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the need to place it under “quarantine” or “inoculate” it. They imply that the Internet is a
kind of territory or property that can and should be defended, and further, they enable a
range of technical and legal means for marshalling the defense.
The term “virus” to describe the computer program sent by Morris carried with it
an array of entailments – illness, contagion, cures. Morris’ program, or set of instructions,
was known in technical circles as a “worm,” a fact that was acknowledged in some of the
early news stories. Gozzi (1999) argues that the media rejected continued use of the
“worm” metaphor because the entailments were less abundant and less attractive than
those attached to the “virus” metaphor. In a positive context, the biological metaphor
suggests that we need not be overly concerned about autonomous technology because
there is a “cure” for the “virus.” That is, biology is closer to humans than mechanics or
electronics or physics; we understand natural organisms and how to cure them. However,
as writer Susan Sontag (1990) has observed, the Morris case came to light amid much
public discussion of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. When associated with the other
virus of the 1980s, Morris’s computer virus could be seen as serious, far-reaching, and
even baffling in the short term. The AIDS epidemic provided a new, apocalyptic context
for Morris’s virus, provided sharper resonance, and raised anxieties about the future.
The use of a biological frame to describe a new technology has some historical
basis. In her study of the cultural meanings of electricity in the 19th century, Carolyn
Marvin (1988) points out that the body provided a familiar point of reference when
encountering the new and unknown. She writes: “[T]he universality of the physical body
offered a secure reference point for cultural experiments with new and strange
technologies” (139).
Convention