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Happy 20th Birthday, Computer Viruses
from the ominous-anniversaries dept
The BBC is reporting that this week is the 20th anniversary of the first computer virus being created. Apparently, others had discussed such a program, but no one had actually written a virus until 1983 by a PhD. student at USC. The virus was just a demonstration of how a virus might work on Vax systems. Apparently, folks who saw the student's presentation were so angered by it that they told him to stop running such tests. Of course, banning something often seems to make it more likely to spread - and (as you're probably aware), now we have viruses everywhere.
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Shoch Hupp worms
The Fred Cohen credit is fair enough, but the earlier related work deserves a mention: John F. Shoch and Jon A. Hupp: The worm programs - early experiments with a distributed computation. Communications of the ACM, 25(3):172 180, March 1982
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No Subject Given
Yeah, if ONLY that guy didnt make that virus in 1983, there would be no viruses today at all! Oh and Al Gore invented the internet.
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Wrong!
Actually, the Elk Cloner Virus predates the virus in that Article. Apple II, would put a poem up when you reset 50 times, sent itself through the CATALOG command.
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