Sometime Today, Satya assembled some asciibets to say:
> I was also referring indirectly to the ILOVEYOU trojan.
That's actually a worm dude. A trojan sits on your computer pretending to
be something it's not. You'd most likely install it knowingly thinking
that it's something you want. IIS4.0 with Frontpage extensions turned out
to be a trojan.
A Worm is a program that uses the resources on your machine to propagate.
It does not infect files but rather just duplicates itself (asexual
reproduction?). The ILOVEYOU and Melissa worms duplicate themselves by
mailing themselves to people in your address book.
A Virus is something that can self-replicate. It *must* also have a
carrier. A Virus cannot propagate on its own, but must have a host
program in which it will live. It moves along with the host infecting
other hosts that the original host comes in contact with (by being in the
same RAM or the harddisk attached to that RAM).
None of the above need to contain malicious code. In fact, the first
virus - Brain - was only self replicating, living on the boot sector of
floppies. It did nothing more than print Happy Birthday Joshi (I may be
wrong with this last part so someone correct me if I am.)
> That doesn't help if the luser goes point-click-drool (happens).
Ya, try this: Send a mail to all your guy friends with an infected
executable and tell them "Nude pics. Click here". Then see how many
death threats you get.
Philip
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