Elk Cloner has the distinction of being the first wild virus for a home computer. Coded by then-high-school student, Richard Skrenta, around 1982, it did not do much more than cause some annoyance by periodically displaying a message and probably did not spread much further than the computers of a few of Skrenta's friends and his math teacher. It was also completely harmless, save for causing some annoyance. The virus began spreading when Skrenta gave away copies of pirated programs with the virus on them.