Hello.
From ScientificAmerican.com :
"The roots of the modern computer virus go back to 1949, when computer
pioneer John von Neumann presented a paper on the "Theory and
Organization of Complicated Automata," in which he postulated that a
computer program could reproduce. Bell Labs employees gave life to von
Neumann's theory in the 1950s in a game they called "Core Wars." In
this game, two programmers would unleash software "organisms" and
watch as they vied for control of the computer. You can read about
Core Wars in the May 1984 issue of Scientific American.
Strangely enough, two science-fiction books in the 1970s helped to
promote the concept of a replicating program. John Brunner's Shockwave
Rider and Thomas Ryan's Adolescence of P-1 depicted worlds where a
piece of software could transfer itself from one computer to another
without detection."
source: sciam.com
http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=000CE777-555F-1C72-9EB7809EC588F2D7
From Wikipedia:
'... a mid-1970s science fiction novel by David Gerrold, When
H.A.R.L.I.E. was One, includes a description of a fictional computer
program called "VIRUS" that worked just like a virus (and was
countered by a program called "ANTIBODY"); and John Brunner's 1975
novel The Shockwave Rider describes programs known as "tapeworms"
which spread through a network for the purpose of deleting data.'
source: Wikipedia.org: Computer Virus
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_virus
From "Approaching Zero":
" Viruses had been foreseen in science fiction; the earliest use of
the term has been traced to a series of short stories written in the
1970s by David Gerrold. In 1972 Gerrold employed virus theme for a
sci-fi pot-boiler called When HARLIE Was. HARLIE was [One] an acronym
for Human Analogue Robot Life Input Equivalents computer, which meant
simply that the fictional creation could duplicate every function of
the human ain--a sort of mechanical equivalent of Dr. Frankenstein's
monster...
The Virus program was fictional, of course, and simply part of
Gerrold's convoluted plot, but the concept of a computer program
reproducing itself had been foreseen as early as 1948. In that John
van Neumann, a Hungarian-born mathematician and computer pioneer who
had designed one of the world's first computers, quaintly called
Maniac, began theoretical work on what was then thought of as
electronically created artificial life, which he termed automata. He
predicted that the reproduction process for such automata would be
fairly simple.
Later, in the 1960s, before the advent of computer games, university
engineering students sometimes amused themselves by seeing who could
write the shortest program that could reproduce an exact copy of
itself. These were called self-replicating programs, but van Neumann
would have recognized them as versions of his concept of electronic
automata.
The first attempts to use self-replicating programs for something
useful were made at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center in the late
seventies. Two researchers, John Shoch and Jon Hupp, devised what they
called a worm program to help with the management of the centre’s
computer network, which linked over one hundred medium-sized machines.
They envisaged the program working automatically, archiving old files,
making backup copies of current files, and running routine diagnostic
checks; they hoped that it would be able to perform the endless
housekeeping tasks that the researchers at Palo Alto were too busy to
keep up with. They named the new program a worm, the two later said,
in honour of their inspiration--another work of science fiction by the
English writer John Brunner called The Shockwave Rider, published in
1975. Brunner's book heralded the existence of a computer program,
which he called a "tapeworm," that reproduced itself endlessly and
couldn't be killed.'"
source: "Approaching Zero," cached by Google
http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:8rgFIe8ovYwC:www.ladysharrow.co.uk/library/Books/appzero/approaching_zero%2520chapter%25203.htm&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Also see a discussion of the subject in "Computer Viruses as
Artificial Life"
http://www.cerias.purdue.edu/homes/spaf/tech-reps/985.pdf
More information about Dave Gerrold's book "When Harlie Was One"
(1972) on venona.com:
http://cypherpunks.venona.com/date/1992/06/msg00000.html
Listing for "When Harlie Was One" on Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553264656/
More information about John Brunner:
John Brunner
"In particular, he foresaw many of the promises and problems of
today's wired world - particularly clearly in his novel The Shockwave
Rider. He was the first to foresee the computer virus."
http://www.bloodhag.com/oldsite/authors/brunner.htm
"The Shockwave Rider," (1975) listed on Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345009789/
Listing for Thomas Ryan's "Adolescence of P-1" (1977) on Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0020248806/
search strategy:
computer virus, term, "Science fiction"
computer virus, "von neumann"
brunner, "shockwave rider", computer virus
dave gerrold, "when harlie", virus
"thomas ryan", adolescence of p-1, virus
I hope this helps. |
Clarification of Answer by
juggler-ga
on
14 May 2003 03:08 PDT
Well, if you want to go with Brunner, here's a supportive quotation
from his 1995 obituary in the Los Angeles Times:
"John Brunner, 60, prolific and highly respected British science
fiction novelist who wrote about contemporary social issues and first
predicted computer viruses in 1975."
source: "John Brunner; British Science Fiction Novelist"
The Los Angeles Times; Sep 9, 1995; p. 24.
And, as indicated in one of the articles mentioned above, a least one
commentator has claimed that the virus in Gerrold's book was not a
"true" virus:
"When Harlie Was One. The description of the virus in that book does
not fit the currently-accepted, popular definition of computer virus -
a program that alters other programs to include a copy of itself."
http://www.cerias.purdue.edu/homes/spaf/tech-reps/985.pdf
Of course, you could always just go with von Neumann's ideas from the
1940s.
As to the issue of when Brunner and Gerrold completed their
manuscripts... well, you could try contacting Gerrold via his web
site:
http://www.gerrold.com/index-2.htm
Brunner passed away in 1995, so you might have to direct inquiries to
his publisher. Shockwave Rider was first published in 1975 by Harper &
Row. That publisher is now known as HarperCollins. Contact
information:
http://www.harpercollins.com/hc/aboutus/contactus.asp
I hope this helps.
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