The Little Black Book of Computer Viruses and The Giant Black Book of Computer Viruses were books about viruses by Mark Ludwig. The books were revolutionary at the time and still pretty unique because they listed the full source code for viruses.
The Little Black Book of Computer Viruses
The Little Black Book of Computer Viruses was first published in 1990. An electronic version was uploaded to the Internet for free download in 1996. It was to be the first of a series of 3, the second being "Computer Viruses, Artificial Life and Evolution", and the third (supposed to be about the military applications of computer viruses) that did not materialize.
It was controversial in some security circles. In his preface, Dr. Ludwig claims many antivirus researchers refused to even talk to him and a lot of hype and fear-mongering, but little solid research, was published about it. One researcher who panned the book however, Robert Slade, found the book lacking because the viruses were apparently not good at spreading, criticism Ludwig found "idiotic".
In the end, Dr. Ludwig believed the book did more good than harm and considered the experiment in writing and publishing the book a success. He believed there were many people who needed the information contained in the book. In addition, it provides an interesting look at a topic some people might find fascinating. His one regret was that Stealth managed to make it into the wild and became popular enough to make number 8 on the list of most fequently found viruses. Ironically, this was the virus that many researchers said it would never be able to spread far if released due to certain technical limitations.
The Giant Black Book of Computer Viruses
The Giant Black Book of Computer Viruses was first published in 1995, with a reprint in 1998. It is unknown if Dr. Ludwig intended to ever release it, but an electronic copy is available over the web. It adds many viruses, coming close to 30 for the entire book. A few of the viruses in this book came from Ludwig's Computer Virus Super-technology. To keep the size of the book down, source code for the viruses was moved to a floppy diskette included with the book.
Featured Viruses
Little Black Book
Giant Black Book
- Mini
- Espawn
- Timid
- Sequin
- Intruder.B
- Yellow
- Trivboot
- Kilroy.B
- Stoned
- Bbs
- Devirus
- Scv
- Concept
- Winbug
- Hillary
- Jezebel
- Yeltsin
- Jadis
- X2x
- Homer
- Jvirus
- Slips
- Winboot
- Manyhoops
- Retaliator
- Genmini
- Snoopy
- Koh
Sources
Mark A. Ludwig. The Giant Black Book of Computer Viruses. American Eagle Publications: Show Low, Arizona. 1998
Mark A. Ludwig. "The Little Black Book of Computer Viruses". American Eagle Publications: Show Low, Arizona. 1996