Are there any joke programs anymore ?

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Hello,

I just wondered. During DOS6 times, a German publisher released a package + book called "DOS9". It consisted of joke programs plus the accompanying "handbooks".

My favourite was "FRAG". It looked exactly like DEFRAG, it behaved like DEFRAG, it was as colourful as DEFRAG - it only did the exact OPPOSITE than DEFRAG :D

At least it pretended to do so, hence it was a "joke program". ;)

But nowadays, a) antivirus packages successfully remove joke programs nowadays, too, and b) with all these viruses, I think that joke programs have become an endangered species, simply because viruses do look like mostly the same. Well, at least the "funny" viruses … if there are any left of them, that is.

Nowadays everything virus/trojan is about grabbing identity data, ebay and paypal passwords and such - making money the criminal way.

It's been ages since I saw the last time a true, non-destructive "joke program". They just don't seem to exist anymore.

Has computing lost its innocence ?

And : Do there still exist any "joke programs" of modern ? If so … where ?

Alrik

[Thrasher]

I think the jokes aren't funny anymore because we depend a lot more on our computers than we used to. A joke to disable someone's PC is tantamount to disconnecting their house from electricity, gas, water, or what have you.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Hm, yes, but I was rather referring to programs like the FRAG program I described above.

What you mean - as far as I understood it - falls indeed into the category "computing has lot its innocence".

Edit : I think I've found something ... : http://www.snert.com/Software/bork.html

[BillSeurer]

Joke programs can get you fired now. If you get someone to run one and they think they have a virus it may cost them and others a lot of wasted time and effort. When a "joke" gets to that point it's not funny any more.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

At home, too ?

[pibbur]

At home, too ?

Some of us have got wives. Or husbands.

But there are of course programs with features that ought to be a joke, but which isn't.

[GothicGothicness]

try ArcaniA....................................

[skavenhorde]

There used to be a "joke" virus at my university. It was a variant of the Stoned virus. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoned_%28computer_virus%29) Pretty much did the same thing as the original.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

There used to be a collection of virus screenshots there at Sophos. Cannot find it anymore.

[zakhal]

Heres few practical jokes that you can use on unsuspecting coworker:

(1) Put a piece of plastic tape with few small holes over the infrared sensor of mouse
(2) Take a screenshot of desktop and put it as a desktop wallpaper. Hide everything on the desktop and then disconnect mouse from the pc.

I read that one worker put a popup dirty word in his windows project for microsoft in the 90s. He thought it was funny but then forget to remove it when the program was finished and went to print. They made like 10,000 cd's and that was the day when cds were expensive. The next morning his boss ringed the bell of his house and brought him a box of useless cds. He never joked again.

[xSamhainx]

Not in this day and age. Maybe back in those innocent days when everyone wasnt so uptight about malware. Now youre now in the era of constant malware assault.

personally, I have no tolerance for it any more than I have for people who send me joke emails. I can see how some people would find it funny, but at work for instance I depend on my pc literally for my livelihood. More than just being a grouchy old tiger about it, I'd be concerned that whoever is writing the "Joke Program" as it were, would have possible ulterior motives with the software or even damage my registry or something accidentally.

Then I think about my home rig I recently built. Same thing. Perhaps I'm just a grouchy old tiger, but that's asking for trouble messing w/ me and my pc. It'd be like messing w/ someone's restored car theyve been working on, then expecting a big laugh over it. Chances are you'd get a knuckle sandwich.

[Maylander]

This is a classic one, used to pull this on fellow students, teachers, friends and so on:
- Press ctrl + alt + one of the arrows on the keyboard (left, right, up, down).

This will turn the content of the screen to the side you point the arrow. Example: Ctrl + alt + left will turn everything on the screen left.

It's an old Windows command that still works. It's not really a joke program, but still lots of fun. :)

[GothicGothicness]

hmmm, not on my computer....... I tried...

[darkling]

Fascinating, Maylander. Also, this is the first October since 823 that has 5 whole weekends in it!!1

Humour aside, I treated joke programs the same as viruses back in the day. If computing has "lost its innocence" by not having things like this, good riddance! :)

[Thrasher]

hmmm, not on my computer……. I tried…

Mine neither.

[GothicGothicness]

I found it works on windows 7 but not on XP……

[Kendrik]

Back in the good ol' days (TM) of the Amiga. There used to be a command called RESET which when typed in would er.... reset the machine. The command was actually stored as a file so you could rename it to something that would appear in the startup and should automatically run. This created a reset loop which caused people to panic. Of course because the A500 booted from floppy disc all you really had to do was use a different boot disk. Ahhhh times were more innocent back then. :lol:

[Pladio]

I found it works on windows 7 but not on XP……

Doesn't work on my win7

[BillSeurer]

It does work on my Win XP machine. Probably only works if some setting is turned on somewhere.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I think this would be one of the last joke programs, then : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897558.aspx