-=> JASEN BETTS wrote to KURT WISMER <=-

 KW>>> o "email viruses" are OFF-TOPIC!  They do NOT exist!

 JB>>> Are we supposed to call them worms instead?

 JB>> but they're not worms because they don't spread by themselves...

 KW> that is not necessarily part of the definition of a worm...

 JB> even your definition make no mention of human assistance.
 JB> this has been the one I've been using.

it makes no mention of requiring human assistance but it also makes no
mention of not requiring human assistance...

requiring or not requiring human assistance is not part of the
definition - some do require it and some don't...

 :worm: n. [from `tapeworm' in John Brunner's novel "The Shockwave Rider",
 JB>    via XEROX PARC] A program that propagates itself over a network,
 JB>    reproducing itself as it goes. Compare {virus}. Nowadays the term
 JB> has
 JB>    negative connotations, as it is assumed that only {cracker}s write
 JB>    worms. Perhaps the best-known example was Robert T. Morris's {Great
 JB>    Worm} of 1988, a `benign' one that got out of control and hogged
 JB>    hundreds of Suns and VAXen across the U.S. See also {cracker},
 JB> {RTM},
 JB>    {Trojan horse}, {ice}.

 JB>> the user has to alteast run the email application and usually
 JB>> open the message too and often then open(or run) an attachment...

 KW> that doesn't make it any less a worm...

 JB> To me that makes it a trojan horse, escpecially in the last case.

if it self-replicates it is a virus, a worm, or both... that doesn't
mean it can't also be a trojan, adware, spyware, a back door, etc...
they are not mutually exclusive classes...
 
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