Vice

Vice made their appearance during the height of the 1980s Satanic panic, causing mayhem in the developing minds and technology of the time. Taking advantage of the frenzy among the public consciousness, Vice would often cause heavy malfunctioning in technology to the point of rendering the device unusable. His actions further served to make people think their technology was possessed — and in a way, it was. This was also heavily influenced by the fact that he often used satanic imagery in his work. Vice's most iconic calling cards were the transformation of the loading circle mouse cursor into a pentagram — one that he could even appear out of if he so chose — paired with the gibberish Satanic text that denoted his presence. Vice's presentation and actions only helped to further fuel the mania at the time. It didn't help how his means of getting from computer to computer was by inserting "summoning text" encryptions into files online that, once downloaded, would give him free access to the PC.

--- Behavior ---

Vice is a wildcard of a virus, having unique ways of his own to inflict havoc upon computers and their users. One behavior is that he's been known to favor specific kinds of files to where he'll add them to a "stash" stored somewhere on the PC, removing them from the source and corrupting it as a side-effect. Along with this, Vice downloads files of his own and eventually takes up more and more space on the hard drive. He can even manage to fill the drive past capacity, much to the detriment of the computer itself.

Another behavior is that he'll send encrypted messages periodically through the PC visible even to the user. The messages are full of Satanic nonsense that looks right at home in a movie, but they're nigh impossible to decrypt. If they are decrypted, it can reverse Vice's effects and he'll even send a lighthearted popup message to the user before leaving. Sometimes he sends fake popups just for his own joy, providing false hope to the decrypter. Rarely, he leaves encrypted data behind when stealing files for his stash as a temporary "fix," with no real intention to fix anything. He just enjoys providing the computer with a slow corruption. Vice's ability extends to more than just encrypted messages as well, as he'll talk directly with the user on occasion. He'll input his own search results and plant damning images only to wave them in the user's face as if they're to blame. Framing people to be worse than they are isn't something below him.

If Vice wants to, he can even speak in the encryptions he writes. The speech shows up as visible text that appears on the PC and can overflow it if he decides to say too much. The text will appear on the desktop, in files, on images, or anything else visible to the user. He often makes the text appear where he knows the user is looking. The encrypted speech also works as a form of protection for him, causing virus defenders and the computer itself to be unable to recognize that he's a virus because of the speech providing a "barrier" around him.