Talk:List of computer virus hoaxes

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This article was nominated for deletion on 17/7/2006. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

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[edit] Page needs fixing

This page definitely needs to be fixed. Many of the links actually link to unrelated articles with coincidence of names. Michael.Niemann 07:11, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

not exactly a coincidence, but yes, they do need to be fixed. Smartyshoe 20:41, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

This page does require some form of cleanup, but I don't think it's Wikification. --BigChicken 10:27, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] First hoaxes

The first widespread virus hoax was by the author Mike RoChennel (a pseudonym derived from the word 'Microchannel'). In October 1988, Mike sent a large number of messages to BBSs regarding an virus which could transfer from one 2400 baud modem to another. A suggested antidote to this virus was to use modems with a speed of 1200 bauds. However ridiculous this may have sounded, many users did indeed heed this advice. Another such hoax was released by Robert Morris about a virus spreading over networks and changing port and drive configurations. According to the warning, the alleged virus infected 300,000 computers in the Dakotas in under 12 minutes. Source:Kaspersky Virus List

Anyone wanting to expand the rather crappy list showing currently there are a few resources. A reorder of the list to a timeline instead of alphabetical listing would also be a good idea; F-Secure database of hoaxes, Sophos database of hoaxes, Hoaxbusters Hoax Index, McAfee short listing, Symantec short listing, TrendMicro database, Snopes True&False listing