Elk Cloned celebrates 25th anniversary

In 1982, some teenager created what we now know as the first computer virus that was released into "the wild". Elk Cloned was created on an Apple II and copied onto a 5 inch floppy disc. The disc was passed onto his friends, hence copied onto their harddrive. It was a joke really, something to annoy his friends. Every 50 times they booted up, their computer would compose bad poetry. It was a challenge and a lot of fun. Each of friends had to out do him ... now we all have to buy anti-virus software to prevent massive damage done to our data, lives and finances. An entire industry has been built on a handful of nerds playing tricks on each other.