I had a friend who was a BBS sysop while living with his parents. One day he came home toβ "Son, we need to have a talk about the illegal activities on your computers."
Thus beginning a rather awkward conversation which was eventually resolved, to his relief, when he eventually realized they'd just seen a crash message on one of his screens.
I worked at MS in this era. My sister actually called me once and said something to the effect of "my computer says I've done something illegal. Am I in trouble?"
This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down. If the problem persists, contact the program vendor.