safe space where you could trust all the other sysadmins (( as was especially the case when your 'net was really only a LAN )).
As a result of the Morris worm, people started to lock down their systems and software, including simple things like using fgets(3) instead of gets(3).
(This lesson was also available to Microsoft, but they chose to ignore it until very recently.)
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
...screwing octopodes... *Drool*
Wow. A mother with a cock and breasts! The best of both worlds !!
Look virii is just plain stupid.
The original latin word for virus ment a posionious or deadly liquid. A substance.
We don't go around calling water, waters or aquii do we?
Well 300,000 billion years of aquii.
Sure we make up words, English is continously growing a changing.
But making up words to sound like a pretensious prick is something that should be looked down on,
It's VIRUSES, get it right, or prepared to be mocked.
why the hell dont the AV programs deal with most trojans? why the hell do i need to get 3rd part apps to remove them insted of the 30MB AV software running in the background?
I will go against the grain here - as this thread has, like all slash dot threads, got off-topic immediately, and the moderators, bless them and their pea-size brains, mod the posts as 'funny' and 'informative'. One obviously can't have a modicum of order in a trailer park.
The CNET article is so naive it almost does not merit reading. For such a big news company to write crap like this - viruses do not defy a cure; some operating systems defy repair. And that is a big difference.
It's the same with all these half-baked copy prevention systems: they can only exist if bugs can be found in the existing software. Pranksters pounce on Windows because it is such easy prey, totally inappropriate, as Bill Joy commented, for use on the Internet or in any serious situation.
The US Federal Accounting Office has long ago condemned IIS as 'unfixable', and admonished all federal sites to get rid of it. Not that anything changed, but the writing was on the wall.
We've had numerous voices from the open source community condemn Windows, because just having these viruses out there, attacking all the nimrods who run Windows, affects Internet traffic.
We all know where the fault lies. A 'talking head' article published at CNET because news has been slow can have no affect on that.
It's like the cover Microsoft ask for and get from TV and radio stations when yet another exploit is running rampant on the Internet: for at least 48 hours, the media will NOT report that it's just another case of how crappy Windows is.
However, we're not talking Latin and there is unlikely to have been a plural of virus in the sense that it is being used here so in English or American the sensible plural would be viruses and if you want to be pretentious you should use vires. "Virii" is just ignorant posing so why is it prevalent on Slashdot?
(ahem)
Yes, we do. "Waters" is a perfectly correct and frequently-used word. Googling for "waters" gives over 6 million hits.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Tere are some neologisms that are ugly an plain annoying, that become exception to gramatical rules. Example: viri, worst example: virii.
By chosing your neologisms wisely you can enhance your language in a manner that makes it scalable.
I would have thought that a geek would be in favour of that...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... it makes language more complex and thus less usable?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The excuses of the lazy that can't be bothered to at least try to speak his mother tongue properly.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I have an idea. Why don't we stop adding all of the languages together that make up English and just go from one root?
Then we wouldn't have complexities or spelling issues and it would all make sense.
Those, as well as all the things I mentioned, do a lot more to make the language more complex and less usable than using a new word that actually makes sense to a lot of people.
It is better to make the language more flexible and thus more usable through the additional precision than to not allow certain types of new rules.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Example:
"There's a stirrin' in me waters, dagnabbit!"
Example:
"I went to see Roger Waters last night. That sucked."
The correct term is viruses, not virii. Please, when I read that here, I take offense, for it is like the mainstream media mangling the term hacker.
Please do look it up or ask a person who has been in the serious end of the AV business before posting gobbledy-gook commercialized crap that f*cks up the correct terminology.
We shouldn't help the mainstream media screw the jargon because they are idiots.
All Ad hominem replies happily ignored as the sender shall be deemed to lack the faculties to comprehend the equation.
Reading this article reminds me that one the first "biological" creatures was a virus. it is in a sense one of the most basic forms of life. Maybe when we are gone and higher computer based life ruled the universe they will wonder where and how they first came to be infected by these most basic forms of life. also if that is the case is an anti virus software the first evolutionary form of antibodies?
Technology will default in society to its most rudimentary level:::stupid computers for stupid users:::
There is no such word ' virii ', and in fact, the plural of ' virus ' is ' viruses ', not 'virii'. Read on for more details about the proper way to use the word ' virus '.</fud>
Earlier comment What steps do you think could be taken by the EU or US governments in order to create better competition on the operating system level? Would different operating systems harm the quantity and quality of applications due to incompatibility issues? Would some other regulatory step by these institutions increase security more? If Windows was made open source, do you think this would increase security?
English is as flexible as your ignorance.
In the pre-Internet days, Walker found himself telling people to mail him a tape, onto which he would copy the program and return it. He quickly tired of the laborious process: "It was really annoying and got me thinking on how best to distribute the game. That's when I thought about making it self-reproducing."
Seems like one of the first Peer-to-peer networks. It's has the same structure and goals.
--> Insert Funny Sig Here
We don't go around calling water, waters or aquii do we?
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
source
Recent market analysis have found out that the word virii is the word that take the most mod points out of moderators.
=)
peace out!
I suppose the discussion here could have taken the path of "the natural evolution of language", which usually completely fails to conform to any particular set of lingustic rules. In fact such evolution may only be visible *because* it violates the rules.
Instead, everyone seems to intend to stick to the traditional line (and be aware this selfsame argument is over 20 years old) and base their positions on Appleal to Authority. In terms of logic, this is a flaw. In terms of argumentation, it's a constant. It invariably results in people appealing to dictionaries, as though they were prescriptive. They're not: they're descriptive. They tell only how people use language, not how they *should* use it. (OK, some do that, but mostly to satisfy elementary school grammar teachers, who are entirely wrong when it comes to this). At least none I've seen appealed to "Websters'", which is a marketing label in and of itself in no way any more authoritative than Uncle Bubba's Down Home Dictionary, Almanac and Sporting Goods Catalog.
So here's my contribution: I've contacted Fred COhen, author of the 1983 virus paper, and asked his opinion. Here's his response, Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 09:57:13 -0800 (PST):
"I think that this discussion was held at great length in the late 1980s. "viruses" is of course an acceptable spelling and legitimate according
to most dictionaries, while "virii" is another less used but perfectly acceptable plural form as far as I am aware. The quesiton of which is
preferred is a matter of public opinion rather than scientific reconning."
Now, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt, and credit him with using "reconning" (as as slang verb form of "reconnaissance", meaning observation) as an accurate as well as homonymous replacement for "reckoning" (i.e., "figuring out"). After all, if it's "scientific", it's more reconning than reckoning.
I've also asked Rick Skrenta, author of the Apple II Elk Cloner virus, which predates Cohen's paper by over a year, the same question. If he answers, I'll add it.
I absolutely do not expect this all to slow the endless and circular arguments regarding "virii" one iota. But at least I've given you something to think about, and at least put a little effort into adding something new. Speaking of, here's something else:
Despite the media effusion concerning the 20th anniversary of his paper, Cohen says that only one other party contacted him in regards to the subject. Had they done so, they might have learned that although Cohen now resides and teaches at the University of California-San Francisco, he still teaches computer forensics at the University of New Haven (where he was when he wrote the paper) via "distance teaching".
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't "waters" mean several bodies of water (like seas and lakes), or at least refer to a body of water? So referring to the substance itself with "waters" would be wrong.
What trying to get at, is that using "waters" changes the meaning.
Early in the 20th century, researchers found "filterable viruses" caused some infections -- these were poisons (L. virus) that could not be filtered out of fluids with filters then available. Eventually, ceramic filters were made that were fine enough to stop the "poisons" and thus it was found that they were in fact particles of some sort. That's how 'virus' came to be associated with small infectuous units, and when software viruses came along the term was picked up for them.
How stupid is this. The entire thread discusses whether or not Virii is a word and not the content of the post. Welcome to Slashdot.
your statement is not true.
Every language has a lot of words that were once considered 'perversions' too. Also, even when a word already exist, this does not mean that a new word can't become viable neither (certainly not when I suspect the word virii has chances of becomming a more confined word, meaning the plural of computerviruses, specifically).
That said, your assertion that I 'want' virii to become a word is not correct.I neither want it or not, personally. I just think it follows the ways of other words that have become mainstream, and I don't see the adherent 'impossibility' of it becoming the word, not objective reasons why it couldn't become a common word.
As for your fuckwit; indeed, if enough ppl recognise the meaning and start using it, that too could become a 'normal' word, and even get in the dictionary. So, I fail to see your point in this regard.
Even if this was true; since it happend before, it's clear that it doesn't change the fact that a word can become a 'real' word.