The Virus that F***ed us all | Nostalgia Nerd

[@AlanPope]

I wrote a virus for the BBC Micro back in the day (~1989). It wasn't super harmful, but would move the !boot file and replace it with the virus loader. It would sit in sideways RAM, and every 32 times you hard-reset (ctrl+break) the BBC, it would print "hello world" in double-height dual-colour mode 7 text on boot. I had all my floppy disks confiscated at college as a result. Oopsie.

[@ukwebb]

every 32 times? it must have hardly ever run, 9 time out of 10 you need to power cycle the beeb to get it to reset properly which wipes the sideways ram - which only the master had as standard too

[@AlanPope]

@@ukwebb I was *trying* not to get caught. :D. Figured it popped up too often, people would freak out while I'm in the room. The room was full of BBC Masters, and most of the time we were just writing BASIC and inline 6502, so a soft reset was fine. Also, it always *ran* and would replace !boot on every floppy it found, it just wouldn't display anything until 32 restarts had happened.

[@jimsmindonline]

I did exactly the same in the early 90's on the Acorn Archimedes at my school! My friends and I found a virus on a magazine cover floppy and managed to disassemble and understand how it worked. It would load on inserting a floppy (they automatically got mounted and loaded on insert on the Acorn). It would sit as a module in ram and check if a new floppy was inserted, then it would replicate onto the boot file. It did nothing more than that, used a bit of ram and replicated. We modified it so when our teachers enabled the write key on the network drive (when no students were around), we could automatically copy our games over into an obscure location on the network drive! It was so much fun!

[@ukwebb]

@@AlanPope i'd have gone for the "freak-out" option personally - infact pretty sure i did, but on the Ecoonet network - I'd hacked the teachers admin password ;)

[@fsturmat]

hard-resetting the BBC... so that's what kids were up to these days

[@DustinRodriguez1_0]

When I was in high school I worked at a company that did mail processing. One of the services they offered was printing envelopes, folding big piles of direct mail material (junk mail and such), stuffing the envelopes, etc. This required them to get mailing lists of names and addresses from customers. They opted for a policy of telling customers "give it to us in absolutely any format whatsoever, and we'll figure it out". I was the one who got to 'figure it out'. By reusing a floppy in their systems and my home system, I discovered on my home system which had AV that the disk was infected with a virus... I want to say Nimda but I could be wrong. So I took an AV program to work and got to scanning the disks we had received from customers. I actually traced it back and found its origin. We had a write-protected floppy from a Radio Shack which was infected. And no disks from before that were infected, and all after it were infected. One problem. We had sent disks BACK to many of these customers. Any disk which had been used in those systems would have carried the infection. I went to the owners and told them this and said they should tell the customers... but they elected not to, fearing they'd be liable for cleanup costs. Bleh.

[@madsfiedler3884]

fucking e w im so sorry ab that

[@ocoolwow]

Yeah but they aren't wrong people are so stupid they will blame the people warning them because they couldn't possibly be at fault...

[@endoflevelboss]

Nimda was around 2000/2001. We got a bad strike of it where I worked then. Nimda, (admin backwards) hit our webservers which got simultaneously tagged with "Fuck China Government" pages - big red letters on a black screen. Wouldn't have minded but we had to use that webserver to present to at a press event to over 150 customers, 30 mins after we just discovered it... We used a backup laptop as the webserver for the presentation. We didn't know if the laptop was also infected too. Each time we clicked on a link during the show we shit ourselves and kept thinking the F-China message was going to pop up. Thankfully it didn't :/

[@garylshawiii483]

You were basically a doctor

[@jc441-i3q]

When I was really young I watched an Are You Afraid of the Dark episode about a computer virus and became fascinated with it. I remember typing "input virus" into the school library computer thinking it would actually create a virus. I still cringe about this.

[@PanekPL]

Rightfully so

[@alancarr1056]

I have that scene with the port in the dudes hand burned into my mind

[@Kekimus]

@@alancarr1056 man I thought that was a fever dream.

[@DoomIIMaster]

Loved 'Are You Afraid of the Dark' as a kid. 8:24PM 8/23

[@secretworld02-b1r]

i think youre a legend

[@Togepiification]

This reminds me of the story I heard from an HP engineer about the origin of the word "bug" in common language. They were debugging some huge physical computer with vacuum tubes back in the day, and trying to figure out why calculations were coming up wrong -- but only some of the time. They combed through the system until they found a moth, or some other type of "real bug" which was sometimes landing on the equipment and causing small short-circuits. They called the act of searching for the error "debugging" because of the bug they found. Probably a folk-tale, but I found it interesting.

[@Khenfu_Cake]

It's not a myth; it did indeed happen. The word bug had been a common term in various fields to describe unexpected issues for a long time, but its usage in computer science did indeed gain traction after Grace Hopper (for anyone unfamiliar with her she's widely considered one of the early pioneers in computer programming. She, among other things, invented one of the first linkers) and her team who were working on the Mark II computer at Harvard University in 1947 found a moth stuck inside of it. They taped the moth into the logbook and wrote a tongue in cheek notation which said: "First actual case of bug being found". Ever since this incident 'debugging' became a common phrase in computer science due to this story being retold by Hopper and her colleagues. The logbook with the moth can be found at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

[@felixjohnson3874]

Pretty sure it would have been relay logic rather than vacuum tubes, but yeah it happened

[@----.__]

@@felixjohnson3874 Early computers used vacuum tubes.

[@felixjohnson3874]

@@----.__yes, and vacuum tubes came after relay logic, but vacuum tubes are literally sealed glassbulbs. So, as soon as you can explain to me how the fuck a moth phased through a glass bulb, I'll start considering the idea that it got stuck in a vacuum tube.

[@----.__]

@@felixjohnson3874 ​ OP never said they were _IN_ a vacuum tube, they said the moth was in an old vacuum tube computer. Reading is hard...

[@razi_man]

Pretty much a computer virus that makes you go: "Aw, man."

[@BeatboxNorwich]

The first 'Virus' we ever got turned out to be a dialer exploit on Win 98 and we got stung quite a large bill from Tuvalu. The PC never got infected though. Mother was pissed off at the phone bill while I sat and learnt PCs. The fooking thing didn't work on arrival so I had to take it to bits to fix it and I'm still doing it 24 years on. It's a good career path!

[@slowyourroll1146]

what material did you start learning about PCs with? there's so much educational content out there but it's hard to figure out where to start!

[@BeatboxNorwich]

Screwdrivers and hands mate

[@shawnl1155]

Holy smokes, this was a seriously high quality video. This is something I imagine that I would have watched on TechTV as a kid. You’ve got a whole vibe here.

[@The8BitDrummer]

Congratz on 500k! :D

[@growdot1961]

Woah. Never thought i would find 8 bit drummer here!

[@makethingsbetter]

I recall my pal and I reworking a virus to cause actual physical damage to a system, because we thought it would be fun to see if we could. Two things happened, we overloaded a circuit on the mother board by changing the result signals, and the floppy drive never stopped clicking, being told a disk was in the drive and then the screen was burnt by an image on small cluster of pixels always on bright white. Those days were fun, Paul, I miss you my friend. Have fun hacking the big space in the sky!

[@DFX2KX]

those sorts of physical damage exploits are mercifully rare in the computer world. Buuuuuuut in the age of Zip Disks, an acquaintance of mine successfully destroyed the drives of several classrooms. How? he got a disk corrupted with the now-infamous 'click of death' hardware fault. He got a new sticker, wrote "Porn" on it, and left it in the men's locker room. "Well, I dunno, my drive's busted, here, you try it!" made manifest.

[@splitt3r]

I wonder if this sort of virus is possible on modern hardware, like a virus that flashes the BIOS with a custom version and when the system reboots it sends 3V to the CPU and RAM. Not sure if there is any sort of hardware protection or if it just hasn't been an issue because there's not much motivation to make a virus that just destroys things

[@makethingsbetter]

@@splitt3r I would imagine most memory resident AV or malware situations would capture it. But who is going to test that on their new hardware lol 😆 not me! Ha!

[@nessamillikan6247]

Your username is in such an ironic contrast to your comment that I had to laugh!

[@VitorFM]

I remember when I was in school to attempt to magnetize those tube display with magnets, just for phun... This creates an permanent color pattern on the screen. Yet, I also discovery that spinning the same magnets fast enough with an electric motor, I was able to demagnetize it, and fix it!

[@jim2lane]

Xerox had an amazing resource at their PARC facility. In addition to major contributions towards the creation of Ethernet, they also created the first true GUI interface, laser printer, fax machine and VCR technology. Sadly, Xerox was run by what we called "Toner Heads". People who came up through the ranks selling copiers, so if it didn't look or act like a copier they had no idea what to do with it. So, aside from the laser printer, those technologies ended up being either sold or just given away to other companies. **sigh** what might have been

[@AsherBunnyman]

Good God, that is some truly stunning stupidity. Thank you for the history lesson.

[@jim2lane]

@@AsherBunnyman with their exclusive patents on the xerographic copier running through the 70's and into the 80's, Xerox was just so flush with money that they just didn't care that much about what other technologies those egg heads out in Palo Alto came up with. It's the ultimate case study in American corporate short-term think

[@Tom55data]

Yes Xerox parc is famous in computing and maths world.

[@presidentkiller]

They also created the computer mouse. The GUI needed it.

[@jim2lane]

@@presidentkiller The PARC mouse is generally recognized as the first mouse designed for the modern computer. However, the first functional mouse is credited to Doug Engelbart and Bill English at Stanford way back in 1964

[@solomonthegrundit8737]

I’m 23, and for all you teens out there, I have one piece of advice. When you go somewhere for a few days that you know is gonna be one of the best things you’ll do for a while, (for example, for me, it was a school football tour with my mates, and a trip to Germany with my best friends), listen to 4 or 5 songs only, whenever you have the time in that trip. They don’t have to be songs that u love, and u can do other things while you’re listening. What that did for me was, whenever I listened to those songs in the future, I had such nostalgia. Please, just try it.

[@CarletoGamesCGYT674]

The guy that saw the "I'm the Creeper" message: "Creeper? Aww man!".

[@thesteelrodent1796]

in modern day you can't search for creeper without having to sift through a pile of minecraft references

[@blabbilizer]

1:34 I thought that was my Steam, you're evil for selecting that sound effect

[@mkstffwthstff]

I heard the Happy Wheels homing mine

[@megarural3000]

8:36 "There was nothing malicious behind Creeper." Unintentionally hilarious line.

[@Narinjas]

#MineCraftMind

[@robdom91]

Clearly they never tried catching one. I wouldn't recommend it, especially with a full inventory.

[@Shpooky]

Minecraft's Grim "Reaper"? Ahaha. End me.

[@megarural3000]

@@Shpooky Grim Creeper

[@FewVidsJustComments]

creeper? aww man

[@josephfranzen9196]

Your channel is the only reason why I still have the KZbin App on my phones and tablets. The quality and depth of research that are presented in your videos are second to none. When I was stationed at Ft. Belivoir in 05, there’s a small display that has some of this older hardware on display, it was neat stuff.

[@jamesfigueroa8610]

Remembered The I love you virus and thinking no one would fell for this. Then half the office got the virus.

[@robdavis8556]

Still can't quite believe I opened it 🤣. Was an interesting learning experience. Literally pulled the network plug to stop it sending. Then my colleagues and I pulled the VB source apart. Had a detailed report of how it worked and what damage it was causing long before any official announcements. Lost some cool hand made GIFs that day 😭😶

[@DeathMetalDerf]

This is really right up my street. I'm currently working on a master's in cyber security and network engineering, and this kind of stuff is just endlessly fascinating to me. Thanks for a super interesting and very informative video. I love this channel, and I can't wait to see what's next!!!

[@DanielMReck]

"RAYMOND!!" Please keep up this informative and entertaining work. It is important to preserve this early computing history in a way that modern computer users understand.

[@GeirEivindMork]

In the 80s my friend did a practical joke on his mother, who was a teacher. He installed a cascade virus emulator in the boot. So while she was working on one of her school related documents, the letters suddenly started to drop into the bottom of the screen. She was my class teacher so I knew her temperament very well, and could vividly imagine the reaction when he explained it. She wasn't amused, to say the least. Their computer costed over 7 000 usd in todays money, and I assume she was afraid he had broken it or something. He did write a harmless virus himself in assembly, but never spread it. I wasn't even given a copy, just shown it. I was not profilent in assembly at the time, so my try at the same was in turbo pascal which wasn't exactly equally impressive. Worked more like a self-replicating trojan.

[@tolindaniel]

From the title, I thought this was going to be a story on the Blaster Worm from the early 'oughts. What a pleasant surprise, I hadn't heard this story before!

[@metazshanstark91]

Same here, I totally fo enjoy new content and stories I've never heard before as well! So refreshing to the open mind for information.

[@ProlificInvention]

The first computer virus I got was ©1994-1995 on my stepdads 386 SX 25 with a turbo button. We were hooked to compuserve and I had downloaded an early visualization program and some other games like scorched earth mostly from BBS and Compuserve. Somewhere along the line I got a virus which was like a little worm that would go across the screen left to right, top to bottom "eating" the screen as it went and leaving behind solid black. After awhile I figured out it had affected all the software and my stepdad trashed it and all our 3.5 inch floppies as to not infect the new 486 dx33 we replaced it with.

[@StormClassX]

F**king... comupserve... if those weren't the days am I right? The only way I had to access the world wide web proper was through a telnet terminal I had in college (UTK)Funny thought.. pages were more visual centric back then. I could read nearly every page if it was text only these days. Back in the early 90s... text only was a massive handicap.

[@jonmcentire]

Great story, to bad for trashing the 386, could've been saved by wiping the hard drive with some software on a write protected floppy.

[@Froobyone]

I'm here for the turbo button. I had an SX25. I would gaze longingly at those with the DX33s. Oh how I coveted a math co-processor!

[@ProlificInvention]

@@Froobyone I regretted not mentioning the whole math coprocessor upgrade deal literally 1 moment after I posted that 😆

[@ProlificInvention]

@@jonmcentire I think they were mostly trashed, I was a scrapper for 20 years and scrapped multiple thousands of every type of electronics including most makes and models of computers. The only one I never found (that I always looked for) was a Commodore PET with a cassette drive and all those fantastic games like lemonade stand and Oregon trail, etcetera. My elementary school had those and apple IIEs-we eventually became one of the first schools to get the original black and white macintosh computers when I was in 4th grade, and I saw all the PETs in a back hallway after that... On the plus side I put all the circuit boards in 25% acetic acid (strong vinegar) for years to retrieve many precious metals

[@Bobsmithgeorgette]

These history videos are the best content you create. Please keep em coming!!!

[@Flightkitten]

The steam notification noise at 7:17 got me very confused for a second. Excellent mini-documentary!

[@kaitlyn__L]

It’s particularly fascinating that their envisioned worms involved surreptitiously doing complex work at the infected’s expense, but until recently most such malware largely did simple yet frustrating tasks (such as deleting or encrypting your files). But they predicted crypto-trojans and crypto-worms quite successfully! Especially with how some of these leave no traces and run unnoticed in some web pages, or find their way into large corporate networks to suck 5-10% CPU on their own tasks. Edit: I suppose botnets could be a similar sort of “actually used for something” effect earlier on, but that doesn’t parcel-up the work among various instances of itself in the same way. They just sit there until they’re told to do something else, rather than going out and finding hosts for a specific task.

[@FewVidsJustComments]

Noone: 2010's people when they get this: "Creeper? Aww man!"

[@madson-web]

Von Neumann was a father of everything. Every area he touched it came out something revolutionary. What a legend

[@FatNorthernBigot]

I remember the first time I heard the phrase "computer virus". It was 1989, and we all had a good laugh, as we programmed the work's mainframe in COBOL.

[@Big_Tex]

Sometimes the old ways are best 🤣

[@FatNorthernBigot]

@@Big_Tex they're sure as shit more secure.

[@the_kombinator]

My first interaction with one was the ANTIEXE virus in the early 90s. It infected so many of my diskettes. I still have a copy saved :D

[@FatNorthernBigot]

@@the_kombinator It was like the wild west of PCs in the 90s. Anything went. I miss those times.

[@carddamom188]

Now I remember when the mainframe that its programmed in COBOL, was infected by a virus... One could see the execs, almost ready to jump of the window... What a glorious day...

[@wobblycentaur]

I used the pdp 10 you featured in 1970. Hatfield polytechnic as the university of hertfordshire was then shared a site with Hatfield Grammar school , we had teletype 33 terminals to access the computer in a small broom cupboard , we cut cards by hand as only the sixth formers were to use the paper tape puncher/ reader on the teletype 33. Later at Further Ed college we had modem access to the by then upgraded to pdp11 at the Hatfield poly at I think 300 baud. We tapped the number out on the handset to bypass the dial lock to prevent u using it out of hours , the tapping was enough to convince the strowger exchange the number had been dialled.

[@thomasrotweiler]

John Bunner's "Shockwave Rider" from 1975 is well worth reading, even though it's nearly 50 years old.

[@jmalmsten]

The blurred background copy for portrait video... Words cannot describe how hard it becomes for me to watch that... People talk about seasickness from handheld video. That's probably the closest I can describe the sensation of unease and tension in my eyes as I struggle to follow what is supposed to be shown in the nonblurred foreground copy... The video in general is great, filled with awesome content and information. It's just those segments that stick out so much.

[@pettersvard5990]

Yes why is it so hard for some people to tilt the phone to landscape mode?

[@jmalmsten]

@@pettersvard5990 It's not that I have problems with. Ok, at least not just that. It's more the blurred copy background. All it does is draw the viewers (my) eyes outside the nonblurred area with movements that are somewhat synchronized with what is in the foreground. Portrait video is another pet peeve in general, but it is very watchable if the background is kept nondistracting. At least that's my experience.

[@JP-dv7rf]

I absolutely love these videos. You have such a talent for making them and your passion for the topics is clear.

[@ideegeniali]

I programmed a DOS computer virus when i was 15. It spread on my classmates PCs uncatched. It copied itself from exe file to exe file as many viruses of the era. It was set to activate at a certain date and play a tune and display singalong words on screen and imped running infected exe files. I got calls from upset parents of classmates to my parents (no cell phones back then, just landline phones) that needed use PC for serious staff. If i were lazy i wouldn't have programmed antivirus and would have fucked many PCs. Thankfully i programmed self-distruct routine for any date after a different date and could instruct over the phone to change system date and run to get back clean exe files! I was expecting PCs to stay not operative for one week and then magically work again with nobody guessing who or why. I was not expecting calls at home first day! Had it a bug, it could have spread uncontrolled. Fortunately it had not bugs, worked ok, and all copies self-distructed themselves!

[@Fireberries]

How were you caught?

[@person749]

And everybody clapped ! 👏

[@sheamichael2004]

What software did you use?

[@DyoKasparov]

Don't fuck computers tho, can be painful

[@01DOGG01]

I did a similar thing with fake game installation floppies. It had a fake animated (using manually-drawn ascii screens) installation menu, and hijacked the autoexec.bat and config.sys files. After 'installation' was finished, it rebooted and displayed a picture of an alien instead of loading up DOS or Windows. I programmed a password into it that you could type in to reverse the whole process, but it was scary unleashing it because I knew that if it had a bug, it'd be a lot of work to fix things. Thankfully it ran 100% according to expectations and was just a stupid joke I played on people rather than causing longer-term headaches.

[@hdufort]

The virus that caused the most damage among my friend who owned a PC in the early 1990s was Stoned. Another one that was really destructive, later, was the Happy New Year 1999 (Happy99). I know an IT company where most PCs had been infected.

[@tomd96]

There's a KZbin channel I used to follow called danooct1 that has a lot videos on the older DOS viruses, some are flashy, others not so much.

[@ellinorengstrom5226]

The editing in this video is on point. This is the most interesting video you have made in ages. Keep it up and i hope it gets a million views!

[@monkeyman767]

Fascinating look into viruses, it started with an honestly good idea, also never knew xerorx's involvement. Love the length of these too

[@RocketRoosterFilms]

and what makes it better is that xerox makes copiers. the files copy themselves like the copiers do!

[@makethingsbetter]

Back in the 90s there was a theory that all viruses started as an attempt to hurt other corporation, financially, and with slanderous marketing. There was even a theory that the virus creating community started as slighted programmers who were not happy with the marketing of anti-virus products. Then it switched to anti-virus companies invent viruses, yet no evidence to that notion. I build because I can. Personally I think curiosity is the cause.

[@DSonBlue]

Absolutely fascinating thank you! I’ve been in IT since the start and I never knew half the stuff you’ve taken the time to research here. Great vid.

[@SamSmithsamek15]

I really do appreciate all the content you've given myself and others through the years.

[@PessimistPirate]

Thank you so much for this documentary. I find this fascinating. I think we take the Internet for granted, and don’t appreciate the work and artistry, spanning decades, that went into putting a supercomputer in our pocket.

[@rickwitt5735]

This was one of the most informative videos I've watched in some time. It's much appreciated. Keep up the great content!

[@gzamboni]

Hello Sir!! Good to see your content here! You made my afternoon happier! cheers mate.

[@PashPaw]

ARPANet would have used a different protocol than TCP/IP called Network Control Protocol. TCP/IP wasn't adopted until 1983. But, TENEX did evolve into a fully fledged operating system called TWENEX and there are a few TWENEX nodes on the net still. There's also an effort to resurrect this protocol for historical purposes right now.

[@ProffyChaos]

Another great video. Really knocking it out of the park. I loved the Renault 19 video (my dad had several as company cars). You truly are the king of nostalgia to me.

[@joeharley1423]

Loved this one! Really interesting and in depth video - really pleased you’re still making them in light of your recent video on having enough with KZbin.

[@rashkavar]

It's worth noting that while early professional experimentation with self-replicating programs provided the source for viruses and worms, it also provided the source for the kind of software designed to detect and remove such problematic programs. I'm kinda glad those developed concurrently - can you imagine how bad the situation might be if there was a 3-4 year lag time between the development of viruses and countermeasures had they developed in the early 90s once the internet was a thing. (Because clearly *someone* was going to come up with the idea, even if it wasn't professionals back in the days of secure closed WANs like the Arpanet) Having the concept around back in those days also meant that there was an idea of security to protect against such malicious software being built into operating systems like UNIX. Or being completely ignored as the case may be. (Looks at Microsoft.)

[@dannywhite9975]

"The Shockwave Rider" by John Brunner was ahead of time. Hopefully if u want we'll get a deep dive into that forgotten SF masterpiece by 1 of yr as always insightful analysis.

[@italsounds001]

I started working for IBM in 1988, in that same year, working for the PC repair operation (called service point) I was accused of transmitting a “virus” between 2 internal computers that had been in the workshop for repair, and given a dressing down, even though at the time, running any sort of anti virus program was not normal practise, the software wasn’t available to me, but the PC in question had come from IBM labs, who were ahead of the game, and the PC in question was an early pc luggable from the labs, it wasn’t possible to prove where the virus had originated or if we were responsible for spreading it, in fact most of my management didn’t have a clue what a virus was, that resulted in a change across the organisation. Having access to labs PCs though did give me an early opportunity to experience the next generation of just about every advancement at the time, including VR in IBM PC’s, computers filled with memory, the hard drives with more than 20mb storage, the virtual guitar, the first IBM laptop and thinkpad (after the portables) and the internet/bulletin boards, very early on.

[@johnussss]

The craziest virus I remember was the Blaster Virus, affected every XP machine in 2003 that connected to the internet, it also caused havoc with win2k ... it could not detect the OS and only 1 in 3 times affected a 2k machine, but even when it guessed wrong while attempting to infect 2k it would crash instances of Services Host and infect RPC DCOM You would not be able to open new instances of a web browser, this was before tabbed browsing and everything you clicked on on Microsoft's site back then opened in a new window, so getting the patch from them was a chore as you'd end up with the problem before you obtained the patch,

[@GRBtutorials]

So, Xerox wanted to create the world’s first botnet?

[@magickmarck]

Nice one! I feel like you're honing in on more interesting subject matter with this series on virii. Thanks!

[@kanrup5199]

For all the time I have used computers, I never got a virus that wrecked the machine. This just makes me very uneasy, because it must mean they either weren't much at all, or they were all skulking unseen in my machines.

[@DFX2KX]

If it helps any, unless you're into at least slightly-dodgy stuff (cracks, warez, ROMs, ripped DVDs, ect) you'll not likely find one of the overtly malicious ones. Most of them are adware, by in large, injecting extra ads into websites and the like. Though spyware (the silent watch-everything variety) becomes a risk if you're management at a corporation of some kind.

[@AndyMitchellUK26]

A few years ago I went through all of my old hard drives from the early 2000s. I was absolutely gobsmacked by the sheer amount of infected files on them that were picked up by Microsoft Defender. Thankfully the majority were false positives or extremely weak compared to what's in the wild nowadays but it was just so crazy seeing hundreds of files infected across all of my drives (and even some burned CDs/DVDs).

[@RamonHernandez]

Learned about the Morris worm in college. It was fascinating at the time. Thank you for reminding me about it.

[@HouseOfFunQM]

Vampires are genuinely the most terrifying thing to me. I don't know why. I think it has like a "monster in cupboard" vibe - that computers will come to life and start ruining your life whilst you're asleep.

[@jcxtra]

I have a friend who develops stuff that ends up in the Linux kernel. She's had a pet project for years, basically a method to allow any process on Linux to move across the network and run on another system, something called process migration, so that something can run locally, be moved elsewhere, then moved back. To make something be able to scale up or down based on resource use and be a system that has fewer single points of failure. It's very interesting to see that even right back at the beginning people were thinking of creative uses of computers, and now that we have virtual machine technology and high availability systems. I really enjoyed this video, thanks Nostalgia Nerd. For some reason I hadn't been subscribed on this account for some reason. :>

[@Zeroharpe]

Everytime the bleep sound played, I thought it was one of my many bleeping programs, even though I have no programs that make that bleep.

[@MrCalldean]

Already left a comment, but this was such good vid, it deserves two; this is what I watch for - I could watch you talk about any old shit, but I love these more in depth, historical. vids.

[@richbuilds_com]

I wrote a QL virus back in the day that encrypted any Microdrive that was inserted and survived a reset. It fell out of some encryption code I wrote for Psion about 1000 years ago :)

[@Charlesb88]

A minor correction, but ARPANET did not start out using the TCP protocol. Originally it used Network Control Protocol (NCP), a name given to it only after TCP was developed starting in 1973 by Vinson Cerf and Robert E. Kahn (and later others). By the late 70s, the superior TCP was taking over ARPANET and the outdated NCP was seeing it’s use decline drastically. In the late 70s, work was begun to merge several different national networks that had been running at the time into one using the TCP/IP protocol. By 1983, ARPANET officially abandoned NCP for good and all ARPANET servers became “Internet” Servers. The old original ARPANET NCP based network was now officially dead. The ARPANET project, now running under TCP/IP, continued on until 1990 which by then it was considered to have succeeded in its goals and was shut down for good. By then the “Internet” was officially global and self-supporting save for government orgs in charge of handing out IP address pools and Domain names, which later would be privatized too.

[@computer_toucher]

Sorry mate, but I seemed to remember that us mountain apes had the first trans-atlantic ARPA connection and Wiki seems to agree with me: "NORSAR was the first non-US site included in ARPANET in June 1973 with a connection via the Tanum Earth Station in Sweden to the Seismic Data Analysis Center (SDAC) in Virginia, United States.[6][7] It was the connection point for ARPANET to spread to Peter Kirstein's research group at University College London (UCL) the following month in July 1973." E: The layout image of the ARPANET connections clearly shows how London was connected via NORSAR too.

[@n0rbert79]

18:36 - I shared the video with Richard. His reply was "ha!". Love the guy 😁😁

[@Modenut]

"like it or love it" 😄 Btw, remember the cih virus? That nasty thing utterly destroyed one of my computers in the latter half of the 90s. It wiped the bios (or the cmos, I forget) and that was that lol. 😬

[@Shifter-1040ST]

Yeah that one was nasty. It was also known as Chernobyl. The only virus to ever completely and utterly nuke my system.

[@Modenut]

@@Shifter-1040ST lol god dammit. I still get annoyed about it 😄

[@gonzaloNMF]

This channel is my reason to check youtube for content.

[@Innocuils]

Very interesting!! Keep up the good work sir!

[@Colin_Ames]

Another excellent video related to computing history. Keep them coming.

[@NoisyBones]

I love the idea postulated in ‘Self Replicating Automata’ since I read it in 12th grade. I find the method very interesting and am even using it as the basis for how AI reproduce in a story that focuses almost exclusively on sapient AI

[@TheInternetHelpdeskPlays]

This is amazing and informative. And I hate to say it but your talking head bits have a frequency distortion in the background.

[@randy7894]

What a fascenating docu, nn. Thanks again for free high quality infotainment!

[@noirlavender6409]

NOSTALGIA critic and ANGRY VIDEO GAME NERD, "nostalgia nerd" GENIUS.

[@bertramusb8162]

The rabbit name works on multiple levels, like how the virus reproduces like rabbits reportedly do. I wouldn't have thought about the Burroughs/burrows thing though. Ps, so great to see more of your content!

[@TechGorilla1987]

It would only have been funnier if his name was "Warren" :D

[@bertramusb8162]

Next video can be about Bugs!

[@rthefish]

Good to see you back in form. Excellent vid.

[@sjdpfisvrj]

I worked at BBN when Ray was still working there. Very quiet and unassuming guy, and was still interested in technology to the day he passed away.

[@Jablicek]

This was fascinating! Thanks for doing all the research :)

[@dot1298]

so, John von Neumann laid the groundwork

[@VladoT]

Back in the 90's the virus craze was so high that there was a software package created for generating/creating viruses called Virus Creation Laboratory (VCL).

[@drewkinnear1895]

I never released a virus but I sure did have fun playing with the VCL. I still have a working 106MB Maxtor full height drive with some goodies on it from back in the day. It's an MFM drive and I even have a working pci controller from Sparrow in the same box... you just never know...

[@andrewnewman398]

ARPANET initially ran NCP (60s-70s) not TCP/IP (80s and later). RFC 801 details the switch over. NCP was simplex which explains why early protocols (SMTP, FTP, Telnet, etc) were odd numbered (two ports) compared to later ones which were even numbered (like HTTP).

[@TheNoodlyAppendage]

I wrote a PC BIOS boot sector infector that took 14 bytes. All it did was use bios INT21 and maybe an INT10 calls to load edit and rewrite the MBR. A side effect was it protected the battalion computers from the stoned virus.

[@gaeshows1938]

that smooth transition to sponsor

[@dakotarice1849]

Sweet a new video to watch on a rainy day

[@artdehls9100]

I used to buy all the copies of "The Sheep Look Up" that I saw in used bookstores and leave them in all sorts of places. Seeds. John Bruner was one of the best. and Shockwave Rider might have been fiction when it was written, but it describes our current reality in many ways, to a T. Happy to find out that he originated the term 'worm' in that context, good show! ...and of course von Neumann thought of it, he thought of Everything. ;)

[@sing748]

A story old as the world. Good job.

[@greenhowie]

Creeper being MIA is a great basis for a... uh... creeperpasta. Love these old virus documentaries.

[@Str0b0]

I've been using computers more than 30 years and never had any problems with viruses

[@cheezburgrproduction]

Expertly made thoroughly enjoyable!

[@JonMichaelDeShazer]

4:30 4 weeks ago I was exactly where you're standing at the Science Museum in London. I'm from the US (Denver) and it was my first ever trip out there. If you are into retro computing, this is a must see exhibit!

[@Tr6e9nT]

Glad you posted again, I missed your insight.

[@----.__]

First virus I experienced was Denzuko in 1990 after downloading games from BBS at a friends house and bringing them home on disks. It was on my father's PC so I panicked! Computers back then had DOS, windows wouldn't come out until a few years later, so I tried booting from a bootable 5.25" DOS floppy but the virus showed up again, and now the bootable disk was infected too. I had to ride to another friends house and make another bootable DOS disk there using sys a: to transfer the boot sector etc, except this time I write protected the disk with some tape. Rode back home and booted the PC and the virus didn't spread, then when I booted from the harddisk the virus was gone there too. It seems the remedy for Denzuko was simply booting from a write protected disk, which was great, because once everything was working again my father got home from work about 20 minutes later and I managed to avoid an evening with the belt, again.

[@Cavemenandgods]

This may be my favorite comment section of all time… what a gold mine….

[@penfold7800]

i came across an interesting progam back in the day called 'spree_tree' and ive been looking for reference to it ever since. what it did was to completely obliterate the standard ibm file allocation table and create its own. it didnt destroy data, it just moved it into its own filing system that was only visible through ibm basic. i still find it fascinating.

[@TemporallyYours]

I interned at the science museum in college- was such a wonderful place to wander around during my breaks! Do they still have 'Listening Post' set up?

[@mfbfreak]

I remember using the computer in elementary school in the 2nd half of the 1990s. The teachers made a big deal about people taking diskettes to school, essentially prohibit it because of the fear of spreading a virus. Not much later, in 2000 or so, my elementary school got broadband. Downloaded a LOT of music and small games.

[@madzen112]

I never understood those people who make viruses.

[@binkman853]

Another great piece of history. Excellent as always. Thanks!

[@ferreroman2913]

I’ve been binge watching all your channel

[@TheEulerID]

The idea that we wouldn't have malware without the Creeper and those that followed it is surely not tenable. Ideas are rarely unique, and this particular one would have occurred to many people in the future.

[@KOTYAR0]

Amazing documentary. Thank you

[@mme725]

Thanks for the video! Love these storied history segments :)

[@davidt-rex2062]

Phone rotation broken or something in the science museum? /s Fantastic video. Love stuff with histrionic stuff like this.

[@Nostalgianerd]

I was trying to film for a "reel"... Whatever the heck that is.

[@entothechesnautknight1762]

Gotta say, loving all the old tech stories in the comments. Good time reading about the chaos that was the late 80s/early 90s of computing, before "eternal september" came around and mainstreamed the whole business.

[@chrischiesa609]

It seems pretty self-evident that viruses, worms, and other forms of malware would have been inevitable even without Creeper and Reaper, et al, specifically. The idea is pretty simple and self-evident to anybody experiencing that first flush of fascination with what a computer can do, and even more so when they discover how it all actually works behind the scenes. The very first thing one is moved to do is hide data in parts of the disk thataren't part of a named file. Then it's on to the boot sector (and partition tables eden disks for big enough to need them) and the intriguing question, "Hmm. What could I put in there?" I myself would not turn to maliciousness or destruction (at least not without provocation, LOL) but would very definitely have been interested in snooping around other people's systems and perhaps sending myself copies of things that looked interesting...

[@1967CougarXR7]

Enjoyed the new video. I've been going through the back catalog of older stuff like byte size. This one is like those. Thanks.

[@Lollero200q]

Nostalgia nerd is my favourite wikipedia reader!