Speaker 1: Welcome curious minds to another deep dive. Today we're plunging
Speaker 1: into a truly intriguing and surprisingly controversial piece of tech history,
Speaker 1: The Little Black Book of Computer Viruses by Mark A. Ludwig. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's quite something.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: This isn't just some dusty technical manual from the early
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties. From the moment you open it, it reveals
Speaker 1: itself as well a profound philosophical statement about knowledge, about
Speaker 1: freedom and about digital responsibility. It really is quite a.
Speaker 2: Ride, definitely, and our mission today is to unpack exactly that.
Speaker 2: We'll explore Ludwigs, let's say, audacious ideas behind releasing such
Speaker 2: sensitive information, will delve into the fundamental technical concepts of
Speaker 2: these early computer viruses, and then reflect on the broader,
Speaker 2: often provocative questions it raises about the power of information
Speaker 2: and well individual agency in our digital world. Okay, we're
Speaker 2: here to extract the most important nuggets of insight from
Speaker 2: this very unique source.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this and Mark A. Ludwig, when he
Speaker 1: first published this book back in nineteen ninety, he explicitly
Speaker 1: viewed it as an experiment. He candidly admits he had
Speaker 1: no idea what would happen whether people would use the
Speaker 1: virus information responsibly or for destructive purposes.
Speaker 2: Which is quite the gamble it really is.
Speaker 1: What's even more telling is that the anti virus community
Speaker 1: at the time was so wary of the whole idea
Speaker 1: they initially refused to even engage with him, like at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they wanted nothing to do with it. But five
Speaker 2: years later, in nineteen ninety six, when the electronic edition
Speaker 2: came out, Ludwig firmly believed the book had done a
Speaker 2: lot more good than harm.
Speaker 1: Okay, so what was the good in his view?
Speaker 2: Well, on the good side, he explained how it provided
Speaker 2: desperately needed, like really detailed technical information for the people
Speaker 2: actually responsible for keeping viruses off computers.
Speaker 1: Right the cissimens, the tech teams exactly.
Speaker 2: For large networks, say ten thousand or more users, you're
Speaker 2: off the shelf. Antivirus solutions just weren't cutting it back then,
Speaker 2: not sophistic enough, not nearly. So the book it empowered
Speaker 2: their internal tech staff to handle issues quickly, you know,
Speaker 2: without having to rely on external vendors or shut down
Speaker 2: massive systems for days on end. It gave them the tools.
Speaker 1: That makes sense from a practical standpoint, and that's.
Speaker 2: Not all it. Also, he argued, played a crucial role
Speaker 2: in just educating curious individuals on how things work.
Speaker 1: You know, the pure knowledge aspect, right.
Speaker 2: Ludwig emphasized what he found to be the exciting idea
Speaker 2: of a program gaining a life independent of its maker.
Speaker 2: He drew this really striking analogy. Yeah, that basic information
Speaker 2: is vital for innovation. He said. It's like depriving the
Speaker 2: carpenter of his hammer and then asking him to build
Speaker 2: a better building.
Speaker 1: Huh okay, I see the point.
Speaker 2: His core belief was that restricting knowledge actually harms progress.
Speaker 2: You need the tools, the info to build better things,
Speaker 2: even defensive.
Speaker 1: But despite all that stated good, Ludwig himself admits that
Speaker 1: his experiment has not been without its dangers, which you know,
Speaker 1: sounds like an understate.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. He reveals that the stealth virus, which was
Speaker 2: meticulously described in the book, actually succeeded in establishing itself
Speaker 2: in the wild. Wow, And as of nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 2: it was ranked number eight on the annual frequency list
Speaker 2: of most commonly found viruses.
Speaker 1: Number eight. That's yeah, that's significant. That's quite a consequence
Speaker 1: for an experiment, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It absolutely is. And what's fascinating here is Ludwig's complex
Speaker 2: reaction to Stealth getting out there. He expresses regret, yes.
Speaker 1: Okay, some regret, but also.
Speaker 2: A certain sense of well, he called it divine humor
Speaker 2: directed at some of the anti virus people he'd kind
Speaker 2: of sparred with.
Speaker 1: Oh really, b if I told you so?
Speaker 2: Maybe perhaps a little. He points out that the original
Speaker 2: Stealth in his book was designed for older PCs, specifically
Speaker 2: to hide itself on an extra disc track, which in
Speaker 2: theory limited its ability to replicate widely.
Speaker 1: But clearly that limitation wasn't enough in practice.
Speaker 2: Apparently someone adapted it or it found a.
Speaker 1: Way, And Ludwig takes this really provocative stance with the
Speaker 1: whole thing right. He actually hopes the book offends some people,
Speaker 1: stating they need.
Speaker 2: To Yeah, it's pretty blunt.
Speaker 1: His core belief right there in the preface is that
Speaker 1: computer viruses are not evil and that programmers have a
Speaker 1: right to create, possess, and experiment with them. That's a
Speaker 1: bold claim, it is.
Speaker 2: And it really gets to the heart of his philosophy.
Speaker 2: He emphasizes that truth is the truth, and it needs
Speaker 2: to be spoken, even if it is offensive.
Speaker 1: No compromises on truth none.
Speaker 2: He argues that morals and ethics, while they can't be
Speaker 2: determined by a majority vote or by force, he states
Speaker 2: directly that Mike does not make right. Okay, and this
Speaker 2: isn't just some abstract philosophical point for him. Ludwig's insistence
Speaker 2: on truth above comfort it kind of set a precedent
Speaker 2: for debates we still have today about open source information,
Speaker 2: cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and the ethical lines of disclosure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, where do you draw that line? He even brings
Speaker 1: in a no pain, no gain principle for intellectual growth.
Speaker 2: Right. He encourages critical self reflection, urges you to listen
Speaker 2: to opposing viewpoints, even if they challenge your comfort zone.
Speaker 2: He really wanted people to think for themselves, to grapple
Speaker 2: with difficult ideas.
Speaker 1: Crucially, despite these controversial views, he does include a very
Speaker 1: clear warning, doesn't he?
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely very clear. He explicitly states that he does
Speaker 2: not advocate infecting an innocent party's computer system with a
Speaker 2: malicious virus designed to destroy valuable data or bring their
Speaker 2: system to a halt.
Speaker 1: Okay, So creating is one thing, releasing maliciously as another.
Speaker 2: Exactly, he calls that wrong and illegal, cautioning that you
Speaker 2: could risk jail time or find yourself sued for millions.
Speaker 2: He's not naive about the consequences.
Speaker 1: He reinforces that distinction. Then it's not illegal in his
Speaker 1: view to create an experiment with viruses privately. Correct, But
Speaker 1: he stresses that absolute point about responsibility, saying you should
Speaker 1: treat these programs with the respect you would have for
Speaker 1: a lethal weapon, to avoid any accidental destructive release.
Speaker 2: That's a serious analogy.
Speaker 1: It is a piece of code treated like a weapon. Okay,
Speaker 1: shifting gears a bit. Let's move from the philosophy to
Speaker 1: the fascinating mechanics of these early digital life forms. Right then,
Speaker 1: Naty Gritty Ludwig observed what he called computer hypochondria, stemming
Speaker 1: from the sheer complexity of machines back then, the rarity
Speaker 1: of actual virus incidents compared to other problems, and of
Speaker 1: course a lot of fear mongering reports in the media.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the panic was real sometimes.
Speaker 1: He says this led to mass hysteria, contrasting it with
Speaker 1: common computer problems that are usually just you know, user
Speaker 1: error or hardware failure, things that weren't viruses.
Speaker 2: At all exactly, and what's fascinating here is Ludwig's direct analogy.
Speaker 2: He compares the computer virus to the simplest biological unit
Speaker 2: of life, a single celled photosynthetic organism like algae. Basically, yeah,
Speaker 2: he explains, they share fundamental goals, first to survive and
Speaker 2: second to reproduce.
Speaker 1: Surviv and sounds biological it does.
Speaker 2: He clarifies that much like simple organisms drawing nutrients from
Speaker 2: their environment, a computer virus uses the computer system's resources
Speaker 2: disk storage, CPU time. It doesn't attack other self reproducing
Speaker 2: programs in the way we might think. It just exists
Speaker 2: and well proliferates within the electronic environment of the computer itself.
Speaker 1: So what really makes it computer virus unique? Then? What
Speaker 1: sets it apart from other self reproducing things like John
Speaker 1: von Neumann's theoretical stuff or even simple worms that needed
Speaker 1: people to spread them.
Speaker 2: Well, the defining feature of a computer virus, according to Ludwig,
Speaker 2: is its ability to hide itself in other programs.
Speaker 1: Ah, the hiding part exactly.
Speaker 2: This is how it overcomes operator control meaning the user's actions,
Speaker 2: and gains CPU access without the user's knowledge. That's what
Speaker 2: makes it a viable electronic life form in his terms, Okay,
Speaker 2: this parasitic nature, he notes, that's what earned it the
Speaker 2: name virus, even though the host per themselves aren't alive
Speaker 2: in any biological sense.
Speaker 1: Right, it's infecting code, not cells, and he briefly details
Speaker 1: the types of files these early viruses typically went after calm,
Speaker 1: exc or sys files yep, the executable types. These are
Speaker 1: the common application files on early PCs, basically the programs
Speaker 1: you'd click to run like today's audiax files on Windows. Right.
Speaker 2: Pretty much a virus needed to run to reproduce, so
Speaker 2: these executable files were the perfect hosts.
Speaker 1: Make sense.
Speaker 2: And then there's the boots sector virus, which he describes
Speaker 2: as a particularly potent type. Why potent because this virus
Speaker 2: attacks the boot sector. That's the very first thing a
Speaker 2: computer loads and executes from a disc when you turn.
Speaker 1: It on, right at the beginning, exactly.
Speaker 2: This allows the virus to gain immediate control of the
Speaker 2: entire system, even before other programs or crucially, detection software
Speaker 2: can even load and execute.
Speaker 1: Wow, it's like taking over the operating system before it
Speaker 1: even wakes up.
Speaker 2: That's a good way to put it, and Ludwig often
Speaker 2: illustrates the functional elements common to every viable computer virus
Speaker 2: with the diagram. They all need a few key.
Speaker 1: Parts, Okay, like what First?
Speaker 2: A search routine. This is for locating new targets, new
Speaker 2: files to infect. How good this is dictates how well
Speaker 2: and quickly it spreads.
Speaker 1: Makes sense find the next victim.
Speaker 2: Then a copy mechanism. This is the actual process by
Speaker 2: which the virus replicates itself, copies its code into the
Speaker 2: new host.
Speaker 1: A reproduction part exactly.
Speaker 2: And finally, anti detection routines. These are tricks designed to
Speaker 2: avoid discovery by antivirus software or users.
Speaker 1: Gotta stay hidden.
Speaker 2: Right, And he emphasizes that other routines like those designed
Speaker 2: for pure destruction, sometimes called logic bombs or even just pranks,
Speaker 2: like that old wash machine simulation virus.
Speaker 1: I think I remember hearing about that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah. While those destructive or annoying parts, they are not
Speaker 2: essential to a virus's existence. In fact, he argues, they
Speaker 2: can be very detrimental to its survival because they actively
Speaker 2: reveal its presence. If your computer suddenly starts acting crazy,
Speaker 2: you know something's wrong.
Speaker 1: Ah, okay, So destruction makes it easier to spot.
Speaker 2: Precisely, he uses this vivid kamikaze pilot analogy the destructive
Speaker 2: payload is useless without an effective delivery system. The search
Speaker 2: and copy mechanisms the survival parts are way more crucial. Survival,
Speaker 2: not destruction, is the virus's primary drive biologically speaking.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's look at some real examples Ludwig uses to
Speaker 1: illustrate these concepts. He starts with simpler ones, right, and
Speaker 1: then gets more sophisticated.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he builds it up.
Speaker 1: First. Up is TIMID, which stands for the Instructional Comfile Infector.
Speaker 1: He describes TIMID as a simple comfile infector. It's safe, tiny,
Speaker 1: and designed as an instructional tool. It apparently even tells
Speaker 1: you when it's infecting a file.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's meant to be educational, not malicious.
Speaker 1: And crucially, it has no destructive code and only targets
Speaker 1: comfiles in the current directory. Very limited.
Speaker 2: Very And to understand TIMID, you need a little background
Speaker 2: on how those early com programs worked. He explains. They
Speaker 2: had a very predictable structure. How so they loaded directly
Speaker 2: into a specific memory spot after doss, the operating system
Speaker 2: prepared a small sort of foundational area for them. This predictability,
Speaker 2: which was actually a remnant from even older operating systems,
Speaker 2: like CPM was exactly what viruses like Timid exploited.
Speaker 1: Okay, so how does this tiny program actually do the infection?
Speaker 2: Well, Timid's infection process is quite clever for its simplicity.
Speaker 2: It first copies the host program's original starting instructions, just
Speaker 2: the first few bites, save them, saves them. Then it
Speaker 2: writes its own virus code to the end of the
Speaker 2: host file. After that, it goes back and replaces the
Speaker 2: host's original starting instructions with a jop instruction exactly a
Speaker 2: redirect that points the CPU to the virus's code at
Speaker 2: the end of the file and mugs it with VI
Speaker 2: so it knows it's.
Speaker 1: Infected, and after the virus runs.
Speaker 2: After executing, the virus restores those original instructions it saved,
Speaker 2: and then jumps back to the host program, making it
Speaker 2: seem like everything is running normally.
Speaker 1: Snik And what about its antidetection? How did it avoid
Speaker 1: giving itself away? Even being simple?
Speaker 2: Ah? The clever bit for Timid is its use of
Speaker 2: something called the disk transfer area or DTA manipulation uiki. Yeah.
Speaker 2: This DTA was a default location in memory where DOS
Speaker 2: would put things like command line parameters for a program Okay,
Speaker 2: what TIMID does is it temporarily moves this DTA somewhere
Speaker 2: else before it searches for files to infect, and then
Speaker 2: it restores it afterwards.
Speaker 1: Why does that.
Speaker 2: Matter because if it didn't, its own file searching could
Speaker 2: overwrite the host program's command line parameter stored in that
Speaker 2: default DTA location, which would cause the host program to
Speaker 2: maybe crash or act weirdly, revealing the virus exactly. So,
Speaker 2: by moving the DTA temporarily, it ensures the host program
Speaker 2: runs correctly without any hint that something else was running first.
Speaker 2: It's a subtle but effective trick for hiding.
Speaker 1: Okay, subtle indeed. Now let's move to Intruder, which Lidbig
Speaker 1: describes as no toy.
Speaker 2: Definitely not.
Speaker 1: This is a truly sophisticated executable virus, he says, that
Speaker 1: overcomes all of timmid's limitations. It infects EXE files, not
Speaker 1: just comms, and it spreads across directories and drives. He claims,
Speaker 1: is capable of deceiving a very capable computer.
Speaker 2: Whiz Yeah, Intruder is a big step up. Infecting exx
Speaker 2: files is significantly more complex than CALM files exact because
Speaker 2: ex files have more complex internal structures, headers, relocation tables,
Speaker 2: things that need careful modification if you're going to insert
Speaker 2: code without breaking the original program. Intruder attaches itself to
Speaker 2: the very end of an exx file and then modifies
Speaker 2: the header to gain control right when the program starts up?
Speaker 1: And how did it spread efficiently without being too obvious? Like,
Speaker 1: wouldn't scanning the whole hard drive slow things down?
Speaker 2: Good question. Intruder's search optimization is quite ingenious. Instead of
Speaker 2: doing exhaustive searches on potentially huge hard disks, which would
Speaker 2: be incredibly noticeable, right, slow down disc noise. That's only
Speaker 2: it truncates its search. It only looks in the current
Speaker 2: directory and its subdirect up to two levels deep. And
Speaker 2: also the root directory and its subdirectory is just one.
Speaker 1: Level deep, so limited search each time.
Speaker 2: Right. It relies on infected programs being run from various
Speaker 2: locations over time to achieve widespread propagation, rather than doing
Speaker 2: all the heavy lifting itself in one go. Much stealthier.
Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense. So how did it manage to
Speaker 1: be so stealthy and avoid detection?
Speaker 2: Then?
Speaker 1: What was its antidetection routine?
Speaker 2: Ah? This is where Intruder gets really fascinating. Its main
Speaker 2: subtle anti detection routine is this. It doesn't execute its
Speaker 2: search and copy routine every single time and infected program runs.
Speaker 1: Oh only sometimes exactly.
Speaker 2: Instead, it checks the system clocks, specifically the number of
Speaker 2: ticks modulo sixty four, basically a randomizing element to decide
Speaker 2: whether to replicate or not. So it's roughly random. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it means it only tries to replicate roughly one in
Speaker 2: every sixty four times an infected program is run.
Speaker 1: Wow, that would be hard to spot.
Speaker 2: Extremely difficult without constant, painstaking monitoring. But there's a catch
Speaker 2: it It has a little routine sets sore that ensures
Speaker 2: it does run the search and copy the very first
Speaker 2: time an infected program is executed on a clean system.
Speaker 1: To guarantee initial infection precisely.
Speaker 2: Then after that first run, it reverts to the random
Speaker 2: one in sixty four. Check. It's a masterclass and subtlety
Speaker 2: for its time.
Speaker 1: Incredible. Yeah, okay, let's connect this now to the bigger
Speaker 1: picture you mentioned earlier, the boot sector virus. Can you
Speaker 1: remind us about the PC's startup sequence?
Speaker 2: Sure? So, when you turn on an old PC, the
Speaker 2: very first thing the CPU does is execute a small
Speaker 2: program stored in the computer's built in memory, the BIOSROM.
Speaker 1: Okay, the basic input output system right.
Speaker 2: This BIOS code then attempts to read the boot sector
Speaker 2: that's the very first physical sector from a disc. Usually
Speaker 2: it tries the floppy drive a first, then.
Speaker 1: The hard drive c reads it into memory.
Speaker 2: Reads it into a specific memory location zero zero point
Speaker 2: seven C zero zero h Then it checks the very
Speaker 2: last two bytes of that sector if they contain a
Speaker 2: specific signature fifty five hah. The BIOS considers it a
Speaker 2: valid bootable sector and passes control to it, and passes
Speaker 2: control directly to the code loaded from that sector. This
Speaker 2: makes boot sector viruses incredibly powerful because they gain control
Speaker 2: before almost anything else on the computer, the operating system, antivirus,
Speaker 2: anything can.
Speaker 1: Even start right at the source of power. Okay. So
Speaker 1: he describes kilroy as a simple one sector boot virus.
Speaker 2: Its goals is designed to load doss the operating system
Speaker 2: and reproduce itself onto other boot sectors. Very basic function.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned it was rude.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Leadwood calls it rude in its design because it
Speaker 2: doesn't display any polite error messages if something goes wrong,
Speaker 2: mainly to save precious space in that single sector. It
Speaker 2: also uses a guessing strategy for finding the hard drive's
Speaker 2: boot sector location. Tracks zero had one sector one was
Speaker 2: a common guess. If that guess was wrong for a
Speaker 2: particular hard drive, it could potentially corrupt or crash the
Speaker 2: disc trying to write to the wrong place. Not very
Speaker 2: sophisticated in the name, oh amusingly yeah, If a disc
Speaker 2: infected with kill Roy successfully boots, it actually displays the
Speaker 2: phrase Kilroy was here on the screen.
Speaker 1: Ah classic graffiti tag. Okay, so Kilroy is simple, potentially clumsy.
Speaker 1: Now he introduces Stealth right.
Speaker 2: Stealth is presented as a truly sophisticated boots sector virus
Speaker 2: designed to overcome Kilroy's limitations, hiding much more carefully and
Speaker 2: infecting efficiently and importantly not just at boot.
Speaker 1: Time, not just at bouta. And this is the one
Speaker 1: that got out in the wild, the infamous one.
Speaker 2: That's the one number eight on the list, remember, And
Speaker 2: what's fascinating here. Contrasting with Kilroy is Stealth's polite behavior.
Speaker 1: Polite a polite virus.
Speaker 2: Relatively speaking, It actually checks the disc's file allocation table,
Speaker 2: the FAT, which is like the disc's directory. It aborts
Speaker 2: the infection process that the disc is full or has
Speaker 2: bad sectors reported.
Speaker 1: In the fact, Why would it do that.
Speaker 2: To avoid causing obvious permanent damage to the disc or
Speaker 2: corrupting user data, which would again reveal its presence. It
Speaker 2: wants to survive undetected.
Speaker 1: Clever Yeah, and its copy mechanism. How does it actually infect.
Speaker 2: It's quite involved. It involves carefully updating those f fat
Speaker 2: tables to mark certain sectors as bad or unusable. These
Speaker 2: are rare, will hide itself. Then it moves its own
Speaker 2: virus code and the original clean boot sector into these
Speaker 2: hidden areas. Finally, it writes its new viral boot sector
Speaker 2: code to the disc's primary boot sector location. Sectors it all.
Speaker 1: So it hides the original and puts itself in charge.
Speaker 1: What does this all mean for its spread? Then you
Speaker 1: said not just at boot time, right?
Speaker 2: Stells has an incredibly aggressive infection trigger, specifically for floppy discs.
Speaker 2: It infects anytime the boot sector is read from the
Speaker 2: disc anytime, not just on boot anytime. So for example,
Speaker 2: just inserting an infected floppy disk and doing a directory
Speaker 2: listing DRA could trigger the read of the boot.
Speaker 1: Sector and infect your system right then and there.
Speaker 2: Exactly. It didn't even need the disc to be booted
Speaker 2: from to spread to the system's memory, making it much
Speaker 2: more contigious than simpler boot viruses.
Speaker 1: Wow, that raises the important question, then, how does it
Speaker 1: stay hidden from detection if it's sitting there in memory?
Speaker 2: Good question. Stealth's core antidetection relies on intercepting something called
Speaker 2: interrupt thirteen H.
Speaker 1: Interrupt thirteen Yeah, you can think.
Speaker 2: Of interrupts like the operating system's direct hotline for specific services.
Speaker 2: Interrupt thirteen H is the BIOS level service for reading
Speaker 2: and writing to disk drives.
Speaker 1: Okay, the disc controller hotline.
Speaker 2: Pretty much so Stealth installs itself in memory and then
Speaker 2: reroutes this interrupt to thirteen H. When any program dos
Speaker 2: an application, an antivirus checker tries to read the boot
Speaker 2: sector using in.
Speaker 1: Thirteen H, Stealth intercepts the call.
Speaker 2: Stealth intercepts the call before it gets to the real
Speaker 2: bios routine. It quickly checks if it should infect the
Speaker 2: disc if it's a floppy for example, performs its infection
Speaker 2: routine if needed, and then it cleverly passes the original
Speaker 2: request along to the real bios routine, but points it
Speaker 2: to read the original clean boot sector it's saved earlier.
Speaker 1: So the requesting program gets the clean version exactly.
Speaker 2: The requesting program gets the data it asked for the
Speaker 2: clean boot sector, and remains completely oblivious that the virus
Speaker 2: intercepted the call, potentially infected the disk and fed it
Speaker 2: clean data. It's stealthy.
Speaker 1: That is incredibly sneaky and the ultimate stealth move, he
Speaker 1: calls it. How Stealth installs itself in memory in the
Speaker 1: first place. That sounds tricky.
Speaker 2: It is very clever.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It manipulates a tiny piece of data stored in a
Speaker 2: specific low memory location zero zero zero four points zero
Speaker 2: zero one three hex that DOS uses to know how
Speaker 2: much conventional memory is available in the system.
Speaker 1: It changes the reported memory size.
Speaker 2: Precisely when Stealth first loads from an infected boot sector.
Speaker 2: Before it lets doss load, it subtracts a few killobytes,
Speaker 2: say four kb, from this memory size value that the
Speaker 2: BIOS reported, so.
Speaker 1: It tells DOS there's less memory than there actually is.
Speaker 2: Exactly. It effectively reserves a hidden area of high conventional
Speaker 2: memory for itself, then doss loads, completely oblivious to the
Speaker 2: fact that the top few killbytes of memory it thinks
Speaker 2: is the limit is actually occupied and controlled by the virus.
Speaker 1: Wow, it cars out its own secret space.
Speaker 2: It essentially carves out its own secret apartment in the
Speaker 2: computer's main memory, re routes Interrupt thirteen h to itself,
Speaker 2: and then loads the original boot sector to let DASS start. Normally,
Speaker 2: the virus is memory resident and hidden before the operating
Speaker 2: system is even fully.
Speaker 1: Aware, making it incredibly hard to detect once.
Speaker 2: It's loaded, extremely hard for the tools available at the time.
Speaker 1: And Loudwoock concludes this section by reiterating that stark warning
Speaker 1: for Stealth, right, how do you get rid of it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? His warning is severe because it hides so well
Speaker 2: in memory and infects boot sectors so readily. The only
Speaker 2: way to truly remove it, he says, is to power
Speaker 2: off completely, boot from a known, clean, write protected floppy
Speaker 2: disc crucial step absolutely. Then low level format your hard drive,
Speaker 2: which wipes everything, including boot sectors, run FDIs to repartition it,
Speaker 2: and then format to set up the filesystem again. And
Speaker 2: you have to form I'm at all floppy disks that
Speaker 2: were anywhere near the infected machine because any one of
Speaker 2: them could be carrying it.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a full system scorched earth wipe.
Speaker 2: Pretty much no messing around with that one.
Speaker 1: That daunting removal process for stealth really highlights the raw
Speaker 1: power these early viruses possessed. And it's this very power,
Speaker 1: this intimate control over the machine, that Ludwig then connects
Speaker 1: to a much grander idea, doesn't he a philosophical lineage?
Speaker 2: He does? If we connect this back to the bigger picture.
Speaker 2: Ludwig ties the study of viruses, maybe surprisingly to what
Speaker 2: he calls a brotherhood of people dedicated to exploring the
Speaker 2: limitless possibilities of computers.
Speaker 1: A brotherhood.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he connects this lineage all the way back to
Speaker 2: the nineteen forties and the early pioneers the dream of
Speaker 2: intelligent machines. He sees virus creation as part of that
Speaker 2: same exploratory spirit, pushing boundaries.
Speaker 1: That's a one way to frame it. This raises that
Speaker 1: important question about power and the individual that Ludwig addresses
Speaker 1: head on though right.
Speaker 2: He makes this argument, if government leaders can supposedly handle
Speaker 2: the immense power of making laws and wielding limitless might,
Speaker 2: then individuals, he argues, should be trusted to handle the
Speaker 2: power that comes with understanding things like computer viruses or
Speaker 2: even owning certain weapons, which he also mentioned.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's a direct comparison.
Speaker 2: It is. He posits that if individuals cannot handle such
Speaker 2: power responsibly, then neither can their elected representatives, and that situation,
Speaker 2: in his view, leads inevitably to either tyranny or chaos.
Speaker 1: It's a very strong statement on individual responsibility versus state
Speaker 1: control in a free society, isn't it. He's really laying
Speaker 1: down a gollic there.
Speaker 2: He absolutely is. And Ludwig also offers a sharp critique
Speaker 2: of modern culture, or at least culture as he saw
Speaker 2: it in the early nineties. Also, he sees it as
Speaker 2: having degenerated his word to the point where most men
Speaker 2: have no higher goals in life than to seek their
Speaker 2: own personal peace and prosperity, meaning basically freedom from challenge
Speaker 2: and just wanting to increase material possessions. He even used
Speaker 2: some political examples from the time, like George Bush's promises
Speaker 2: to illustrate this point.
Speaker 1: Okay, so a critique of materialism and comfort seeking, right, and.
Speaker 2: He believes the shift undermines the principles of good government.
Speaker 2: It leads, he argues, to more coercion and erosion of
Speaker 2: civil rights.
Speaker 1: Does he give examples?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he actually references the irs, forcing self incrimination or
Speaker 2: seizing assets without trial as examples of government overreached that
Speaker 2: people weren't challenging enough. He felt it made it practically
Speaker 2: impossible for the average person to effectively challenge the government.
Speaker 1: So his point is that a population unwilling to face
Speaker 1: challenges or assert their rights will inevitably lose them.
Speaker 2: That seems to be the core of his argument there. Yes,
Speaker 2: we're just reporting his views here, of course.
Speaker 1: Of course impartially. So what does all this mean for
Speaker 1: Ludwig's provocative stance on freedom, knowledge, and maybe even privacy?
Speaker 1: To wrap up, let's look at one of the most
Speaker 1: rising nuggets hidden in the very back of this book,
Speaker 1: the publisher's privacy policy from nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 2: It's quite astonishing, actually, and it perfectly encapsulates his whole philosophy.
Speaker 1: What it'd say.
Speaker 2: The policy states that quote, effective September fifteenth, nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 2: if you ordered the book using a credit card, you
Speaker 2: are essentially stating that you do not care about privacy.
Speaker 1: Well, hold on ordering by credit card, you didn't care
Speaker 1: about privacy.
Speaker 2: That's what they stated. You were stating, and as a result,
Speaker 2: the publisher, American Eagle publications would quote sell them your name,
Speaker 2: presumably to mailing lists or whoever.
Speaker 1: They would sell your data if you used a credit card.
Speaker 2: That's bold, incredibly bold. But and this is the kicker,
Speaker 2: if you paid by cash, check or money order, then
Speaker 2: what then they vowed quote not released your name to
Speaker 2: anyone ever, under any circumstances.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And Ludwig himself personally recommended paying by cash or money
Speaker 2: order if privacy mattered to you.
Speaker 1: That is just It's such a stark illustration of his
Speaker 1: views on choice, responsibility, and maybe the cost of convenience,
Speaker 1: isn't it highlighting that trade off we make even today
Speaker 1: between privacy and ease of transaction.
Speaker 2: Exactly. He was putting it right there in your face
Speaker 2: decades ago. Pay with plastic, give up privacy, pay with paper,
Speaker 2: keep it your choice, your responsibility.
Speaker 1: What a journey this has been, seriously, from the core
Speaker 1: code of self reproducing programs all the way to these
Speaker 1: huge philosophical battles over the right to information and the
Speaker 1: power of the individual.
Speaker 2: It really covers a lot of ground. We've seen how
Speaker 2: understanding the smallest technical details how a virus hides in
Speaker 2: a boot sector right can lead directly to the biggest
Speaker 2: questions about society, about control, and about personal freedom.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So for you, our learner listening to this, what does
Speaker 1: this deep dive mean for how you approach new information,
Speaker 1: especially in a world where technology and its implications are
Speaker 1: constantly rapidly evolving.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how do we balance that curiosity that desire to
Speaker 2: know how things work with caution? And how do we
Speaker 2: make sure we're not just sort of passively consuming information
Speaker 2: but are critically engaged with it?
Speaker 1: Great questions, Keep exploring, keep questioning, definitely until next time,
Speaker 1: Stay curious,