Prank Starts 25 Years of Security Woes - Overclock.net

aHandzProduction · 09-02-07

Quote:

AP) -- What began as a ninth-grade prank, a way to trick already-suspicious friends who had fallen for his earlier practical jokes, has earned Rich Skrenta notoriety as the first person ever to let loose a personal computer virus.
Although over the next 25 years, Skrenta started the online news business Topix, helped launch a collaborative Web directory now owned by Time Warner Inc.'s Netscape and wrote countless other computer programs, he is still remembered most for unleashing the "Elk Cloner" virus on the world.

"It was some dumb little practical joke," Skrenta, now 40, said in an interview. "I guess if you had to pick between being known for this and not being known for anything, I'd rather be known for this. But it's an odd placeholder for (all that) I've done."

"Elk Cloner" - self-replicating like all other viruses - bears little resemblance to the malicious programs of today. Yet in retrospect, it was a harbinger of all the security headaches that would only grow as more people got computers - and connected them with one another over the Internet.

Skrenta's friends were already distrusting him because, in swapping computer games and other software as part of piracy circles common at the time, Skrenta often altered the floppy disks he gave out to launch taunting on-screen messages. Many friends simply started refusing disks from him.

So during a winter break from the Mt. Lebanon Senior High School near Pittsburgh, Skrenta hacked away on his Apple II computer - the dominant personal computer then - and figured out how to get the code to launch those messages onto disks automatically.

He developed what is now known as a "boot sector" virus. When it boots, or starts up, an infected disk places a copy of the virus in the computer's memory. Whenever someone inserts a clean disk into the machine and types the command "catalog" for a list of files, a copy gets written onto that disk as well. The newly infected disk is passed on to other people, other machines and other locations.

The prank, though annoying to victims, is relatively harmless compared with the viruses of today. Every 50th time someone booted an infected disk, a poem he wrote would appear, saying in part, "It will get on all your disks; it will infiltrate your chips."

Skrenta started circulating the virus in early 1982 among friends at his school and at a local computer club. Years later, he would continue to hear stories of other victims, including a sailor during the first Gulf War nearly a decade later (Why that sailor was still using an Apple II, Skrenta does not know).

These days, there are hundreds of thousands of viruses - perhaps more than a million depending on how one counts slight variations.

The first virus to hit computers running Microsoft Corp.'s operating system came in 1986, when two brothers in Pakistan wrote a boot sector program now dubbed "Brain" - purportedly to punish people who spread pirated software. Although the virus didn't cause serious damage, it displayed the phone number of the brothers' computer shop for repairs.

...

http://www.physorg.com/news107790413.html

joemaniaci · 09-02-07

Quote:

Originally Posted by aHandzProduction

http://www.physorg.com/news107790413.html

Good stuff, we need more history in here.

Dempsey · 09-02-07

Pranks are for idiots.

Guswut · 09-02-07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dempsey

Pranks are for idiots.

That is a rather bold statement buddy. Pranks keep people on their toes. Especially when you grow up in a family of all brothers (and NOT the black kind, the male kind).

Dempsey · 09-02-07

No one likes a prankster. It is tiresome for the victims and alienates the prankster.

Guswut · 09-02-07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dempsey

No one likes a prankster. It is tiresome for the victims and alienates the prankster.

Hey, you've got something on your shirt... *Flicks your nose*

No, not alientating at all. But though, there is a MAJOR difference between a "prank" (which is original and funny, usually not destructive) and the JUNK that the children are doing today... "Hey guys, let's pull a prank on this dude. Let's kill him, his whole family, and then write 'lul' on their bodies!" :\

Guswut · 09-02-07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dempsey

I'll admit, some pranks are clever and therefore funny. Putting a virus on a friends computer is not humourous though, it is simply and completely obnoxious. I wouldn't be his friend on a bet.

Eventually they couldn't trust him.

...And he grew up to be a successful man. I don't believe I understand your point anymore. Sorry.

TeLu1 · 09-02-07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guswut

Hey, you've got something on your shirt... *Flicks your nose*

No, not alientating at all. But though, there is a MAJOR difference between a "prank" (which is original and funny, usually not destructive) and the JUNK that the children are doing today... "Hey guys, let's pull a prank on this dude. Let's kill him, his whole family, and then write 'lul' on their bodies!" :\

AHAHAHA LUL!

RickJS · 09-02-07

I'm proud of this guy. Seriously.

thenailedone · 09-02-07

At no time was the "virus" wrote to cause any ill effect to the infected PC... it was a statement of superiority, that no matter what his friends did he would have his way... he was faced with the question can it be done? And he answered it... People like that is what makes the world better...

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Prank Starts 25 Years of Security Woes

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