Difference between revisions of "The dying art of computer viruses"

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* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_computer_viruses_and_worms Timeline of Viruses and Worms (wikipedia)]
 
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_computer_viruses_and_worms Timeline of Viruses and Worms (wikipedia)]
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In those days, it was often hard not to be aware that you had a virus. The New Zealand virus declared ‘Your PC is now Stoned!’, the Italian virus bounced a ping-pong ball across your screen, and the Maltese Casino virus played Russian Roulette with your file allocation table.
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Sure, all of these viruses were irritating – they spread without your consent, and ate up system resources – but only some of them were deliberately destructive. In many ways, a lot of the malware could justly be compared to an electronic form of graffiti – the Green Caterpillar, for instance, which crawled across your screen, eating up letters and pooping them out in a shade of brown.
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Even as malware turned nastier and more destructive, there was still some art to be seen. Virus-writing gangs like Phalcon/SKISM used colourful ANSI-style art to declare that they had infected your computer. Viruses like Phantom, with its use of 256-colour palette cycling and displaying a large skull, and Spanska, with its simulated flight across the Mars landscape, probably demonstrated a high point for art in viruses.
  
 
== Working of a Virus ==
 
== Working of a Virus ==

Revision as of 13:20, 23 March 2016

History

In those days, it was often hard not to be aware that you had a virus. The New Zealand virus declared ‘Your PC is now Stoned!’, the Italian virus bounced a ping-pong ball across your screen, and the Maltese Casino virus played Russian Roulette with your file allocation table.

Sure, all of these viruses were irritating – they spread without your consent, and ate up system resources – but only some of them were deliberately destructive. In many ways, a lot of the malware could justly be compared to an electronic form of graffiti – the Green Caterpillar, for instance, which crawled across your screen, eating up letters and pooping them out in a shade of brown.

Even as malware turned nastier and more destructive, there was still some art to be seen. Virus-writing gangs like Phalcon/SKISM used colourful ANSI-style art to declare that they had infected your computer. Viruses like Phantom, with its use of 256-colour palette cycling and displaying a large skull, and Spanska, with its simulated flight across the Mars landscape, probably demonstrated a high point for art in viruses.

Working of a Virus

Collections

Setting up the lab environment

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