From: Michael Wilson <0005514706@mcimail.com>
Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 07:56:14 +0800
To: cypherpunks <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: Was Cohen the first?
Message-ID: <35960405162553/0005514706DC3EM@MCIMAIL.COM>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


I ran across the following article, and it set me to wondering--did
Dr. Cohen actually publish on 'computer viruses' before anybody else?
He continues to use it as the bedrock of his reputation capital, so if
this pre-dates his 'seminal' article, please let me know.

Included message:
For Liz Bass or Reg Gale
Discovery
9:31 AM Friday, April 5, 1996
By Lou Dolinar

 This is still my favorite computer story.  I'm not saying it was the first
piece ever written about computer viruses, but I won't say that it isn't.  I
still have the original, dated  April 16, 1985.  In some ways I wish I hadn't
written it, because it was posted and reposted on bulltetin boards all over
the U.S., and seems to have subsequently inspired a whole generation of virus
writers. 

 Note to kids: back then, most computers didn't have hard disks, and started
up from floppies, hence floppy based viruses were a big deal.

 As usual, The Hacker wasn't paying for his midnight phone call; he had
stolen the line from one of the long distance phone services.
 What's up? I asked. The 17-year-old snickered. Doom was ahead for all Apple
II owners.  "Don't engage in casual disk-copying with strangers," he said.
 "You might catch an operating-system virus."
 Now the hacker has a pretty hefty national rep in the computer underground,
so when he talks about this crazy stuff, it's worth listening.   I've seen
whole collections of pirated games software bearing his nom de hack, and his
black-bag jobs on mainframes would curl your hair.
 In case you're not familiar with software piracy, manufacturers build
protection schemes into their programs to prevent people from making illegal
copies and siphoning their profits.  Dedicated pirates like my friend spend
hours, sometimes days, cracking these schemes then release them, illegally,
free, to the public over a network of electronic bulletin boards that can be
reached with a phone, a computer and a modem.
 The Hacker always imprinted his name, electronically, on the game that he
cracked ("Cracked by The Hacker, July 4, 1978"). And therein lies this tale.
 A couple of years back, he recalled, some teenagers in the Milwaukee area
stole his stolen programs and released them under their own names.  Why
bother, you ask?  Because the hacker whose name the stolen program bears
receives the "credit" for having cracked the piracy protected program and,
thus, is viewed with some degree of appreciation by similarly larcenous
wizards in the computer underground.
 The Hacker was outraged and plotted a diabolical revenge: A wizard of code,
he constructed ted what he calls an "operating system virus" for the Apple II
computer.  The operating system, you may know, loads into the computer before
the program and controls the functions of the computer.
 The Hacker modified the operating system  erase whatever disks were in the
computer after they had been used 25 times.  Not only that, but the "virus"
would attache itself to any other discs that were loaded during the
particular session of computer use.  Thus,k if you played a "virus" carrying
pirated game, and then went on to use your $495 word processor and $795
data-base program, these too would be infected and would cash after their
25th use--and in the meantime, they would be spreading the "virus."
 Like any disease, then, Killer-DOS, as The Hacker dubbed it, has a latency
period, which allowed it to spread to other "victims" He inserted it into a
recently cracked games program, put it on an electronic bulletin board
frequented by the Minneapolis crowd, and sat back to watch the fun.  A couple
of months later, whole libraries of disks were begin wiped out as the
 "disease" spread.
 Now Killer-DOS is common knowledge in the underground, it it wasn't the
reason The Hacker called.  It seems he had, in a frenzy of anti-social
behavior, created a particularly virulent form of Killer-DOS that didn't
crash until it had been loaded 150 times---with a longer latency period, the
potential number of victims rises geometrically.  But conscience prevailed.
 The Hacker decided not to release the bug.
 Then, however, just like the Andromeda Strain, the bug got loose anyway--the
Killer-DOS disk got mixed in with "healthy" programs, disks that he has been
handing out for the last couple of years and are now all over the country. So
if you find a worm in your Apple, don't say you haven't been warned.