The World’s First Computer Virus: How a Bored Teenager Ruined Floppy Disks Forever
It was 1982. Ronald Reagan was president, people were still recovering from disco, and if you wanted to share data, you didn’t “airdrop” it—you handed someone a floppy disk. Computers were mysterious, clunky, and mostly harmless. Then along came Rich Skrenta, a 15-year-old prankster from Pittsburgh, who decided to ruin that peace of mind.
Rich wasn’t some evil genius bent on global domination. He was just a bored teenager with a computer and far too much time on his hands. What did he create?