funsec mailing list archives

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


From: Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 15:43:12 -0400

On Wed, 30 Aug 2006 20:16:26 BST, David Harley said:
Was that your first one?  Elk is supposed to be the oldest virus in 
the wild, from 1982?  so ~24 years. 

1983, IIRC, though Peter Szor says '82. There seem to have been a couple of
Apple II jobbies before that, though, and these weren't the first
replicative programs. I decline to be drawn into the "worms vs viruses"
argument yet again. 

Replicative programs by way of quining were well understood in the mid-60s.
I'm fairly sure that there were worm-ish things running around Multics by
the mid-70s, and the Jargon File documents a Xerox CP-V hack involving
"Robin Hood" and "Friar Tuck" in the mid-70s as well.

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