Goodtimes virus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Goodtimes Virus was a computer virus hoax that spread during the early years of the Internet's popularity. Warnings about a computer virus named "Good Times" began being passed around among Internet users in 1994. The Goodtimes virus was supposedly transmitted via an email bearing the subject header "Good Times" or "Goodtimes," hence the virus's name, and the warning recommended deleting any such email unread. The virus described in the warnings did not exist, but the warnings themselves, were, in effect, virus-like.
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History
Email warnings about the Good Times virus first showed up on November 15, 1994. [citation needed] The first message was brief, a simple five sentence email with a holiday greeting, advising recipients not to open email messages with subject "GOOD TIMES!!", as doing so would ruin their files. Later messages became more intricate. The most common versions -- the "Infinite loop" and "ASCII buffer" editions -- were much longer, containing descriptions of what exactly Good Times would do to the computer of someone who opened it, as well as comparisons to other viruses of the time, and references to an FCC warning.
Purported effects
The longer version of the Good Times warning contained descriptions of what Good Times was capable of doing to computers. In addition to sending itself to every email address in a recipients received or sent mail, the Good Times virus caused a number of other nasty things to happen. If an infected computer contained a hard drive, it would most likely be destroyed. If Goodtimes was not stopped in time, an infected computer would enter an "nth-complexity infinite binary loop," (a meaningless term) damaging the processor. The "ASCII" buffer email described the mechanism of Good Times as a buffer overflow.
A hoax -- or a "thought virus"?
The Good Times virus warning was a hoax: there was never any such virus. Indeed, at the time when the warning first appeared it was not technically feasible to write a virus that could transmit itself automatically via email depending solely on computers for transmission. In a sense, the warning was itself viral: it urged the recipient to forward copies of itself to all their acquaintances. In this way, it replicated itself by exploiting vulnerabilities in the human mind. Some email servers were actually crashed by the sheer volume of Goodtimes virus warnings that were forwarded by users throughout 1995.[citation needed]
Some people who were familiar with the hoax also forwarded the e-mail, followed immediately by an empty e-mail with the "Good Times" subject header to fool people further.
Hoaxes similar to Good Times
A number of computer virus hoaxes appeared in the wake of Good Times. These messages were similar in form to Good Times, warning users not to open messages bearing particular subject lines. Subject lines mentioned in these emails include: "Penpal greetings"[1], "Free Money"[2], "Deeyenda"[3] and "Invitation" [4].
Viruses that function like Good Times
Developments in mail systems, such as Microsoft Outlook, without sufficient thought as to the security implications, made viruses that indeed propagate themselves via email possible. Notable examples include the Melissa worm and the Anna Kournikova virus. In some cases, a user must open a document or program contained in an email message in order to spread the virus, but in others, merely opening or previewing an email message itself will trigger the virus.
Good Times parody: Bad Times
The Good Times virus even spawned a humorous parody, the Bad Times virus. The Bad Times virus was capable of a number of things far beyond Good Times' wildest dreams. For instance, Bad Times "will leave the toilet seat up and leave your hair dryer plugged in dangerously close to a full bathtub".
