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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.
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.
Utter, utter crap, language is a living thing, if a word is in common usage,as virii is, it is a word, no matter how much the grammar / spelling nazis whine about it.
Yes, virus is in common usage. Virii is not. Only geeks who want to feel clever use it. You'll never hear a biologist talk about virii...
Remote exploits on unpatched machines go back quite a while too, at least to 1988 (the Morris worm).
As long as there are security holes in programs that interface with the network (such as sendmail), people will try to use them for malicious (or at least non-beneficial) purposes.
In English, AFAIK, the plural of a word ending with 's' is 'ses'. Hence virus -> viruses.
'virii' does bear some resemblance to _Latin_ plurals. For example, the plural of 'radius' is 'radii' which is a Latin plural, but used in English as well. Note that here 'us' changes into 'i', which is why you might argue that virus -> viri (single 'i' at the end).
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Viruses, not virii. Just thoughgt I'd let you kno.
It's "thought" and "know", not "thoughgt" and "kno". Just thought you ought to be a bit less pedantic for being such a typographical heir.
> As the submitter of the story, I feel the same way, although I do get annoyed when a certain friend of mine uses the word 'irregardless'.
Just be glad he doesn't use 'disregardless'.
> I would be willing to bet that most people that read the subject line of the story will understand exactly what it means...and someday, when they put 'virii' in a dictionary somewhere, I hope they'll put my name beside it...yeh!!!
Supposedly the reason the American Heritage dictionary was created was that certain personality types were offended with Webster's policy of treating dictionaries as descriptive rather than prescriptive, and adding new word-forms as they came into vogue.
Assuredly, if enough people adopt 'virii' it will eventually show up in dictionaries, and then all the people reviling it will suddenly have to admit that it's OK... The OED adds new words on a regular basis; we should all start using 'virii' just to see if we can get our word in.
Notice in passing that every word we speak was made up by somebody somewhere along the way. Those who don't like neologisms can choose to deal with it or not deal with it, but it isn't going to make much difference over the long run.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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)
It may be true that the lead articles in /. should be held to a higher standard than replies, but that's no excuse to bury useful discussion in a flood of pedantry.
Whatever happened to the playfulness with words that is supposed to be one of the earmarks of the hacker culture?
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).
Whatever happened to the playfulness with words that is supposed to be one of the earmarks of the hacker culture?
I dunno, it beats me. I usually like making up words that suit my fancy or that sound 'right', and if done properly, intelligent people will respond favourably to that, even if the word isn't in the dictionary. As for the nitpickers though, I guess I just get kind of bugged when someone points out that 'virii' is wrong in english because of some latin stuff. Cripes, I don't know any latin, how was I supposed to know...
It is more accurate to say that ENGLISH has evolved for just that reason, as (at least) French and Hebrew have government institutions perserving the status of the language. You might recall a recent story about l'Acadime Francais coming up with a word for "e-mail"... The French language doesn't evolve because it is basically illegal to teach the language in a way that isn't endorsed by the Academy.
Buttsex.
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.
I'm calling you on this one. I've been reading quite a few books on viruses, and I've read Cohen's paper from 1984 on viruses, and his A Short Course on Computer Viruses. Both are _very_ informative. The paper from 1984 described experiments back in the day when people would say that there system is absolutely secure, no way to doo anything to it, period (people still say it, but back then, others believed them.) His Course on Viruses is also excellent - it has a very concise set-theoretic basis for viruses. He may very well be whoring for his security company (I wouldn't know), but don't doubt this man's ability to write concise, accurate, funny texts on the subject.
This statement is false.