The origins of the 'Fuck You' virus are a little sketchy. Early reports suggest it first appeared in 1997 at NASA when it appeared on a screen in their Jet Propulsion Laboratory during the early stages of the MPF program. Software engineer Steve Stopler was using the Deep Space Network antenna to communicate with the Pathfinder when his screen went haywire, only to eventually re-appear with the simple message 'Fuck You' imprinted in the middle of the screen. The computer system had crashed and rebooting made no difference.
"We'd been picking up this wierd static which we traced to Asteroid 1950 DA which was floating about" Steve said at the time. "It was really odd because we didn't think there was any chance signals from the antenna could affect the computer operating system in any way. We now know, of course, not to trust any electronic data that comes into the network. It caused quite a stir in the anti-virus world and changed the way these programs operate to this day. You can't trust any type of data these days; even if it comes from outer space!" The 'Fuck You' virus made a re-appearance in 2001. It was purportedly propagated by now infamous hackers Gorshkov and Ivanov, who, as it was unveiled in US High court, had originally discovered the virus when their own computer became infected while hacking into the NASA network! (See: Judge Upholds FBI Russian Hacker Trap)
Ivanov spent over 3 years reverse engineering the Fuck You virus and once he had it hacked sent thousands of copies round the globe from an old 486 server he hacked into located in a library in Little Rock Tenessee!
The virus was propagated further by the well meaning (ourselves included). The Russian hackers had dressed the virus up as a round robin type email which discussed the plight of a woman who was to be stoned to death in Nigeria. Users who entered their opposition to the stoning on the various websites were immedietly infected, most of them unknowingly.
The Fuck You virus lays dormant for a random period which, as we have recently found out, can be anywhere between a minimum 6 months to 98 years (next millenium) The virus, when activated, freezes the users computer or network, bypassing the operating system printing the words 'Fuck You' on the screen. Rebooting makes no difference as the virus takes over both the CMOS of most known computer hardware types and auto-boot loads bypassing floppy disks etc
A cure is still unknown for this nasty bug (we had to replace hardware) but not everyone needs to worry, only those who have been using the Deep Space Network radar, NASA hackers and users who filled out their opposition to the 'stoned woman' petition (thats how we got it), have any chance of being infected.
Once infected the virus could pop up at any time and locks up a system, rendering it basically useless other than for displaying the quaint message, but there are good odds that it may not surface during the users lifetime.
What actually triggers the outbreak is still unclear.