Immortal Riot

Immortal Riot was a group that existed in the early and mid 1990s based in Sweden and published the Insane Reality magazine. They are the second virus creating group originating in Sweden after Demoralized Youth and the first in Sweden to release a magazine.

In 1996, they merged with the British Genesis group, to form IR/G (Immortal Riot/Genesis).

History

Immortal Riot has its origins on the 11th of November in 1992 when The Unforgiven and Scavenger met to try forming a group called VDA, though nothing really came of it and The Unforgiven described it a bit later as "a pretty lame idea". On the 31st of March in the next year, he chatted with Metal Militia about forming a virus-oriented group. this chat was mostly unserious, but he did come up with the name "Immortal Riot" at this point. A few weeks later, The Unforgiven, Scavenger, and Raver had the oppotunity to join a group known as Naked Truth, but opted not to owing to personality differences and Naked Truth did not last very long anyway.

Immortal Riot was officiall founded by The Unforgiven and Metal Militia in Sweden on the 19th of April 1993. Raver was missing at the time, though he would join for the second issue of their magazine. On the 7th of June, they began to experiment with virus source codes, with Wico providing them a BBS. On the 29th of July in 1993, they published the first issue of Insane Reality.

In August of 1993, the Chemistry department of Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenberg was infected with a virus containing the string "Moose". This prompted someone to contact The Unforgiven about it, who suspected it might have been Tormentor of Demoralized Youth, though it was apparent Tormentor was still in retirement and not interested in making a comeback. The incident received a lot of international publicity and fears among the VX scene that there would be crackdowns in that country. In October, both The Unforgiven and Metal Militia would be infected with Priest's Predator virus, and published their experience with it in issue 2 of Insane Reality. In November, The Unforgiven attacked a Gothenberg-based BBS. At some point, members of the TridenT group claimed members of Immortal Riot were neo-Nazis, a claim they denied.

With issue 8, the merged with Genesis, forming "Immortal Riot/Genesis". After this, they did not produce any further issues. Though they appeared dormant after 1996, T-2000 released the virus Kriz using the Immortal Riot name.

Insane Reality

Zine Format

The Insane Reality Zine was usually came in the form of a DOS executable that would present the magazine. In some earlier editions, all content and formatting was contained in just a few files, making it difficult to view the contents if the viewer can't be made to work. Later editions had a page for each article or source code. Content included updates about the group, articles about the VX scene, infection techniques, interviews with virus coders, virus source code, and art.

Reception

Insane Reality was praised for its format and innovative ideas for the magazine itself. It was considered user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing. There were however a few detractors. Some described the interface and inclusion of art as confusing. Others criticised the fact that the group was often creating variants of other people's work. Later issues did contain more completely original viruses.

Antivirus companies naturally had disdain for Immortal Riot an their magazine. Some time in 1994, F-Prot wrote an article describing their viruses as buggy and "crude" and criticised them for mostly making variants of existing viruses. They also called their magazine "Insane Riot". The Unforgiven responded by naming them 'F-Bull" and said "all AV-articles are rubbish", pointing out how it seemed they had not ever even seen the Insane Reality magazine. F-Prot also accused them of spreading a VCL virus named VCL.Olympic which gained them a lot of negative publicity. Immortal Riot denied involvment in the spreading of the virus, though it was featured in issue 4.

Members and Contributors

This includes the issues in which they appeared.

Main

Other

Not all people listed here contributed viral code. Some provided a BBS or some kind of art for the magazines.

Work

Viruses

  • Virus (Issue appeared)

Other Facts

There is a variant of the Badboy by Metal Militia named Immortal Riot.

Sources

Insane Reality, Issues 1-8, 1993-1996

VX Heaven, Immortal Riot.

-, Genesis.

-, IR/G (Immortal Riot/Genesis).

Patricia Hoffman. Online VSUM, Bad Boy Virus.

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