In 1971, when employees booted up their PDP-10 mainframe computers, they found a peculiar message waiting for them at the teletype console.
“I’m the creeper: catch me if you can.”
This wasn’t a single instance of a prankster printing something off; the mysterious message was found at multiple stations throughout the BBN Technologies headquarters. What researchers were witnessing was the spread of the first computer virus, a worm called Creeper. At the time, Creeper was not considered a virus or a worm. That type of language was relegated to the hypothetical realm. No such program had ever existed before…