25 years of PC viruses and copy protection

Well I can attest that 'viruses' were written and written about years before 'Elk Cloner.' Maybe it was first itw, I'm not sure.

 

What would you ask from the creators of the very first PC virus?

What would you ask from the creators of the very first PC virus? F-Secure

'It's now January 2011. Which means the Brain virus is now 25 years old.'

 

Re: What would you ask from the creators of the very first PC virus?

I would ask them how they came up with the brilliant idea, where they get their inspiration that now leads to the existence of security and malware removal forums, creating an entire industry that revolves around it and allowing the creation of career paths and jobs for security analysts, researchers, and even the ordinary man working for those security software companies etc. I'd ask them if they think they ought to be saluted upon and give full recognition for being one of the smartest men ever alive. I'd ask them if they could turn back time - would they have created a more advanced virus back then in order to change the entire threat landscape that we see now altogether.

Actually, I'd rather ask them how's life right now for them - as in how many children they have, their health status, etc. You know - treat it like you're talking to a friend that you've not seen/met for a long time. Maybe add in some spice and ask them as to what their views are on the the state of politics in India are like too or perhaps their views of the current world issues.

Just because they're the creators of the very 1st PC virus doesn't make it a must or necessity for me to ask them about 'viruses and malware only' right....you can't do anything about it even if they hadn't created virus back then as it was meant to be...if not them, it'd have been someone else.

P.S. Posted the same thing at the blog comments there and "Message awaits moderator approval".

 

From Brain to Stuxnet: 25 Years of PC Viruses

From Brain to Stuxnet: 25 Years of PC Viruses
(Mikko Hypponen /CRO F-Secure)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8Bpl-BUp0g

 

Re: From Brain to Stuxnet: 25 Years of PC Viruses

Fun video - I think the first bug I got was a worm (love letter). I was running McAfee AV but no firewall on a dial-up connection. Never paid much attention to Windows updates then as with a dial-up connection was too time consuming to download. I couldn't download the update to McAfee as the worm did not allow the connection and kept rebooting my computer. My buddy's son who was network administrator helped me over the phone get rid of it. After that started paying more attention to Internet security.

 

Oh, yeah...I remember these worms...

 

Re: From Brain to Stuxnet: 25 Years of PC Viruses

Nice video, thanks.

 

From Wikipedia:

The whole idea of a virus was started by the great polymath John Von Neumann (who was a nuclear physicist that helped build the nuclear bomb). He postulated the possibility of self-replicating computer code all the way back in the 1940's. He is one of the father's of computer science.

So, these ideas were around before the public Internet. Any time you have uber-geeks that understand how a machine works at the lowest levels, they are going to explore all possibilities, some of which are later used for malicious ends by others.