
NEW YORK (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.
His invention spawned a multi-billion dollar industry fighting computer viruses. Oh well, if he hadn't thought of it, somebody else would have.
As I remember the first virus was a worm virus that attacked NASA system 25 years + , but it so nice to read another conflicting story, is this the time for new claims of whom created the first virus?
I am going to have to do some research as this is the first time I have heard of this guy and I spent alot of time eradicating these stupid little programs. Originally Microsoft could have easily eradicated these bugs by changing the command.com file to only allow writing only 17 bytes to the Exe and Com files. Now its still possible to eradicate non macro bugs, by the same methology and the damage they can cause if they write to the Com and Exe files. Yes Microsoft could stop virus attack but they do not because they make money from virus protective tools.
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