Re: write viruses? it's controversy time of the month

[Nick FitzGerald <nick () virus-l demon co uk>]

Drsolly to Blue Boar:

> > Was that your first one?  Elk is supposed to be the oldest virus in the 
> > wild, from 1982?  so ~24 years.

For someone's (self-serving) definition of "in the wild", but there are 
at least two very strong contenders that far outstrip Elk Cloner's 
claim as "first virus".

There's ANIMAL/PERVADE, from about 1975, nicely described by its author 
here:

   http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/univac/animal.html

Despite claims, such as in the Wikipedia, that in 1982 Elk Cloner was 
'the first known computer virus that has spread "in the wild," i.e., 
outside the computer system or lab in which it was written' it seems 
fairly clear that ANIMAL/PERVADE did spread to other systems than that 
of its original author.

And there's the much messed-up and abused through repeated, under-
informed re-tellings, story about Creeper and its nemesis Reaper.  My 
understanding of these (and I have the advantage of having interveiwed 
the author of Creeper) is that they were "limited" to "all PDP-10's on 
the ARPAnet", and in 1971-2 when Creeper existed, that may have only 
been the machines within one lab at BBN, or been the machines in two 
(or more) interconnected networks within BBN.  I accept that calling 
this "in the wild" (for any modern meaning) is a stretch, but when you 
look at how Creeper and Reaper worked, they had 100% infection of the 
possible target population of their day...

> I've never spoken to anyone who had actually seen Elk.  ...

Me either, but I do recall having seen a link to a disk-image of a 
reputed sample...

> ...  Given that a lot of 
> what was going on in those days was rumour and gossip, I tend to think 
> that Brain was the first (unless you buy my theory that Ashar was a Brain 
> precursor).

First _for the PC_, yes, but there was fairly clearly some "wild" 
activity elsewhere well before the PC existed...


Regards,

Nick FitzGerald

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