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The History of the First Computer Virus
What are frequent harmful attacks on computers originated in a good hearted way to protect a copyright
It’s hard to imagine that in our society so dominated by computers that somebody has not at least once experienced the agony of having their PC or laptop infested with a virus. Even with increasingly complex security protocols and programs, there has been an equally robust push by those looking to do digital harm. Despite all of the damage viruses have done over the years, they actually go back to a pair of brothers who developed the first, not to harm others but to simply protect their software that kept being stolen.
The first known reference to computer viruses goes all the way back to the 1940s when mathematician John von Neumann speculated on the possibility of mechanical organisms to damage machines, replicate and continue infecting new hosts much like a biological virus His ideas, later published in 1966 in a paper on “The Theory of Self-Producing Automata,” proved to be the intellectual genesis of what has come to completely validate his ideas.
Later, early viruses like the Creeper Program, created in 1971, which had no function other than displaying the message of “I’M THE CREEPER. CATCH ME IF YOU CAN,” and the more malicious Rabbit Virus of 1974…
