Who Invented the Computer Virus? (priceonomics.com)

better title: "Who first distributed personal computer viruses?" Still informative and entertaining.

I would credit the original virus to John von Neuman and Bob Thomas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_computer_viruses_an...

I grew up in Lahore, Pakistan and knew Basit Alvi - he is a super smart guy who ran a modem-based ISP (BrainNET) long before we had high-speed Internet. He's a hacker at heart.