What kind of a disgruntled person would spend precious hours of his life creating a computer virus? It would definitely take a geek to delve into the intricacies of coding and come up with something which plays havoc with what the everyday user requires of his computer. But wouldn't a geek rather play the next revolutionary computer game, discuss his favourite comic book character's second wife on forums or gawk at pictures of beautiful women on the Internet than spend energy and efffort to design something which he cannot even claim openly to be his handiwork. Hacking to some extent makes sense because there are monetary benefits to consider and also there is the challenge and thrill of sneaking past the security a-la the classy art thieves as glamourised by movies like "Entrapment" and the Ocean's series.
The first virus (from what I've read) was written by a Pakistani guy and was titled "BRAIN". All it did was change the infected computer's C drive name to "BRAIN". Not the most brainiest of ideas it must be said but it was only the first step to much more potent descendants.
Another funny one was the "Happy Birthday Joshi" virus (this again is from the days of MS-DOS) which would seize the computer and would relent only after the victim typed "Happy Birthday Joshi"! Viruses are the psychopaths of the virtual world, their life's mission is random destruction. Sometimes though all they need is for someone to wish them a happy birthday. Is that too much to ask of this selfish world?
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