Can you ever remember sitting in school as a youngster, about ready to prank one of your friends and thinking to yourself that maybe the prank you were about to pull would one day become known throughout the world? I’m sure Rick Skrenta did not think this when he was pranking his high school friends in the 9th grade, 25 years ago by creating and distributing the very first computer virus. In this article seen on MSNBC today, Mr. Skrenta describes how he created the first ”publicly released” computer virus named “Elk Cloner” which was meant to distribute itself across floppy disks as a simple joke to his high school friends. While his virus was not nearly as malicious as those that computer users today often stumble across, it was a nuisance to the friends he managed to infect and inevitably it just led to them trusting him even less. Check out the link provided for the complete details.
It’s often funny to look back on events such as this and think about how it all started. Something as malicious as the current day computer virus starting from a simple high school prank; it seems almost surreal. In the end, I guess I cannot really complain too much. I will be working in the computer security field, so Mr. Skrenta’s little prank will actually be a part of what keeps me in business. One other thing that is interesting to note; you often hear Apple users bragging about how they never have to worry about virus infections. It would seem to me after reading about all of this, that this virus (the first distributed computer virus) was created on and for the Apple II. Just a little irony there if you ask me!
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