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The Computer Virus Turns 25 in July

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the thats-silver-right dept.

bl8n8r writes "In July of 1982, an infected Apple II propogated the first computer virus onto a 5-1/4" floppy. The virus, which did little more than annoy the user, Elk Cloner, was authored in Pittsburgh by a 15-year-old high school student, Rich Skrenta. The virus replicated by monitoring floppy disk activity and writing itself to the floppy when it was accessed. Skrenta describes the virus as "It was a practical joke combined with a hack. A wonderful hack." Remember, he was a 9th grader when he did this."

8 of 194 comments (clear)

  1. Imagine his wealth... by dada21 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...if he had patented the virus.

    1. Re:Imagine his wealth... by vivaoporto · · Score: 5, Funny

      And imagine how secure the computing world would be ... if Microsoft had a monopoly on virus creation.

  2. Script kiddie age? by InvisblePinkUnicorn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is there any information on the average age of people who have written the major viruses of the last couple decades? Has this age gone down over time?

  3. Re:Has this been done before? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Shouldn't it be your nap time?

  4. Happy birthday! by friedman101 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Finally, you're old enough to rent a car.

  5. Bullshit! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I had sex with a PDP-11 in 1973 and it gave me chlamydia. That predates this asshat by almost a decade. Where's my trophy?!

  6. Answering my own question, sort of by InvisblePinkUnicorn · · Score: 5, Informative

    Of the "ten most destructive PC viruses of all time":

    CIH, by Chen Ing Hau, who "attended a university" at the time of release ~1998.
    Melissa virus, by David L. Smith, age 31 in 1999
    ILOVEYOU, by university student for thesis, 2000
    Code Red, author unknown?
    SQL Slammer, 2003, by a 21-22 year old
    Blaster, 2003, variant by an 18 year old
    Sobig, possibly by 30 year old Ruslan Ibragimov?
    Bagle, author unknown?
    MyDoom, unknown
    Sasser, by 17 year old

    Not much to go on.

  7. Re:Pretty sad! by Hal_Porter · · Score: 5, Funny

    My first questions in an interview to hire someone is, "Are you a programmer?" The second question is,"Did you goto school for this?" If they answer "yes" then they don't get the job.

    CS Graduates don't goto school. They instantiate a CSStudent (using a StudentFactory class). CSStudent implemnents a functor Notify callback as part of the abstract Student interface. Using the Observer pattern, they call the Attach method of the ConcreteSchool class which implements the School Interface. Then the ConcreteSchool class calls Notify and passes a Notification object containing a ConcreteClass object which the Student stores in a Dictionary class, Knowledge. In the examination Use Case, the Notify is called with a ExamNotification object containing a List of ExamQuestion objects. CSStudent intantiates an Iterator which iterates though the list and uses the Dictionary object's Lookup method to answer each question, calling before calling ExamNotification's Answer method.

    After reception of a Graduation, ExamFailure or DrugsBust notification, the CSStudent destructor is called. This in turn calls the Knowledge destructor and the Knowledge Dictionary is deleted.

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;