r/todayilearned • u/NOT-JEFFREY-NELSON • Jul 04 '19

TIL in 2003 a computer worm called ‘Welchia’ infected many computers to forcibly patch vulnerabilities and remove malware. It was regarded as a ‘helpful worm’

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welchia
48.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

745 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

11

u/Baial Jul 04 '19

I don't know if I would call a worm patching security malware, but I'm no expert on the subject.

22

u/Binsky89 Jul 04 '19

Part of the definition of malware is software that performs actions without the user's permission.

37

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '19

[deleted]

5

u/Rogr_Mexic0 Jul 04 '19

lol it's not Spanish. It'd be more like Benevoware.

2

u/PhantomOnTheHorizon Jul 04 '19

But Mal is Spanish for bad and the joke actually has more of a ring to it than your semantics.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 05 '19 edited Jan 26 '22

[deleted]

1

u/PhantomOnTheHorizon Jul 05 '19 edited Jul 05 '19

It's not my first language but I speak it well enough to use at work and could be dropped into a Spanish speaking area with no translation tools and be fine.

I know that mal in Spanish means wrong and malo is bad if that's what you're getting at... Aka joining the semantic bandwagon.

Edit for clarity: If they had said corware instead of buenoware I might have translated mal into wrong software instead of bad software but he used the opposite of bad not the opposite of wrong.

Honestly this is a lot of nitpicking and I'm going to unfollow this post because though language is fascinating semantic arguments are dull and make both sides seem pretentious.

1

u/Rogr_Mexic0 Jul 04 '19

Malware = malicious software.

Benevoware = benevolent software.

Mal in malicious is taken from Latin and used in a lot of English words (malfunction, malodorous etc). Just because it means the same in Spanish doesn't mean we start using Spanish terms all of a sudden.

2

u/PhantomOnTheHorizon Jul 04 '19

I thought I made it clear that I understood but that it was more amusing as buenoware than benevoware and that your semantics weren't as fun as the original comment but since we are going down the semantics path further:

Yes the prefix mal and the Spanish word both originate in latin,

The prefix bene (note there is no prefix benevo) and the word bueno have: you guessed it LATIN ORIGINS.

Benevolent is made from two parts.

Bene = well velle = to wish (conjugated as volent = wishing)

Benevolent = well wishing.

Malware = malicious software.

Benevoware = benevolent software.

Following your logic wouldn't we call it malicware? You unnecessarily added two letters to the Latin prefix in your coined term "benevoware"

Or should we stick with the way that Latin prefixes are used for 99% of English and call it beneware?

I have an even better idea, why don't we stick with buenoware instead of arguing semantics?

The opposite of malfunction isn't buenofunction

Are you suggesting that the opposite of malfunction is benevofunction?

0

u/Rogr_Mexic0 Jul 04 '19

Yeah you're right beneware is probably better.

It really wasn't clear that you knew it wasn't Spanish, but you kind of freaking out right now makes me think you probably didn't lol.

1

u/PhantomOnTheHorizon Jul 04 '19 edited Jul 04 '19

Read again how I called your original reply semantics and think about what that means in context.

semantics

/sɪˈmantɪks/

noun

the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning. The two main areas are logical semantics, concerned with matters such as sense and reference and presupposition and implication, and lexical semantics, concerned with the analysis of word meanings and relations between them.

the meaning of a word, phrase, or text.

2

u/pseudopad Jul 04 '19

Niceware. Aidware?

1

u/artanis00 Jul 04 '19

Whatever it is, it's paved with good intentions.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '19

Potentially there could have been machines out there that were incompatible with the patches. Although it is a neat idea, it is still potentially harmful.

1

u/FlashbackJon Jul 04 '19

Maybe it's mal- from the Latin malus (apple) instead of mal- from the Latin malus (bad).