From: Frank Knobbe (frankknobbe.us)
Date: Tue Aug 10 2004 - 10:13:55 CDT

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On Tue, 2004-08-10 at 09:47, Valdis.Kletnieksvt.edu wrote:
> Software gets named over days/weeks. They crank out a new name for an element
> every few years. These things need names in *MINUTES* - often while the various
> A/V companies are looking at different copies of a polymorphic, multi-attack
> piece of malware.

Hey, I didn't say it would be easy, did I?

> 5 blind men and an elephant time... and you want them to agree on a name before
> they even agree they're looking at the same thing???

Obviously not at time of research. But these days everyone is keeping an
ear on the ground... I mean Internet... while they are doing research.
Once one company, which is working on a new strain they term BigNasty,
finds out 3 others are discussion this (on the Internet or private AV
channels) as the SuckThis virus, then they could adopt that name to
avoid confusion.

I didn't say it was easy, but they could at least make an effort.

Here we are a year later and still call it Bagle or Beagle, either one.
I'm still confused if MyDoom-O and MyDoom-M are the same thing or not.

BTW: Perhaps the analogy to medicine was misplaced. I just thought in
term of diseases. How many different names do we have for ...say...
chicken pox or colitis or diabetes? Imagine you had 5 different names
for the flu. I could come up with a dozen Monty Python sketches taking
place in the doctors office....

I didn't say it was easy, but we should "encourage" the AV industry to
work towards such a standardization. It may even be beneficial for them.

Sing with me Valdis....
"I say tomato, you say tomato,
I say potato, you say potato,
I say Beagle, you say Bagle,
and others are calling it something else."

Regards,
Frank (throwing rocks at the glass palace)

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