Rick Astley Strikes Again

For those of us who remember the late '80s fondly (come on, people — hands up), it's probably a safe bet that, at the time, very few of us would consider the possibility that 20 years later, the name "Rick Astley" would still be discussed in any way, shape or form.

The man who rocketed to brief singing fame made a surprise return to social relevance a couple of years ago with the infamous Internet phenomenon "Rickrolling," where someone would send a Web link that's supposed to be relevant to a certain topic, but the link would instead lead to a video of Astley's number one single, "Never Gonna Give You Up." You weren't really part of the Internet if you hadn't been Rickrolled at least once.

Well, now, Rick Astley is back, and he's as menacing as ever. This time, he's reportedly the first iPhone worm. Known as Ikee, the virus changes the iPhone's wallpaper to a picture of Astley with the text, "Ikee is never gonna give you up." Yes, that's all it does.

As of now, it's local to Australia, but could certainly spread to other unwitting non-Astley fans around the world. Ashley Towns, a 21-year-old native of Sydney, is the one who created the worm, but did so, according to the UK's Daily Mail, for two reasons: "The virus itself is not malicious and it not out to hurt people. It's just poking fun and hopefully waking people up a little."

And that's where the good news is in this story. This virus could've actually damaged the highly popular phones, but it instead serves as a way to wake people up to what could eventually be out there. So, as mentioned in the Daily Mail article, what iPhone owners should do is "change their passwords whenever they do something new on their iPhones — or the instrument could be struck with a far more dangerous virus than the one he spread."

Hmm, maybe I should put a password on my iPhone.

Photo courtesy of chinnian, via Flickr