Fed II Star newsletter - masthead The weekly newsletter for the Fed II game by ibgames

EARTHDATE: January 22, 2006

OFFICIAL NEWS
Page 9

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REAL LIFE NEWS: UNHAPPY BIRTHDAY, PC VIRUSES

January 19 was the 20th anniversary of the appearance of the first virus on the PC. The boot sector virus, called Brain, was let loose in January 1986. It spread via infected floppy disks (remember them?) and was a relatively minor nuisance compared to the modern-day trojans and other malware that plague computers connected to the internet.

Although boot sector viruses are now out of fashion because nobody uses floppies any more, they were a problem between their first appearance in 1986, and 1995 when internet technology started to become mainstream. Viruses like Brain relied on people exchanging infected disks so outbreaks often took months to spread. Awareness of viruses was not great, so an outbreak had plenty of time to build slowly. Not like today, where an email virus (such as Love Bug or Melissa) or a network worm (like Blaster) can explode across the net in a matter of hours, without the intervention of a human. Now, most people have virus checkers installed on their computers to help stem the torrent of malware; back in the Brain days, there was no protection.

So it's with a certain nostalgia that we remember the very first virus. Back then we had no idea just how bad the problem would get.

I suppose I should close this article with the typical exhortation to everyone to keep their virus definitions up to date, but really, is there any point? You have all heard it before; if you have ignored the warnings previously, are you likely to listen to me this time?


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