Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: QAA Podcast
Episode: The AF/91 Virus Hoax (E293)
Description: 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 sounde...