Word: computerizes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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In some cases, the threat of a virus is enough to spread panic. When scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab were warned by a Government security center last May that a virus lurking in the lab's 450 computers was set to be activated that day, many users stopped...
Industry experts are concerned that the publicity surrounding virus ) infections, like the attention given political kidnapings, could invite more attacks. "When we talk viruses, we create viruses," cautions Robert Courtney, a computer consultant from Kingston, N.Y. "We almost make it a self-fulfilling prophecy."
The idea of an electronic virus was born in the earliest days of the computer era. In fact, it was Computer Pioneer John von Neumann who laid out the basic blueprint in a 1949 paper titled "Theory and Organization of Complicated Automata." If most of his colleagues found the idea...
The researchers used this insight to stage the first Core War: a series of mock battles between opposing armies of computer programs. Two players would write a number of self-replicating programs, called "organisms," that would inhabit the memory of a computer. Then, at a given signal, each player's...
These clandestine battles, which took place late at night when computer usage was low, were quietly sanctioned by Bell Labs' bemused managers, many of whom were senior scientists. The fun soon spread to other leading computer- research facilities, including Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center and the artificial-intelligence lab...