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From: bob@allosaur.cis.ohio-state.edu (Bob Sutterfield)
To: phage
X-To: phage
Subject: another point to the media
Date: Mon, 7 Nov 88 11:20:18 EST
X-Date: Mon 11:20:18 07/11/1988 EST

Here are some more points that I've been trying to bring across to the
media:

One person in town who was interviewed by a local TV station on Friday
night offered a sound bite like: "Avoiding virusus is as easy as safe
sex: don't share your programs!"  In response, I have been pointing
out, to any who will listen, that

(a) The site at which that person is employed isn't even connected to
    the Internet, and therefore wasn't even involved in this one (in
    other words, the guy gets low credibility points)
(b) Nobody wanted to share this particular program
(c) The sharing of effort is the whole basis of the academic
    enterprise in Western society

Without cooperation in research, which is the whole point of the
Internet, there would be nothing interesting for the bad guys to try
to destroy or steal, even if they could have by such a ploy as this
particular worm.  The way scientific progress happens in this part of
this century depends upon things like the Internet, and the only way
to be sure of not getting bit is to be as secure as your average SAC
base, which is to say, very inconvenient to the users who are supposed
to be on the systems doing their research.  Instead, academic and
research sites hire people like those on this list to keep a close
watch and stay up nights when things go wrong (they will go wrong
again).  Which leads in nicely to the sound bite I've been trying to
provide, and which has been picked up once so far,

(d) "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance".
								--Bob