The cyberplague that threatens an internet Armageddon

sahara_mafia · May 1, 2011, 12:00 PM

In 1971, Bob Thomas, an engineer working for Bolt, Beranek and Newman, the Boston company that had the contract to build the Arpanet, the precursor of the internet, released a virus called the "creeper" on to the network. It was an experimental, self-replicating program that infected DEC PDP-10 minicomputers. It did no actual harm and merely displayed a cheeky message: "I'm the creeper, catch me if you can!" Someone else wrote a program to detect and delete it, called -- inevitably -- the "reaper".

Although nobody could have known it 40 years ago, it was the start of something big, something that would one day threaten to undermine, if not overwhelm, the networked world. For as we became more and more dependent on information and communications technology, we were also subjected to a plague of what came to be called "malware".

Source : Mail & Guardian Online

NAZ2222 · May 1, 2011, 10:48 PM

Very interesting reading! Nice find

May 1, 2011, 12:00 PM	#1
sahara_mafia member Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: botswana Posts: 3,368 Rep Power: 155 System Specs	The cyberplague that threatens an internet Armageddon In 1971, Bob Thomas, an engineer working for Bolt, Beranek and Newman, the Boston company that had the contract to build the Arpanet, the precursor of the internet, released a virus called the "creeper" on to the network. It was an experimental, self-replicating program that infected DEC PDP-10 minicomputers. It did no actual harm and merely displayed a cheeky message: "I'm the creeper, catch me if you can!" Someone else wrote a program to detect and delete it, called -- inevitably -- the "reaper". Although nobody could have known it 40 years ago, it was the start of something big, something that would one day threaten to undermine, if not overwhelm, the networked world. For as we became more and more dependent on information and communications technology, we were also subjected to a plague of what came to be called "malware". Source : Mail & Guardian Online __________________

May 1, 2011, 10:48 PM	#2
NAZ2222 HardwareHeaven Addict Join Date: May 2005 Location: Portugal Posts: 397 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Re: The cyberplague that threatens an internet Armageddon Very interesting reading! Nice find __________________ Why do we fall? So that we learn how to pick our self's up.