Ask Slashdot: What Happened To the Prank Apps That Used To Be Popular?

OpenSourceAllTheWay writes: Back when PCs were more boxy looking than today and people used floppy disks to store stuff, there were a bunch of prank apps around that one could put on a DOS or Windows computer to annoy the hell out of siblings, classmates, coworkers and others. (Here is a listing of some older prank apps and some more recent Android prank apps.) Some prank apps would flip the Windows desktop upside down. Some would make the mouse pointer move in strange ways or make it give you the middle finger. Some would cause you to hit the right keyboard key and still mistype a word. Some would play an audio file in the background every now and then that gave the impression of your computer making strange noises for unknown reasons, even turning the OS volume up before the sound, and then down again, making it impossible to make the sounds stop. There are many more computer users today than there were back then, yet there doesn't seem to be much new in the way of prank apps -- at least for Windows. Why is that? Did Windows 8 cause PC users to lose their humor?

Comments

I saw a cookie monster last year

[davecb]

It ran on at least CTSS, the Incompatible Timesharing System and Multics. Someone has one for Linux: it says "want cookie!" until you type 'cookie", then disappears.

Re:My favorite one

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember that one from the DOS days and another app from the same era that played a voice over the PC speaker saying "Help! I am trapped in your computer. Help, somebody!" It was amazing to hear audio like that out of something that usually only beeped or played monophonic square wave tunes. It wasn't until years later I learned how it was done. When the frequency of the tone was higher than human hearing, the tone would also be out of the range of the speaker, and the cone depth could be programmed by choosing ultrasonic frequencies, thus >1 bit DAC audio.

The pranks were just trojan horses

[Glires]

I still have a CD that has a library of all the prank apps that I used to use back in the 90s. Nowdays when I read the disk, modern virus scan software reveals that every single one of them was really a trojan horse that was meant to secretly deliver a spyware app, a backdoor, or a virus.

Nope

[McFortner]

It's because those jerks moved on to viruses and malware once they figured out they could make money being a-holes.

Re:We're too worried about malware

[Travis Mansbridge]

Regardless, given the vague wording of the CFAA, even these relatively harmless "pranks" could qualify as unauthorized use and therefore be considered a federal crime.