Marina del Rey, CA (IP) --
Public health officials reported a sharp upswing in common
colds among computer scientists this year. The new cold strains
originally appear in major computer centers, then spread throughout
the country in a matter of hours. Researchers grappling with this
issue have concluded that there is only one possible explanation
for the sudden appearance and rapid dissemination of the colds:
They are spread through electronic mail.
It is a long established fact that colds and other diseases
may be transmitted through the mail. Viruses and bacteria
accumulate on a letter while it is being written. The viruses and
bacteria are dormant while the letter is in transit. When the
letter is opened, the viruses and bacteria are shaken into the air
and inhaled by the recipient, who becomes infected.
A lesser-known fact is that colds may be spread over the
phone. This usually occures when an infected individual sneezes
into a public phone. The next individual to use that same phone
will often be infected by the viruses and bacteria on the phone's
mouthpiece. However, what most people don't know is that when a
person with a cold sneezes into a phone, the person at the other
end may be infected if they were holding their phone close enough
for the germs to enter their ear canal.
It is now possible to demonstrate similar effects for Internet
mail. If a person sneezes while sending a message in Hermes or MM,
the recipient stands a fair chance of catching the same cold.
Strangely enough, this effect has not occured with multimedia mail,
perhaps because it currently uses UDP datagrams instead of TCP
connections between the user terminals and the mail forwarders.
Other electronic mail systems also spread diseases. For
example, UUCP spreads Unix. Of particular concern are the
electronic mailing lists. Each message sent to one of these lists
is replicated and retransmitted to dozens or even hundreds of
recipients. A single infected message can strike dozens of victims
coast-to-coast within a matter of minutes. Public health officials
are quite worried about MCI mail, which uses both printed and
electronic delivery systems, thus threatening the health of the
entire nation.
Internet Header Health Inspectors will work closely with the
Protocol Police in the next few months to develop methods of
dealing with infected packets. Netmail may be delayed at Internet
Gateways if the Innoculated-by records are not current. The EGP
Quarantine command will be used to isolate Autonomous Systems which
are suspected of sending contaminated datagrams. A recently
released DoD report suggests that part of the impetus behind the
ARPANET/Milnet split and the current partitioned network research,
is to minimize the possible effects of Internet Bacteriological
Warfare.
These problems are also being pursued by the International
Standards Organization. The committee on Open Systems Innoculation
(ISO/OSInnoc) recently released a draft report on a 7-layer cold
encapsulation for use by the World Health Organization in Third
World Nations.
.................................................................
Date: 4 Dec 1983 11:32-PST
From: CERF at USC-ISI
To: ROGERS at USC-ISIB
cc: TCP-IP at SRI-NIC
Re: Netmail Spreads Common Cold
Message-ID: <[USC-ISI] 4-Dec-83 11:32:23.CERF>
In-Reply-To: Msg of 30 Nov 83 1517-PST from Craig Milo Rogers
<ROGERS@USC-ISIB>
Craig,
MCI mail passes through the X.25 filter before it can go anywhere.
As a consequence, no germs survive. Hell, the packets almost don't
survive going through X.25, Let alone some poor bacterium...
Vint Cerf