P-G: Viruses started as prank for teen in Mt. Lebanon

What began as a ninth-grade prank, a way to trick already suspicious friends who had fallen for his earlier practical jokes, has earned Rich Skrenta notoriety as the first person ever to let loose a personal computer virus.

Although over the next 25 years, Mr. Skrenta started the online news business Topix, helped launch a collaborative Web directory now owned by Time Warner Inc.'s Netscape and wrote countless other computer programs, he is still remembered most for unleashing the "Elk Cloner" virus on the world.

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• www.post-gazette.com/pg/07244/813901-96.stm (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

P-G: Blekko: Odd name, interesting concept

Blekko. No, TechMan didn't swallow a bug. Blekko (blekko.com) is a new search engine that has among its founders three former classmates at Mt. Lebanon High School.

Rich Skrenta was a ninth-grader in 1982 when he decided to pull a prank on friends. He wrote a computer program called Elk Cloner on his Apple II and put it on a floppy disk that he handed out to friends. It turned out to be the first known computer virus "in the wild," that is, traveling from machine to machine.

After a career in the computer business, his latest venture is Blekko, and the name indicates that Mr. Skrenta has lost none of his mischievous sense of humor. Among the co-founders of the company are Michael Markson and Bob Truel.

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• blogs.sites.post-gazette.com/index.php/news/techman/23110-blekko-odd-name-intersting-concept (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)