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Cover Quote: January 1986

Last year, several firms came up with a solution [to the problem of software piracy]. It is called a WORM. A worm is a command which is built deep into the complex code which creates the program itself. These are incredibly complex codes, and it is easy to bury a command in them. They cannot be traced.

What does the worm do? It “eats” things. Say that you are a software thief. You make a copy of a non-copy-protected disc, either to use on a second computer, or to give (or sell) to a friend. The program works just fine. But when the program is copied to a new disc, the worm is “awakened.” It bides its time, maybe for many months, maybe for years. The program’s user is blissfully unaware that a monster lurks inside his pirated program. He continues to enter data, make correlations, etc. HE BECOMES COMPLETELY DEPENDENT ON THE PROGRAM.

Then, without warning, the worm strikes. Whole sections of the data disappear. Maybe the data storage disc is erased. Maybe it is just scrambled. Even his back-up data discs have worms in them. Everything he entered on those discs is gone.

Forever



- Gary North
Gary North’s Remnant Review, 1985
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