Creeper, the primary malicious program, is 40 years young today

Forty years ago today is regarded as by many to be the birthday of the 1st worm . Needless to say, within the early 1970s they weren’t called computer viruses, but that doesn’t make Bob Thomas’s handiwork any less special. Creeper (named after a personality within the old Scooby Doo cartoons) spread from BBN Technologies’ DEC PDP-10 through Arpanet, displaying the message: “I’m the creeper, catch me in the event you can!” and messing with people’s printers. One notable difference between this and nearly all of viruses was the truth that it it deleted old versions because it replicated itself. Incidentally, that may make 2011 the fortieth anniversary of the 1st antivirus software: called, appropriately enough, Reaper.