Personally I’ve only ever written two. One that created multiple textfiles in various folders under windows that all grew exponentially. This was in the age of HDD so it could actually caused some serious problems. I created it because a guy in my class stole my homework by copying my files. So i created this virus, named it something fitting and “forgot” to close my laptop when i went to the bathroom.
And another that once every 40 minutes + (5 to 50) minutes would open your cd tray and then close it after 2 seconds. No one used CD’s at this point and i just wanted to prank some colleges.
Not me. I was the (new inexperienced) PHB.
We had brought on a crazy-expensive, crazy-smart, workaholic but somewhat sophomoric contractor named Bruce.
He was not shy about stupid requirements (“Make it look like it’s doing something while it works? Okay, I’ll have it print dots. Fuck-all to do with how many records it’s actually updated, but sure, it can print dots that you can waste time staring at.”). He was not shy about contract requirements (“Fucking Cleveland? Then I want more hourly and a fucking Jacuzzi”)
One fine day my manager had had enough of his sarcasm and backtalk and just fired him in the middle of a handover meeting. No warning to me. Whole project got slapped.
Bruce had approximately 20 minutes to gather his shit and leave the building.
About an hour after he did, every screen in the building was replaced with an image from Calvin & Hobbes – of Hobbes being tossed out of the front door. Management threw a hissy, myself & 2 other technical managers were pressed into emergency security service to hunt down whatever nefarious thing the Bruce Worm was doing.
Turned out to be nothing – just replaced the screen backgrounds, one time, that’s it. They decided not to press charges.
If you’re out there, Bruce, you’re still a legend to me man.