How did internet viruses spread before the internet was invented?
12h 48m ago by sh.itjust.works/u/gigastasio in lemmyshitpost
No smartass replies I’m serious I need to know I’m doing a paper.
People used to go outside their houses and shake hands or even hug. Any storage media they had in their pockets could infect each other in this type of close contact.
Finally a serious answer. Can I use you as a source?
Please do.
It was a weird time to like computers. Nobody had an antivirus, and if they didn’t it never got updated. You’d just take floppy disks around to your friend’s house and plug them in. Windows gave everything admin rights.
To be honest, I was using a computer for about five years before the internet happened and I never got a virus.
Windows gave everything admin rights
To be more clear, until NT Windows didn't even have that concept. XP/2000 was probably the first Windows to even pretend to do anything like that. 95/98/ME had a password at login and you could literally just hit escape to not do that and that was Microsoft security. I don't think 3.x even did that much.
Indeed. The home/consumer line of Windows (9x) hadn't that requirement or even the capability of joining domains (thus only local accounts if at any). Windows NT started branching off 3.0 though, so quite early on with NT 3.1 which coincided with Windows 3.11 for workgroups.
One computer peed in another computer’s butt without protection. Sorry for being explicit.
They didn't as they didn't exist yet.
Non-internet viruses spread through other kinds of networks or by physically installing them from portable media.
(Real answer: The first virus was made in 1971 and was spread much the same way now, over ARPANET, the "proto-internet". It was called Creeper. So technically, there were no viruses before the invention of the internet)
Aw man
Simple. The Internet wasn't invented, it was discovered. 'Viruses' have been aware of its existence from the beginning of time even though we so-called 'humans' weren't. Source: You can trust me, dawg.
Remove one instance of "internet" from the question and you'll get serious answers.
Should probably change it to “How did computer viruses spread before the internet”
But I don’t know if they actually would have been a thing outside of government type shit.
Would have had to be through direct injection requiring physical access to the machine using methods like breaking and entering, tailgating, insider access, or via social engineering using “dropped” media containing the virus.
This is speculation tho. I’m sure there’s articles on it somewhere.
Well as one of those persons who did development on home computers in the 80s I know exactly how they spread ... :) Bootsectors mostly, but there were some that hid themselves in executables too. You copied a disk from a friend, ran it and the virus was then resident in memory until you turned the computer off again. Any new disks you inserted would be at risk of getting infected.
Wild.
Side note that this made me think of, but one of my favorite, uhh viruses?, from the Netscape internet era was cupholder.exe, which when ran popped out your CD drive.
Crazy to think about how people used to just download sketchy .exe files like that or LiNkIng-PaRk-nUmB.exe or similar on Limewire.
Idk… it’s posted in the LemmyShitPost community. I think we’re doomed regardless 💀
Do they want serious answers or shitposts? I'm confused.
First thing you need to realise, the internet has been around in one form or another for decades.
The internet as we know it has been around for over 30 years.
However, before widespread adoption of the internet, viruses were spread either by BBS services or via disk.
As a young Acorn achimedes user in the late 80s and early 90s I would obtain floppy disks with games on from friends, they would have obtained them from other friends who either downloaded them via BBS or bought them from a dodgy market stall. You could also buy them from magazine advertisements (I once bought a few floppy disks with porn on them).
There was always a risk that one of these disks had a virus on. For me it wasnt an issue. The Acorn used ROM to store the operating system and all your other files were kept on disks. We couldn't afford a hard drive so we were immune, however I did once have a disk that had a virus called Marburg on it according to our virus killer at the time.
Was the porn floppy 8, 5 or 3 inches?
Internet viruses came with the internet. But during the early years:
Pop ups.
Yeah it was mostly pop ups and occasionally links in emails.
Pop ups with porn were especially used for this because men are dumb and will click on titties.
People used to share the viruses because the virus would lock their computer and say something like "you must email this to 10 people to get back access". Or something like that. I forget exactly but that used to be a thing.
Your own family and friends would send you viruses.
I don't know but they sure are itchy
Before there was internet, you had to bring your computer to another house for a LAN party. Sometimes other people brought theirs too, so you could play games.
With all those modems talking and making noises in the same room, if one of them was coughing or had a virus, it would easily spread to all the others.
I’m not computer historian but I’m thinking storage media like 5 inch floppies or 3.5 inch floppies or magnetic tape
Take a look at the SCA-Virus.
And regarding viruses spreading before the internet: there were BBS where you could upload and download files and if one of those files were infected and someone else downloaded it... Well you get the idea.
Floppy disks
How did internet viruses spread before the internet was invented?
How many people died of car accidents before the car was invented?