Letters from the Underground Brain Virus and the Alvi Brothers' Ethical Experiments (1986-) Laughter (Ralls)

Letters from the Underground Brain Virus and the Alvi Brothers' Ethical Experiments (1986-) Laughter (Ralls)


In 1986, the world's first computer virus for MS-DOS, Brain, was created by the Alvi brothers, Basit Farooq Alvi and Amjad Farooq Alvi, who were working in Lahore, Pakistan. It was a boot sector virus that infected via a 5.25-inch floppy disk and had the ability to rewrite the disk's boot sector and duplicate itself upon startup. When a PC was booted with the infected disk, the infection automatically spread to other floppies, and is documented as the first practical malware with self-replicating properties.

The peculiarity of this virus is that it did not perform any destructive actions. It did not delete files or destroy data, but only wrote specific text messages to the boot sector. In addition to such phrases as "Welcome to the Dungeon" and "(c) 1986 Basit & Amjad," it even included their actual address (in Lahore) and telephone number. It was also accompanied by a note saying, "Beware of this virus and contact us if you need a vaccine," which was clearly intended to encourage users to contact them directly.

At the time, the Alvi brothers were selling software for medical devices and were concerned about the widespread distribution of pirated copies of their own software. They said in later years that they created this virus as a means of protesting and warning against piracy. In other words, Brain was not a malicious virus intended for vandalism, but rather contained an educational and ethical statement.

International IT magazines at the time featured the virus, shocking the world's security consciousness, and PC World magazine in 1988 introduced it as "a virus from the Orient," warning MS-DOS users of the danger of floppy infection, while noting that the Alvi brothers' actions were not based on clear Byte Magazine in 1989 described their action of including their real names, addresses, and phone numbers in the virus as "highly unusual," and also argued that it broke new ground in computer ethics.

In subsequent interviews, the Alvi brothers have consistently justified their actions. What we created was a self-replicating code, just an educational tool to encourage correct behavior. In 2006, when Wired magazine published a special feature on the 20th anniversary of the Brain virus, it reported that their company, Brain Computer Services, is still operating in Lahore, and that students and researchers from all over the world have come to visit. The magazine reported that students and researchers from all over the world are now visiting the company.

The Brain virus has become extremely iconic, both technologically and culturally. Since its appearance, many copycat viruses (such as Brain B) have emerged and malware targeting MS-DOS has increased dramatically. It is said that security companies McAfee and Symantec rushed to respond to cases like Brain and accelerated the commercialization of anti-virus software. In other words, Brain was not only the origin of viruses, but also the starting point for the establishment of the information security industry.

Today, even if the code is not destructive, it is considered a serious security breach if it intervenes in a system without the user's permission. However, at its dawn in 1986, Brain could be seen as an attempt to send a social message through computers, and as an experiment that stood on the blurred border between technology and ethics. In this sense, the Brain virus is not mere malware, but a historical event that raised issues of self-expression and norms in the information society.