The AF/91 Virus Hoax (E293)

QAA Podcast

Julian Feeld, Travis View & Jake Rockatansky

News

4.5 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 7 September 2024

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This is the story of an April Fool’s Day joke that got wildly out of control. In 1991, a columnist for InfoWorld claimed that he learned of a hyper-advanced computer virus called “AF/91” that disabled Iraqi air defense systems during the first Gulf War. This virus had allegedly escaped Iraq and threatened every computer that used a windows-based graphical interface. The last line of the column revealed the truth: the story of the AF/91 virus was a fun bit of fiction for April 1st. But shortly afterwards, a journalist for U.S. News & World Report reported on a virus that sounded suspiciously similar to AF/91, based on confirmation from two government officials. Though the report was clearly based on the joke virus from InfoWorld, the publication refused to retract. So for more than a decade the story was repeated as if it were true in newspapers, magazines, and even in a report by a major think tank. The boys walk through the evolution of the strange tale of this virus hoax and speculate about why it spread so widely for so long. Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes: http://www.patreon.com/QAA Pick up new merch! We've got a mug, a two-sided tee, a hoodie, and an embroidered hat. Each item shows off the new QAA logo by illustrator Pedro Correa. https://shopqaa.myshopify.com/ Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com) https://qaapodcast.com QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast. REFERENCES Meta-Virus Set to Unleash Plague on Windows 3.0 Users https://books.google.com/books?id=0FAEAAAAMBAJ Computer Virus Story Proves To Be a Twice-Told Tale https://www.newspapers.com/image/532416866/ Russian Views On Electronic and Information Warfare https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/International_Security_Affairs/14-F-0564_DOC_01_RUSSIAN_VIEWS_ON_ELECTRONIC_AND_INFORMATION_WARFARE_vol_1.pdf Taking a byte from Baghdad: Information War could hobble Iraq, but might become a two edged sword https://www.newspapers.com/image/775197909/ One printer, one virus, one disabled Iraqi air defense https://www.theregister.com/2003/03/10/one_printer_one_virus_one/ Attack Of The Trojan Printers https://www.infoworld.com/article/2285234/attack-of-the-trojan-printers.html

Transcript

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0:24.0	I'm going to be Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, If you're hearing this, well done. If you're hearing this,
0:30.0	if you're hearing this,
0:33.0	well done.
0:35.0	You've found a way to connect to the internet.
0:37.0	Welcome to the QAA Podcast, Premium Episode 293,
0:42.0	the AF91 virus hoax. As always we are your host Jake
0:46.2	Rokotanski, Julian Field and Travis View. So guys you know these past month
0:51.1	or so on the show we've been dealing with you know some these past month or so on the show, we've been dealing with, you know, some kind of like heavy topics, stuff that's a little weighty in the news, stuff that, you know, is sometimes very threatening.
1:01.4	So I thought it would be kind of nice to switch gears a bit and bring you a story from the annals from the history of disinformation and misinformation.
1:10.0	Wow, that sounds very, very fun.
1:13.2	Yeah, I mean, I, my instant reaction to you saying that, I'm like, we have, you know, because what I've done is,
1:19.3	what Rambo does to that arrow wound in his side. I've poured gunpowder from a bullet into my brain and
1:28.9	I've long ago cauterized it. So I feel nothing, but I do believe you, you know, because I know how to like kind of read context clues and I can see others suffer still. I feel nothing.
1:41.0	I'm like, oh, Papa Travis has come with something fun and maybe a little bit light.
1:47.6	I feel like I'm headed into the scholastic book fair, you know, with his
1:51.3	he's using the disinformation word, but I hear that he's got his own
1:54.4	little conspiracy theory about what's going on with this shit so I feel like you know he's
1:59.7	he's always got to put on the prophylactic but once once in a while he's going to give you the good stuff.
2:05.1	The funniest twist of 2024 would be Travis getting killed.
2:08.6	That would be so fucking bad, man. That would be so bad. I'm watching everyone online go completely insane. I mean you
2:17.6	better keep your eye on me. It is really disheartening to be on Twitter these days.
2:23.2	Not only are the supporters of both parties that are heading into an election going completely
	...

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