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cial.
Hygiene pays off. AT&T resisted the great Internet virus of November 2, 1988 [3], by good housekeep-
ing and good luck, in the words of Fred Grampp. Good housekeeping, because the keepers of the corpo-
rate network gateway, especially Dave Presotto, refused to run the tortuous software that the virus
exploited. Good luck, because some AT&T computers did run that software, but, thanks to the gateway,
were not exposed directly to the Internet.
Computer viruses are aptly named. They are a consequence of programming as disease is a consequence of
living. Higher forms of programming, like higher forms of life, are subject to more forms of disease. So it
is with shells. In a rich environment of software tools, a shell becomes a programming language of remark-
able power. Ultimately the ends to which that power may be turned will be determined by community
norms and sanctions.
References
1. Dewdney, A.K. Computer recreations. Scientific American 250, 5 (May, 1984), 15-19.
2. Duff, T.D.S. Viral attacks on UNIX system security. In Proceedings of the Winter 1989 Usenix con-
ference, Usenix Association, Berkeley, January, 1989.
3. Eichen, M. and Rochlis, J. With microscope and tweezers: an analysis of the Internet virus of Novem-
ber 1988. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1988.
4. Highland, H.J. Random bits and bytes. Computers and Security 7 (1988), 337-346.
5. Kocher, B. A hygiene lesson. CACM 32 (1989), 3,6.
6. Molière Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Act II, Scene 4, Paris, 1670.
7. Reeds, J.A. /bin/sh: The biggest UNIXÛö security loophole. AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill,
NJ, 1984.
8. Shulman, S. Virus-proof computer security system. Nature 337 (5 January, 1989), 4.
9. Thompson, K. Reflections on trusting trust. CACM 27 (1984), 761-764.
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