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20 Years of Computer Viruses

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the spreading-the-news dept.

Tuxedo Jack writes "The Register reports that twenty years ago today (19 January 1986), the first computer virus, Brain, was discovered. By modern standards, this was a minor virus, and it spread by floppy disks, which is a far cry from the network-aware worms of today. Still, though, it was the first noted virus, and we've had twenty years of pain and annoyance from it and its successors. Happy birthday, Brain, you and all your little virus friends - just know we're doing our damndest to keep you from having more."

5 of 278 comments (clear)

  1. Message in the virus? by pvt_medic · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Welcome to the Dungeon
    (c) 1986 Basit & Amjad (pvt) Ltd.
    BRAIN COMPUTER SERVICES
    730 NIZAB BLOCK ALLAMA IQBAL TOWN
    LAHORE-PAKISTAN
    PHONE :430791,443248,280530.
    Beware of this VIRUS....
    Contact us for vaccination.

    I wonder if anyone ever tried to look up these guys. Kind of blatent calling card if you ask me.

    --
    30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
    Score:5, Troll
  2. Oh, really... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... it spread by floppy disks, which is a far cry from the network-aware worms of today.

    While a network virus could reach around the globe in a matter of seconds, floppy disk viruses were just as bad before networks and CDs became common. Not only did you have to scan your own hard drive, but each and every floppy disk if you didn't know where the virus came from. You often had to practice "safe computing" by asking if the floppy disk was scanned before you use it on your own machine.

    1. Re:Oh, really... by misleb · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What was cool about the floppy born virus is that it is easy for collectors to store. I knew I guy who had a big box full of infected floppies. Hundreds of em'. All labeled with the virus that was on them. Some had multiple viruses. Neat stuff.

      -matthew

      --
      "THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
  3. I recall... by Velox_SwiftFox · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When one media pundit was being subjected to derision because of his outlandish idea that viruses might be spread by email.

  4. SCA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And theres me thinking the SCA bootblock virus from the SCA in 87 was a trendsetter, but obviously beaten by the apple II stuff. It certainly was a nice piece of code for 4k, funky scrolling text on a red bar set on a black background with the words "Something wonderful has happened" fading up and the usual bootloader. I remember the first time seeing this and someone explaining to me how it replicated, and thinking it was a wind up. Then realizing it was not. The fact they stuffed this into 4k was at the time something of a eye opener and I think help spark the 4k demo scene on the amiga (that and that is the size of the bootsector on a amiga floppy)
    The only real problem with it was commercial games used the 4k bootsector on the floppy to bootstrap their copy protected loaders in, and it used to overwrite these.
    We managed to keep the spread down to a minimum by use of a cunning device known as a "write protect tab". That is once we had virus checked a disk, it was write protected and that was that, since joe average could not afford a hard disk back then and the amiga ran out of its roms anything memory resident just went when the power was pulled...