Should we be proud of what these guys did? Or ashamed of it?
Supposedly, Brain was the world’s first computer virus. Does that make it a technology marvel or another illegal act? On the one hand I think there is nothing smart or funny about messing up other’s computers. On the other hand, they seem to have acted in naivety rather than malice. What do you think?
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Those of you who now expose to computers day-in day-out will never know the worth of the work Alvi Brothers.
I remember when I worked on Green monochrome monitors and my XT computers BRAIN was the first thing we came into contact with our 5.25inch floppies got the Volume Label C-Brain.
I was Really proud at that time and still but our government did not realized the potential at that time and neither it is realizing now.
Not first virus was proudly MADE-IN-PAKISTAN, but also First anti-Virus “THE BRAIN BUSTER”. This anti-virus was created by the computer engineering students of N.E.D. University, Karachi
http://djdurrani.blogspot.com/2011/03/brain-and-th en-brain-buster.html
JEETEY RAHO PAKISTAN
Gouhar Nayab
Neither proud nor ashamed. these guys went un-noticed for quite sometime….i cant think of anything noteworthy that these guys may be entitled to. First Computer Virus, First Blah Blah Blah…..where is our First Nobel Prize Winner? Where are our Inventors, where are sons and daughters that this nation, this country could be proud of?
Food for thought?
It surprises me at how intolerant and ignorant our youth is about everything! I mean look at all the comments here. For the record, Brain *was* a self replicating program that went wild (outside the native system), it *was* made by two Pakistanis, the Alvi brothers (Farooq and Basit), it *is* considered to be the first virus to go wild out in the open and it *was* proved later when it was traced back to its origin, to have been made only as a protection against unlawful copying of other programs, with no mal-intention. All these are verifiable facts and the story was even covered by TIME magazine back in the late 1980s I think. (Or was it early 1990s?)
Before jumping to make a harsh comment, if we simply make the little effort it takes today to look up a fact, it can save us some embarassment (if we feel any to begin with). I mean come on guys! Just Google it or simply look it up in Wikkipedia if we cannot make a serious literature search.
Farooq and Basit had no idea about the places their program had gone to when they were contacted by US investigators. Charges against them were later dropped when these two showed those investigators that the virus itself carried a short message that had their address and phone number and it came with a “vaccine”!
@BANGASH…
first, Come to karachi and I will show you that in professional books category.. IT books are most sold in Urdu Bazar.
second, wow, you are trying to say that this person made his long journey based on myth..
That is why I sometime hate blogging it gives ignorant and misinformed people a chance to propagate their words…
I still remember that Jobs and his partners developed the first personal computer in the world.