In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Beneficent All of us know what a computer virus is. A lot of us have been hit by one but very few of us know the origin of it. Out of those who know that it was the Brain Virus that started spreading from Lahore, Pakistan, very few know why it spread. Basit and Amjad Alvis, the creaters of the very first computer virus, merely wanted to protect their program from illegal copies. So for those who got the virus must remember that it was their illegal copying that caused them pain. The brothers are now the managing directors of Brain Ltd (http://www.brain.net.pk). Read their story....
BRAIN LTD: ABOUT US: HISTORY http://www.brain.net.pk/aboutus.htm Some ten years ago, two unknown brothers from "Chahmiran" a lower middle class area of Lahore shot to prominence as a brief message started to flash across thousand of computer screens in the USA. "Welcome to the Dungeon (c) 1986 Basit * Amjad (pvt) Ltd. BRAIN COMPUTER SERVICES 730 NIZAM BLOCK ALLAMA IQBAL TOWN LAHORE-PAKISTAN PHONE: 430791,443248,280530. Beware of this VIRUS.... Contact us for vaccination..." In no time at all, corporate America was in a fix. Unsure of what the message meant, or what its implications could be, American computer users panicked and the tiny 3.5 kilobyte virus was immediately dubbed as the first alien assault on American computer culture. As Ross Monroe of Time magazine shuttled between Singapore, Delhi and Lahore, desperately trying to figure out the size of the 'story', the architects of the Brain virus were completely unaware of their handiwork. Amjad, Shahid and Basit Alvi, the three co-directors of Brain Computer Services, were too busy trying to expand their share of the tiny but rapidly growing computer market in Pakistan to notice what their little virus had led to. "When we were contacted by Time magazine, we were extremely surprised at panic it had caused," says Basit the youngest of the Alvi brothers. " In fact, we were quite amused since the panic was totally unnecessary." That, however, was not how Time magazine had described the prolif! eration of the Brian virus. " Bah!" retorts Basit. "Since that episode, we have lost all faith in the western media. They quoted us out of context, put words in our mouths and did just about everything that you would expect from a cheap local publication run by one's arch rival. When we read the story we could hardly believe that it was carried in what is supposed to be the best newsmagazine in the world. It was journalism at its yellowest." Basit's contempt is not unfounded. What no American journal had the courage to admit at that time was how badly the virus had hurt America's painfully cultivated image of the world's leading copyright protector. Almost overnight, it had shown Americans to be the world's biggest copyright violators. Every time the virus found a new home in the USA, it signalled one more copyright violation by an American. The stair created by the Brain virus dies down as soon as American realized that they were only hurting themselves by calling for actio! n against the authors. But for the Alvi brothers, it marked the beginning of one of Pakistan's most innovative computer service bureaus. -------------------------------------- FARIDI NETWORK - sharing the knowledge http://faridi.net
