Virus Hoaxes of the Early Internet | Nostalgia Nerd

[@Ganondorfdude11]

The modern version is "I DO NOT give Facebook permission to use my information! Copy and paste this message into your status."

[@Charky_Creations]

Or "Facebook is deleting all inactive accounts, repost this to mark your account as active"

[@alexmawdsley]

Those drove me nuts. For some reason, people I know being incredibly gullible and stupid is very frustrating for me.

[@Rando1975]

I'm still seeing that daily on Facebook. I don't bother correcting them anymore.

[@fuzzybobbles]

And in 2020 we now know that Farcebook is the real virus, as it destroys any real social activity. Proof of which can be seen eveywhere. People sitting around a table and all looking at their phones instead of talking to each other.

[@doubtful_seer]

Fuzzy Electronics you know they said the same about books, radios, newspapers, etc

[@legacyoftheancientsC64c]

Oh 90s Internet how I miss your magic. There was a genuine excitement of witnessing the beginning of something you knew deep down was going to be world changing. I was a teen and my family's resident "nerd" so of course I was the target of countless panicked phone calls from various grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc about the latest sundry virus/hoax/end of the world. Y2K nearly drove me insane.

[@fuzzybobbles]

My first experience of the Internet was in 1996. And I was amazed at how easy it was to find information on so many things that interested me. I remember spending 4 nights downloading mp3's off Napster a few years later just to make a cd of music I couldn't get in the shops. I spent £300 on a CD writer and blank discs were £10 each.

[@legacyoftheancientsC64c]

@@fuzzybobbles I remember the first mp3 I ever downloaded (from a Mac Hotline site) it was "Landmass" from Future Sound of London only to discover that my Performa 6200CD was so underpowered it would use almost 100% of it's CPU to play that mp3. I couldn't even browse the web at the same time or the mp3 would stutter. :D Oh and it took something like 20 minutes to download. Still, I'd give anything to relive those days.

[@DanOutdoorsUK]

Same here! I begged for months to get dial up (thank god for the free aol disks!) Then with the introduction of broadband I had to beg for months again. My mum kept saying we have the internet so no, then one day she asked what the benefit of broadband was? I said it was faster, oh and you can use the phone at the same time! We got broadband pretty quick after that 😂

[@legacyoftheancientsC64c]

@@DanOutdoorsUK Lol I had a similar experience with my mom. The minute our phone company offered DSL (1.5 mbit ftw!) she called to schedule an installation. I was ecstatic, I could no longer get blamed for our last Everquest raid wipe because someone in my house picked up the phone. I swear seeing that little green "connection status" line suddenly go yellow then red was terrifying: MOM PUT THE PHONE BACK ON THE HOOK!!! Ooops too late, diconnected, log back to find your toon naked and a trillion zones away from where you were playing. It was glorious. GLORIOUS I TELL YOU! :D

[@nhansen197]

Y2K was actually an issue for companies like Hertz. Their system only used two digits for the year. They also had an age restriction. The issue wasn't so much as the computer partying like it was 1899 in Y2K, the problem was going to start cropping up as soon as people born after 1999 were old enough to rent a car. The system would just assume a person born after 1999 was actually born after 1899 because of the way it checked to see how old someone was, and therefor too old to drive. I imagine it's been fixed since. Pretty much every system that only used two digits for the year was going to have issues sooner or later.

[@juanmena4104]

I never get viruses because I downloaded more RAM ◉‿◉

[@Arbiter099]

Install all your viruses on a RAMdisk so they go away when you power down, protip

[@MRSTU1210]

😂😂😂i always get viruses direct from the distributor's

[@belstar1128]

I downloaded more ram i have payed for 10 different registry optimisters and i even got a V P N.

[@srpenguinbr]

@@Arbiter099 Real pros use only RAM and reinstall windows everyday

[@ahniandfriends123]

I've got SoftRAM95 so I don't have to worry about getting a virus with my free RAM.

[@CommodoreFan64]

Please do more of these, I had an aunt who would email me these all the damn time back in the late 90's, and if I did not email her back I would get calls with her panicking about them like her computer was going to blow up, or set her house on fire. Eventually me, and my uncle got tired of it, and gave her an iMac G3 for Christmas, and told her she can't get a virus on it since it was not Windows.

[@nthgth]

I wonder how many Apple computers were sold for that very reason 😄

[@CommodoreFan64]

@@nthgth I'm sure a fair amount, I can say Windows 95 - Vista era made me a nice little side business just by word of mouth in my small community repairing computers for people because of all the fake virus hoaxes, and people downloading any virus scanner legit, or not to combat them, or letting this website install that toolbar on top of toolbars, along with normal MS BS, etc.. to the point it was crashing their systems. These days everyone in my family uses either Mac OSX, Linux via Manjaro, or Mint DE(Debian Edition), Android tablets/phones, or Chromium OS via NeverWare CloudReady OS, and my tech support calls have gone way way down till it's time for a new system upgrade 😀

[@nthgth]

@@CommodoreFan64 haha that's fair. I'm lucky to have had programmers for parents so my whole family knew enough about computers to handle Windows just fine, avoiding most of those pitfalls. Though nothing could save me from Windows ME - my first time taking a computer apart was to add RAM and a CD burner for my upgrade to XP, fun times haha

[@CommodoreFan64]

​@@nthgthI hear ya, and that is a good thing. Far as Win ME, yeah it was a steaming pile to say the least, and my simple solution was to keep burned copies of Windows 98SE around with working keys, and just put that on people's computers instead, as most of the ones I came across with Win ME where lower end junk from eMachines people got conned into buying from shady sales people at places like Best Buy to make those numbers(sadly my late stepdad was one of those who got conned as I was not with him that day, and he was one of those guys that if you were not a "professional", then you knew jack crap, and he would not listen to you 🤦).

[@nthgth]

@@CommodoreFan64 ah I see. I did a similar thing when I found out as a freshman that my college not only sold WinXP fresh install discs for cheap, but they were about to stop selling them - I bought one just to have for later. (Should have bought multiple). Come to find out, 13 years later, it's 64-bit edition 😑 Can't run the Yamaha XG midi wave table (at least my install file) which is one of the main things I want. Who knows what else is incompatible.

[@eddiehimself]

I'd be more worried about that Budweiser screensaver causing burn-in due to large static elements than any virus to be fair.

[@CommodoreFan64]

yeah same. I've always just turned off my monitor/s, or closed the lid to my laptop if I'm going to be away from it for more than a few minutes, and just let my system go into a blank screen mode with a lock, or just something basic like a bouncing clock with black background.

[@andrewmurray1550]

@@CommodoreFan64 I just use the classic "mystify" screensaver, still ships with Win 10. (that's been around since Win 3.x or earlier. Agree those screensavers (like from "AfterDark" were largely static - the AD Star Trek (TNG) one I remember was more for "entertainment" than for "screen-saving" because either it had some 'cut scenes' from the actual series, or animated segments. The Flying Toasters was still cool (that is, when screen savers were "in").

[@Clouditivity]

My phone has screenburn mostly just the keyboard though. Not sure how but eh it isnt very noticeable

[@bjornroesbeke]

I distinctly remember arguing with people NOT to send me these messages because they are fake and utterly useless. There was no stopping. The few people who believed me fell for another hoax a week later. Luckily (?) nowadays these hoaxes mostly propagate via Facebook in my experience. Garbage messages on a garbage website.

[@picketf]

Sadly it's not just a facebook thing anymore. It's on Instagram, twitter, tiktok, everywhere... but on webpages the algorythm may be tweaked a bit so mostly the ignorant can get to it. Where it really shines is whatsapp, telegram and other encrypted chats where people can spread misinformation and fake news unhindered.

[@davidmcgill1000]

@@picketf So still garbage websites.

[@picketf]

@@davidmcgill1000 my point was misinformation and nigerian prince type chain mails are becomming increasingly popular in chats rather than webpages, because chats can organize themselves into communities and indulge in fake news and same interests groups without any type of censorship. Whereas on facebook or elsewhere the content may be subject to scrutiny, dissemination and mocking by the community and in extreme cases censorship.

[@hedgehog3180]

Nah the modern version of this are chain posts on Discord warning against one particular user or something similar.

[@brianlauber]

I remember my parents unplugging our ATARI computer for 48 hours because somebody told them that "The Michaelangelo Virus would attack the computer through its power supply."

[@prasenjitgautam]

Shit 😂😂😂

[@malwaretestingfan]

Oh, the nostalgia.

[@grandetaco4416]

I knew a guy who's father refused to buy him a modem because he thought the viruses would travel through the phone wire even when the computer was off and infect the machine. So my friend would spent one evening a week at my house borrowing my computer to get online.

[@tiagotiagot]

Nowdays you gotta worry about malware embedded in phone chargers. I'm not kidding; there are fake phone chargers that hack your phone thru the USB cable. Never plug your phone into something you don't own.

[@prasenjitgautam]

@@tiagotiagot yeah! Like the OMG Cable, Google about it, it's literally next gen thing when it comes to exploitation.

[@CanadianRetroThings]

I always trust an e-mail, or any other document, that says its from an official source then uses 16 exclamation points after a sentence!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@Harey0407]

I trust the above comment because it has 16 exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@Arzee4991]

I trust the above reply because it has 16 exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@mandelbro777]

Damn straight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@melissayork227]

@@milanmateo182 don't try what they are saying. they are a bot. they do this on literally every video, it's so annoying

[@MCAlexisYT]

spam.

[@krowbarslickpick8490]

"c:/ " should have been a giveaway. Average people don't know the difference of forward slash to backslash

[@shadowpresident4203]

The whole, "Your computer is infected if you read the words 'Good Times'" reminds me of the old, "DON'T think of a pink elephant!"

[@sulefff]

Most hoaxes are easy to avoid. Just 1 golden rule: nobody really wants to give you anything for free.

[@rutgerb]

In my country we say: there is no easy money.

[@BertGrink]

@@rutgerb Or the acronym coined by Robert A. Heinlein: TANSTAAFL... There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

[@Ghi102]

Well, people would give viruses for free

[@sulefff]

@@Ghi102 Haha thats true.

[@gloomyblackfur399]

But what if this is the one time that's not true? /s

[@LeftoverBeefcake]

PLEASE HELP! Shortly after uploading this video, my friend Nostalgia Nerd has been imprisoned by the Prince of Greenland, and needs to move his money out of the country as soon as possible so it won't be seized by the illegitimate government there. If you agree to help, you can keep 3.14159% of the funds that will be transferred to your account from the National Bank of Greenland. Will you help Nostalgia Nerd keep his money so he can hire lawyers and fight this injustice?

[@BertGrink]

Of course I will help! Just send me your credit card number, expiration date and pin code, then I'll transfer any amount of monies needed to help NN.

[@u0aol1]

@@BertGrink Don't forget the last 3 numbers on the back, free online shopping for life!

[@BertGrink]

@@u0aol1 Yes, that's what i meant by "pin code", but obviously i expressed myself in an ambiguous way, for which i must apologise.

[@u0aol1]

@@BertGrink It's okay, but listen, my friend works in a bank and is looking for somebody to transfer funds to immediately. A wealthy customer died with 50billion Euros in the account, sadly she had no living relatives but we can easily spoof this to the bank. I need you a scan of your passport, your address where you are is living and the bank info for me to transfer all of the money funds. I will also need a €3000 euro western Union transfer so we can set up the documents and do the transaction. You are set to gain 139.765 millions of euros for your troubles. Give me your number and I call you from my bank office number when you are available so as to transact this transaction swiftly. Sincerely with bestest of regards and wishes Frank Smith Nation commercials bank of commercial processes

[@BertGrink]

@@u0aol1 Drat! I have neither a passport nor a phone of any kind, so I'm unable to help you with that. 😭

[@mattwolf7698]

Now I understand Weird Al's Virus Alert song.

[@jonlee8339]

Delete immediately before someone gets hurt

[@goldylover1000]

@@jonlee8339 forward this message on to everybody.

[@hfric]

aye , most of his songs are build on pop-culture events ... the thing is, if you don't know them... then you find his songs, tacky haha

[@lunaitc]

I knew it was about something like these, I didn't realize that there was as direct an inspiration as Bad Times.

[@Shadowonwater]

same here

[@VaterOrlaag]

I got an email warning me against the "System32" virus. Unfortunately, by the time I deleted the virus, it must've spread to other parts of my computer because it stopped working. Thanks for trying anyway, kind stranger.

[@BlackburnBigdragon]

The funny thing was back in the day of BBS'ing people used to write these things just as jokes for other BBS'ers. They were always parodies of virus alerts with all kinds of goofy jokes in there. Unfortunately, around that time, there were completely tech illiterate idiots who were getting computers just... dropped into their laps, that they refused to learn how to use and just... poked them with a stick, afraid that if they did ANYTHING, the thing would blow their house up (and judging from my time in tech support during that time period, a LOT of them had the "Problem is between the chair and the keyboard" issue, and legitimately DID blow up their machines.). These people had no concept of parody, or jokes, or pranksters, when it came to computers. That was part of the whole scene. All jokes just flew right over these people's heads and you could tell them the most absurd thing, and they would believe you, because... "Computer=magical, mysterious, device that could do anything and be a victim of anything!". This fact just... encouraged the pranksters. They made themselves the perfect targets by not learning about computers or the culture of the people using them at the time.

[@CommodoreFan64]

Very well said, a lot of it back then was indeed because of the braindead idiots sitting in the chair who refused to read a book, or take a class on the computer they bought, or where given to learn how to use it at even more than a basic level. I had an aunt in the mid - late 90's who would email me crap she was sent via email, or found on the internet like it was doomsday for her machine, and if I did not respond she would hound me about it on the phone as I was the family "techie" who knew everything about everything. Me, and my uncle finally had enough of it with her Windows 95 pc as she was also one to download every IE toolbar in the world, and we ended up giving her a 333Mhz Lime Imac G3 from CompUSA, and telling her she can't get a virus on a Mac.

[@BlackburnBigdragon]

@@CommodoreFan64 I always thought that a person should have to take a test, and pass it, before being allowed to get a computer. I had been into computers since the 80's. I was BBS'ing and writing programs all the time on my C64, back in the 80's, for instance. My god. Once people who had no clue and didn't intend to get a clue, started all getting PC's... it was a dark time.

[@Blackadder75]

@@BlackburnBigdragon it was also a glorious time! I made a good income as a teenager, fixing up all kinds of people's pc's because they didn't know anything about it... I remember a man paying me a huuuge bonus because I could discretely safeguard his naughty picture library before his family found out :D

[@visionop8]

Amen

[@CommodoreFan64]

@@Blackadder75 Same here, and I still do it as a side hustle to this day, although not as much since so many people have gone to Android phones/tablets, Apple devices(most insist on taking it to the Apple store, and getting ripped off big time 🤦) and/or Chromebooks as their primary, or sole computing devices, so I do more salvage finds from places like my local recycle drop off e-waste bin, local thrift stores, stuff people give me, etc.. and what's still good, and I don't need for myself, friends, or family I flip on eBay, or Letgo to pay an extra bill here, and there.

[@KowboyUSA]

The early Internet was an electronic Wild West. It was WONDERFUL!

[@dieguito0512]

*world wild west*

[@JPBennett]

It's funny, I see stupid messages like this going around Facebook even these days. Some things never change.

[@prasenjitgautam]

Any links? 😂

[@TheEudaemonicPlague]

To be honest, these hoaxes are simply the internet form of the old copier hoaxes. People would type or write up a sheet explaining about some scary thing, then start sending copies around...later, also by way of fax machines--that's when it really took off. They'll never stop.

[@nerfspartanEBF25]

11:03 "This virus will infect your mouse or pointing device" I choked on my coffee on seeing that

[@Crazy_Borg]

When you see that for example your Xbox controller has a firmware that can be updated, this isn't so funny anymore.

[@Christopher-N]

*The 8-Bit Guy* video: _What does a computer mouse see?_ kzbin.info/www/bejne/roilapeGZqanerc

[@3dlabs99]

Now we have facebook to help us share all that junk even more efficiently

[@reggiep75]

Technological anxiety was rife back in the 90's and early days of the internet. I used to treat the early days of the internet as a walk in the park, stick to the path you planned and don't allow ANYTHING to take you off the track..... even if they say it's for free!.

[@retro_jojo3159]

I always use incognito mode, so I never get viruses

[@ryla22]

@@johnk7302 ... there's literally no way this isn't a joke dude

[@retro_jojo3159]

@@johnk7302 bro you isn't nowing what your talking about

[@fghsgh]

bro I use arch linux I never get viruses (don't you dare, I'll r/whooosh you)

[@malwaretestingfan]

I use Dark Mode on Windows, i have unlocked 282828 IQ hacking powers that you mortals can't even reach.

[@GatorMilk]

@@fghsgh >reddit You have to go back

[@MechWizzard]

My internet machine was a heavily expanded Amiga 1200, never caught an internet virus, or any virus at all.

[@ConnerBurns]

Can you really call security by obscurity security? Still awesome that you were clean n clear 👍

[@MechWizzard]

Conner Burns well, it worked for me in 1994! Bearing in mind that most scammers and actual viruses would be targeting the most commonly used OSs such as windows 3.1 and 95, Amiga and Mac users weren’t really in their sights.

[@MechWizzard]

referral madness for you perhaps (Assuming you were even born then in the first place)

[@ConnerBurns]

@@MechWizzard Very true. If Windows 10 had 1% of the market share, I'm sure it's users would rarely ever be targeted for malware. I don't know enough about Amiga to say whether or not it was a secure OS though, compared to others in it's market segment at the time.

[@Ichijoe2112]

Probably for the same reason why Apple never did. Until after 2015 with the release of Window H8, and Windows X which probably drove dozens of people over to the Mac Platform.

[@gassnake2004]

"Only smart people used the Internet back in the day!!!" *Back in the day:*

[@Blackadder75]

that is still mostly true, but we are talking about the real early 'back in the day' days. It was mostly students, academics and tech business people.

[@Ichijoe2112]

I hear some dottering old demented fool loves to broadcast his nonsense from deep inside his bunker, along with a fleet of script writers, and as many off screen teleprompters. About how bad Oranges are. Oh how I wait with baited breath for the 29th. Yeah who the hell so I think I'm fooln'? The Deamonrats know exactly what would happen were old Sleepy having to go a mano to mano with our President. Which is why those Debates will NEVER HAPPEN, with the great coof of '20 just an excuse to get out of it. Like the plebs in the cheap seats are with in a 100 yards of the Stage. Let alone the normal 2 1/2 recommend feet.

[@wich1]

Blackadder75 Eternal September

[@donkmeister]

In fairness, if he actually WAS talking about the early days of the internet then you needed some technical ability to get online. In the early days of the "public" Internet (i.e. late 80s... I'm not going to include ARPAnet etc, despite the lineage that's a bit much as it wasn't available to the general public) you had to piss around with network stacks, choose the correct text coding standard and so on before heading online with your 1200-baud modem. Thing is, he's talking about the late-90s. Which is a decade in to the history of the "public" Internet, and about 30 years into the history if you include ARPAnet. so late into the history of the internet that it was ubiquitous by that point, it was advertised all over the TV, you could buy magazines about getting online, many people thought it was too technical and weren't interested.

[@trajectoryunown]

"Back in the day" in that case refers to the prehistoric times of text-based interfaces. *_shudders_*

[@forbiddenera]

Ate the antivirus software that came with windows 95..I almost fell off the shitter laughing

[@Ittiz]

@9:00 lol, back then I had an Amiga, laughed at "sandman" deleting my computer's C drive and went there anyway!

[@robertlinke2666]

@referral madness no, it's file system was completely different

[@kaelandin]

@referral madness Amiga did not use a file structure like that at all.

[@hedgehog3180]

I think that hoax was really an example of viral marketing.

[@Barph]

What a delightful piece of informational video. Yes, please, I'd love see more content about viruses and hoaxs. Please, indulge yourself with a nice cookie!

[@BurtAllmans]

I can't believe you mentioned Bad Times without pointing out how it was turned into a song by a band called Laika. Hearing a hoax email as a spoken word ditty is beautiful.

[@Maldroth]

Facebook is the current modern chain emails you wish you parents would stop sending

[@CerinAmroth]

Here those things spread through WhatsApp

[@user-vn7ce5ig1z]

12:13 - Viruses _can_ damage hardware. For example, the Turkey virus could focus the electron gun of the monitor to burn a hole in the phosphor mask and cause burn-in, and there was a C64 virus that could continually slam the floppy-drive head into the back and cause it to get misaligned. And emails _can_ infect you, plenty have; an email worm can exploit a vulnerability to execute code. Even today, it's possible to for example, make a zero-day worm that quickly and silently wears out an SSD. 😕

[@joeblow5214]

Malware too. The 90's saw the advent of Stuxnet which is rumored to have been used to destroy centrifuges.

[@malwaretestingfan]

Turkey virus? Also, i'm sure the C64 disk misaligner was a legit program rather than a malware.

[@pausebreak9222]

and the Chernobyl virus. Wiped your bios. Pretty scary

[@hedgehog3180]

You also don't need to physically damage hardware to brick a system.

[@Charky_Creations]

The biggest "early internet hoax" for me was "if anyone on the internet knows anything about who you really are they'll find you and kidnap you". That was what we got in the 90's and... Yeah, we all know how that panned out. Still don't like people on the internet knowing my real name though.

[@damian9303]

It’s what I was told in the late 00s, too. “Don’t put in any identifying information about you within your username. Not your name, birthday, not even your gender!” Well, let’s just say I’ve broke every rule

[@CommodoreFan64]

@@damian9303 I think we all have broken at least one of those rules at some point if we have been on the internet long enough to remember the days of late 80's BBS, or 90's dial-up tones growing up.

[@mrt1r]

Yeah, neither do I

[@damian9303]

@referral madness Feel like I remember seeing that not in school but when out of boredom, searching up PSA’s on KZbin (Bulletin Board, was it called?). They seem to really adore PSA’s from European countries, my Health and Driver’s Ed classes are most prominent for that when it comes to an high school example. The one I remember watching long ago was a NetSmartzKids ep titled Router's Birthday Surprise, remember watching it in the library and the librarian telling us we had to interact with it since even at 3rd grade we saw through that crap with kids shows trying to “reach out to the audience”. The most memorable part of it was the Wild West stuff, which is how I even know of the episode name to begin with.

[@wordart_guian]

I remember seeing the "Rules Of The Net" (don't post any info about you, no photo, no phone number) printed in comic sans on the walls of my elementary school's computer lab (early 2000s). I had internalized the rules before I even knew what the internet was about. Then I read a "internet security explained to children" from the XP SP1/MSN messenger/blaster worm era, with paranoia-inducing warning about spams, fishing, spyware... I lost sleep about it at the time, not knowing computers had been ootb equipped to face those for ages. The worst part is, most viruses today take the form of fake antivirus software, because real one hasn't been needed for years or decades

[@seamusquain2706]

I Heard From This Guy, Who's Dad Works For Nintendo, and he confirmed the pokegods were once in Pokemon Red&Blue, but were cut. He Still Has Some Alpha & Beta Carts With The Pokegods On Them.

[@CoolFire666]

Anyone else hear Weird Al Yankovic in their head every time it says "Virus alert!"?

[@nthgth]

Delete immediately before someone gets hurt! 😄

[@DavidWonn]

I remember several of these back in the day. Oddly enough, I’d later acquire a throwaway Pentium 75 laptop which still has the Budweiser frog screensaver still intact! The former owner definitely didn’t get the memo, thankfully.

[@TheEudaemonicPlague]

I wish I still had a copy...I loved that thing. Too many drives have failed over the years for any of my oldest stuff to still be around.

[@doubtful_seer]

Is there a joke I’m missing with “Mike RoChenle” or is it just that the name is obviously ridiculous?

[@robertlinke2666]

yup

[@SmeddyTooBestChannel]

Micro Channel

[@ganondos1888]

Smedis2 my first thought was “micro channel” too, but I still don’t get the joke if that’s the intended reading.

[@TheDreadedScotsman]

Ah yes the early internet where I could get away not doing homework in high school with excuses like, my printer has a virus

[@stefanhoimes]

And today's teachers used those same excuses. My generation is ruining the fun for our students. 🙃

[@hedgehog3180]

Today you can legitimately use that excuse since your printer is almost definitely part of a botnet.

[@missgrreen9398]

This is the first time I have heard the 00’s referred to as the “naughties” and I really like it.

[@RyoLeo]

I think radio stations like to used it a lot when talking about the selection of music “with hit songs from the 80’s, 90’s, and naughties” its a fun word though

[@zipper761882]

I can't believe you didn't mention 2012 as an apocalypse date. It's my second favorite apocalypse after Y2K!

[@mnoxman]

I liked the "UNIX" virus from that era. "Delete some of your own files and forward this message to 100 people in your address book".

[@user-tq7bq3qf3k]

All good, just place a condom in your ethernet cable! And if you're using WIFI, place the condom on the Router's Antena!

[@Kumimono]

If on 4G, just wrap your house in a condom.

[@jeffdavis6657]

Remember the plastic sleeves that used to come on a 1.44 Floppy? I had to clean out a drive after a user thought I was serious that it was a "condom" that will prevent virus transmission.

[@procommentr]

@@Kumimono If on 5G, wrap it in aluminum foil.

[@TheRogueWolf]

My favorite one was actually run by a print publication- the tabloid _Weekly World News._ Back in 2000, they claimed that terrorist hackers could send you an attachment via Email that could alter "the electrical current and molecular structure of the central processing unit", causing it to "blast apart like a large hand grenade".

[@Chaos89P]

That tabloid is still in existence, at least in digital form. Last I read, I believe Bat Boy was running for President.

[@hedgehog3180]

DIY Remote Electrochemistry.

[@reznorms81]

I get it squarespace pays your bill but... geocities was the best thing ever!!! :P

[@PaphvulMayle]

You know there's a new thing called Neocities that's like a spiritual successor? I've got one, and it's great.

[@joshsamuelson1793]

Some site has an archive of it all. Lost sites of geocities or something like that.

[@nthgth]

Wasn't geocities free? If so, how is that even comparable to square space?

[@primequartz7292]

Neocities is actually like 7 years old lol

[@WrestlingWithGaming]

This is one of the reasons I use a Philips CD-I. Zero viruses and 100% Thunder In Paradise.

[@badkluster]

Ah, yes. We've come a long way. Thank goodness we're not constantly being fear-mongered via facebook or twitter, right?

[@kaelandin]

Right?

[@TheSaabClinicUK]

Who remembers all the fun with NET SEND on a dialup connection. Anyone could literally Spam 1000's of computers on the same dialup ISP. Until they took it away with XP SP2.

[@malwaretestingfan]

The golden age of DoS and DDoS, the tools for it were in quantity back then.

[@zeruty]

We used net send at my high school for lots of fun.

[@whoshotdk]

@@zeruty I was the IT Technician at a school in the early 2000s and even I did that for a laugh, noone expected it was one of the staff! :P

[@Ichijoe2112]

Lol not having Cable, or VDSL in 2004.

[@RyoLeo]

@@whoshotdk ok confession time what was one of the things you sent?

[@arandomperson8336]

Things I don't miss from the 90s: Getting e-mails all the time from my clueless friends and family warning me about viruses.

[@onthedre]

People on the early internet were brutal trolls. Imagine just creating a Virus to destroy other peoples property for the hell of it. Crazy stuff.

[@DeaDGoD_XIV]

17:43 You mean I don't really have a long lost dead aunt in Uganda? Well there's $100 I won't get back...

[@rschaumann512]

Hi, There are actually viruses that could damage hardware such as soundcards, modems and other components... although on very old and (probably) impossible to get these to run on modern systems, these viruses interfered on how a driver 'talked' to some component. It's kind of interesting how these worked: when the driver communicated with the hardware it was written for, it sends out an interrupt to that device which in turn prompted the device to read some instructions and/or data from the memory block reserved for it and executed that code. When it did, the component would get damaged. Another type related to the first one (described above) targeted vulnerabilities in the firmware of a device and wreaked havoc by e.g. overweighting essential parts of that firmware, rendering it unusable... On a final note, during the early years of UEFI, there was actually an example of the latter - due to an error in the implementation of the UEFI in at least some Lenovo ThinkPads (probably other machines as well), simply installing Linux would brick the whole machine.

[@jurjenbos228]

For example, the Hercules video driver cards could break your CRT if misconfigured, and there was a virus trying to do that on purpose.

[@jimoffenbecher2040]

@@jurjenbos228 This would only break the IBM Monochrome Display that plugged into the back of the computer and not the wall. The MDA would self destruct if it did not receive a horizantal sync signal provided by the video card. The malware would turn off the horiz signal causing the MDA to overload. It did not affect later monochrome displays that plugged directly into the wall.

[@edwardbarton1680]

I'm disappointed that you left out my favorite category of these hoaxes. There were a few that went around warning people that a new virus was making the rounds, and that you should check in the C:\Windows\Command folder for a specific file to see if you're infected. And went on to say that deleting the file in question was often successful in cleaning the infection. Everyone receiving that email *had* the file, so they panicked, deleted it, and warned all their friends. And when the computer failed to boot up the next time, well... they obviously weren't quite quick enough to detect it. Another fun category was the "honor virus". It was an email virus working on the honor system. It requested that you forward it to all your contacts, and then delete a bunch of files from your computer.

[@Qwerasd]

Weird Al made a great song based on the Badtimes hoax, called "Virus Alert" it's quite good.

[@pikkon899]

As soon as I saw "drivers" you took me back. I remember when everything supposedly ruined your drivers and the many driver download websites of the past.

[@BBC600]

15:08 Wow that e-mail address is from my home province of Saskatchewan. SaskTel used to use Sympatico for their dial-up! Wonder how I can get ahold of the Budweiser Screensaver?

[@Flarexxxx]

Sympatico was used over here in Nova Scotia as well

[@Hennrz10]

wallace and gromit

[@wulfherecyning1282]

Seeing how easy it is to share such hoaxes by email, I'm not convinced many people truly fell for Good Times. Especially back then, a higher proportion of internet users were tech-literate because it was niche. I imagine most forwards were people forwarding "a funny email", not people being gullible.

[@wulfherecyning1282]

And by "tech literate", I mean "not so stupid as to think that reading text on a screen with your eyeballs would cause something to happen". Heck, people were familiar with peripherals because they had 600 ports on their tower. They knew their computer couldn't see their faces.

[@SylentEcho]

Geocities was pretty awesome back in the day. I used to have a Dragon Ball Z website when I was a kid and thought I was a total boss!

[@keithbowman7650]

Just have to show some appreciation for the ad pivot from Geocities to SquarePants. Well played, sir.

[@JW86SH]

You absolutely NAILED that ad spot!

[@Modenut]

I remember those good old days. From the moment I stumbled my way online in 1993 (Mosaic represent!) I loled my ass off at all these hoaxes. Then, on one sunny day in 1998 my glorious Pentium froze and would not start again. I got hit with the infamous CIH virus. I have not loled since, lol.

[@looneybinjim]

I'd love to see a video on old 90's Phreaking culture. Beige box's, blue box's etc. The evolution of Network manipulation.

[@geraldchurchill5576]

That very "desirable" screensaver: The Budweiser Frogs

[@missgrreen9398]

I remember the Budweiser frogs screen savers!!! I had the exact one you showed on screen and a few others from those super popular Budweiser campaigns. Super nostalgic.

[@Ruddertail]

Seeing that Budweiser Frogs screensaver again sure was a blast of nostalgia. I remember spending hours downloading stupid screensavers as a kid...

[@AnonymousFreakYT]

I got detention in high school for doing a "fake virus" on the the PCs in the computer lab. (MS-DOS days, I just added a couple "echo" lines to autoexec.bat saying "ha-ha, you've been infected, kiss your documents goodbye!" or something like that.)

[@jonathanfaber3291]

My favourite part of this video is the near-corpsing he did when reading out that your time and anguish is valued only at $43

[@TheLostSorcerer]

While not a hoax itself, you can't forget about Weird Al's song "Virus Alert" that covers how absurd these hoaxes can be.

[@chrisd6287]

The combination of a Happy Holidays sign off and the guy at the end has me dyingggg!!

[@TonyBMan]

The beautiful part is, those that got gud @ hunting down elusive porn during this time period not only learned how to get what they want cia search engine criteria, but also avoid most if not all of the internet's pitfalls. It was akin to avoiding hazards in Mario to get the Princess.

[@matthewjbauer1990]

Back in the 90s, I did not use the internet as I was too young. I had an IBM that was beat to hell that my mom got from a salvage auction from work that she let me use for school work. When I did use internet, I'm kinda glad I didn't move away from dial-up till 2006. I was a sophomore in HS (10th grade) at the time. And we moved to unreliable 15 meg DSL because my parents were cheap. They refused to pay for cable (which if I remember correctly was 100 meg minimum). Having dial-up so long helped prevent viruses in itself.

[@darkdoescosplays]

Going from Geocities to Squarespace was, I think, the best segway I've seen in 2020.

[@hippohams]

My brain screwed with me around 2:10 and I thought the moon in the background was a speck of dust XD

[@Knobiknows]

If the video is lagging for you try deleting the system32 folder

[@e.s.l5861]

I absolutely love your channel. It’s like a cross between Techmoan and LGR..... and I very much mean that as a compliment

[@muaries12]

This reminds me of the hoax that msn/whatsapp/ trending messaging app would become a paying app unless...you shared that message so the server would track the ip of sharers and only they would kept it for free Good times...

[@cncgeneral]

All of those emails look like they were written by the same people. All had a similarly excessive amount of punctuation. Surely one of them wouldn't know an ellipsis is only 3 dots

[@lillywho]

Thank goodness for no Nord sponsorship. They have been and probably remain a shady lot and you shouldn't blindly trust a VPN company.

[@Charky_Creations]

I'm immediately suspicious of any company who feels the need to throw out blanket sponsorships like that, honestly

[@hedgehog3180]

Nord got brought up by an Isreali company that has a shady reputation and has been accussed of making Malware.

[@FerintoshFarmsPhotography]

Why don't I have that screensaver today? Would totally not make my computer super annoying at all.

[@shadowpresident4203]

That warning about the virus spreading in the 1200 baud BBS era sounds legit. That guy, Mr. RoChenle seems to know what he's talking about, when it comes to not just modulation... but also DE-modulation. You could think of these acoustically coupled devices attached to the POTS network as "MoDems", if you'll bear with me as I invent some new terminology.

[@FoggyNBS]

Great video as always! But just a little problem with the subtitles, they're all messed up and misaligned at about 15:47 and onwards

[@dolst]

16:00 I'm pleasantly surprised that you don't have a big automatic nanny disclaimer on your video for that 3 second clip haha. Surf Wisely.

[@cee128d]

Those were all legitimate virii, just not the way most people understand it. The mirus/malware was all of the people forwarding the e-mails back and forth clogging up everyones inboxes and e-mail servers, which back in those days were small and slow so it didn't take much to really screw things up.

[@itsamefra]

"virii" please, don't

[@kaelandin]

@@itsamefra viriirii

[@frqv]

Cool nostalgic video, just a little regarding 'software can not destroy hardware'. The reason for this is in fail-saves, not in and on itself. You could easly set a voltage to high and destroy the processor or ram *if* there were not failsaves. So it is software, protecting the hardware from receiving wrong values. Obviously i know how it was ment and it is genereally true. I just like being a smartass. :)

[@epicpotatofiend]

I'm getting an inexplicable urge to watch the music video for Weird Al's "Virus Alert"...

[@SSJfraz]

So glad that in 2020 we've now evolved passed the days of myths and hoaxes on the internet........ :/

[@mattm7220]

Oh dear Lord, we need more of these documented on this channel. I haven't had such a good laugh at the ridiculous claims of "computer viruses" in a long time!

[@deeanaviolet9223]

Oh, those 90s internet days. There was something odd and spooky about being online then. More legends, hoaxes and urban myths! Love 'em.

[@BlackRatt74]

Oh this one brought back so many memories from my time dealing with this as a repair technician! lol

[@Vienna3080]

1:38 I jumped and got scared for a moment because i saw my name there lol

[@stupid5pin]

So I paused the video so I could get back to work, and noticed that the next title was the Budweiser Frogs screensaver. I actually had that screensaver for a little while, and vaguely recalled hearing afterward that there was a virus in it. Good to know I didn't inadvertently download a virus onto my parents' PC.

[@kstricl]

I played around with a couple virus toolkits back when DOS was still the major OS for most. The actual machine code that made up the basic virus was shorter than most of the early hoax messages.

[@TheRealPentiumMMX]

I remember one from the early '00s, that claimed you had a virus hidden in the System32 folder, that had a teddy bear as its icon. I don't remember what they claimed it'd do, but the "virus" was actually some sort of debugger included with Windows by default.

[@meneerjansen00]

What about that irritating e-mail that asked you to delete a certain system file from your hard drive because it's a virus? Even showed you how to _permanently_ delete it from the recycle bin.

[@Parassassin]

I vaguely recall an mp3 file doing the rounds on emule and similar p2p sites, it was always an unreleased song from an artist who was big at the time. The NFO file said it was a bad copy so you had to turn up your speakers, when played a really quiet tune would play, you’d then go max volume and after about 30 seconds a massive burst of very loud noise would play. The engineered sound was enough to blow most cheap pc speakers. Might have been a local thing or released by record labels to reduce piracy, or I dreamt it!

[@Toonrick12]

I think modern Meme Culture is messing with your memories of the past....

[@cxk7127]

My grandma would always fall for these. My friends and I would laugh our asses off (and pick on her a little) about it.

[@Richie016]

Interesting info on the early stages of internet regarding PC security.

[@AdmiralJota]

"The early Internet was a crazy place. If nothing else, because of the sheer abundance of middle-aged people who had no idea what they were doing..." The early Internet, pretty much by definition, was *before* those people were online. 1993 was roughly the cut-off between the early Internet and this period. (You can look up "the Eternal September" for more info if you want.)

[@sonozaki0000]

"time and anguish (valued at $43)"

[@nthgth]

And suffering is apparently distinct from anguish in this context, haha

[@markboz3366]

Viruses not necessary to screw up your pc nowadays. Just update Windows 10

[@Pest789]

13:25. All the best screensavers are static images that make noise

[@RhysWynne]

Never heard of the Badtimes virus but only know it as recognised the email from the lyrics of a song from Laika.

[@menotu000]

The most potentially dangerous virus I know of was called BIOS Meningitis. It was just a proof of concept and never released in the wild thank God. It was designed to infect Flash BIOS chips in the free space (assuming there was 512 bytes free, most had at least that for future expansion) in a time when Flash BIOS protection did not exist. Today, we have backup BIOSes as well as Jumpers to enable flashing, so this virus wouldn't get far in today's world. With the prevalence of programmable silicon today however, it may just be possible to infect mice and keyboards, but I think it would require physical access for the jtag connectors... though it wouldn't be of much use other than to type ghost characters or make ghost clicks... annoying but not a big deal in the end... as far as BIOS flashing, you would need to flash both the backup and running bioses.

[@vellizz]

The early naughties!!! Holy damn, I'm gonna start using that now

[@acerIOstream]

It's "early noughties", as in 00's, not-not :)

[@wordart_guian]

@@acerIOstream noughties, as in nought, I've been using it for a while, does it sound weird?

[@Wildeheart79]

@@wordart_guian Doesn't sound weird, at least in the UK we've been referring to that decade as "The Noughties" in media and socially since the year 2000

[@shannonhill3356]

Doesn't sound weird, they were just thinking of the term as in "being naughty" as in "the early decade of being naughty" Being in America, when I first heard these British KZbinrs using the term it was new to me, however I also know the term "nought" (sp?) to mean none/zero so I figured it out quickly.

[@Ichijoe2112]

Were you literally just born yesterday? The Brit slang term Noughties have been around as long as the Noughties themselves. (i.e. some 20 years now). But, yes welcome to the party.