Roberta Buiani
Excerpt from: The Spam Book: On Viruses, Spam, and Other Anomalies from the Dark Side of Digital Culture. J. Parikka, T. Sampson. eds., Cresskill: Hampton Press. (chapter four)
ISBN 978-1-57273-916-1
August 2009
Download PDF (200.22Kb) (You need to be registered on forum)Between 1983 and 1986, a series of consecutive publications officially announced the cause of AIDS, now attributed to the retrovirus known as HIV. In the same period, Fred Cohen introduced a "major security problem called virus."1 Although his description was rudimentary and, according to some computer virus analysts, not fully accurate,2 it was immediately adopted universally. "Computer viruses" and other electronic-based "anomalous" agents were soon proclaimed a "high tech disease."