It's Virus Season Again, Has Your Computer Been Vaccinated? A Survey of Computer Crime Legislation as a Response to Malevolent Software
Bradley S. Davis · Open Scholarship Institutional Repository (Washington University in St. Louis) · 1994
The Supreme Court's refusal to review the conviction of Robert Tappan Morris' sent a message of deterrence to would-be authors of malevolent software.2 Morris' conviction notwithstanding, existing federal 3 and state 4 legislation addressing malevolent software lacks the specificity and authority required to police this type of destructive computer programming.'The shortcomings of current legislation can be attributed to three factors: (1) the rapid growth of computer technology during the past ten years; 6 (2) the increasing prevalence of personal computers in the home; 7 and (3) public misperception regarding the creation and transmission of malevolent software.8 This Note examines the effectiveness of federal and state legislation at discouraging the creation of malevolent software and punishing those who create it.Part I classifies and explains the various types of existing malevolent software, providing examples of their destructive potential.Part II reviews existing federal and state legislation designed to combat 1.United States v. Morris, 928 F.2d 504 (2d Cir.), cert.denied, 112 S. Ct. 72 (1991).See infra part III.A.2. Throughout this Note, the term "malevolent software" will be used to describe any type of trojan horse, logic bomb, worm, computer virus or stealth virus.See infra notes 9-13 and accompanying text. See infra part II.A. See infra part II.B. See infra part IV.6.In 1982, an IBM Personal Computer based on the Intel 8086 processor sold for approximately $5,000.Nick Baran, Two Worlds Converge, BYTE, Feb. 1989, at 229.That price included 64K of Ram, two floppy disk drives and a monochrome monitor.Id.A computer of this type is capable of executing approximately 300 instructions per second.Daniel Ruby, PCs and Crays Make an Odd Couple at a Weapons Lab, PC WK., Apr. 30, 1985, at 47. Today, a computer based on Intel's Pentium processor can be purchased for less than $4,000.Jim Seymour, Pentium: The Second Wave, PC MAG., Jan. 25, 1994, at 110.The Gateway 2000 P5-60 can be purchased for $3,595.Id. at 135.That price includes 16 Megabytes of Ram, a 425 megabyte hard disk, two floppy disk drives, a CD-ROM drive and a high resolution color monitor.Id.A computer of this type is capable of executing about 100 million operations per second.John Burgess, Cybertalk, WASH.POST, May 24, 1993, at F19. 7. Computers are now found in 25 to 33 percent of the 96 million households in America.