CYBERSPACE -- It happened during the year that the entire solar system aligned on the same side of the sun, Claus von Bülow was found guilty of trying to kill his wife, the Falkland War began and ended, the Equal Rights Amendment failed, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” was released, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated, Sony released the first consumer compact disc player, and the Commodore 64 met an adoring public.
It was the summer of 1982 when the very first computer virus was authored – and the world of personal computing hasn’t been the same since.
Pittsburgh high school freshman Rich Skrenta was the proud papa, and Elk Cloner was his annoying but otherwise harmless offspring.
“It was a practical joke combined with a hack. A wonderful hack,” the once 15-year-old brainiac recalls on his Skrenta.com blog.
Skrenta’s “wonderful hack” infected an Apple II and then began its voyage away from home on a 5 ¼” floppy, which was its conveyance of choice. Unlike today’s code-launched computer assaults, Elk Cloner merely deposited poetry to show that it had paid a visit.
While some insist that the Creeper virus of the 1970s era ARPANET qualifies as the original ancestor of today’s malware, most pundits on the subject prefer the later Elk Cloner, due to its ability to infect personal computers.
