love bug

The e-mail virus that is spreading like wildfire. It affects users of Microsoft Outlook, and sends a copy of itself to all the entries in a user's addressbook. It also coincidentally replaces all your jpeg and mp3 files with infected versions of itself. There is no known way to recover those files, unless you have a backup. One way you can prevent infection is to not open these e-mails or to use a decent operating system such as Linux, Macintosh, or FreeBSD.

The result of a guy in the Phillipines trying to steal passwords to use for free internet access. Caused roughly 10 billion dollars worth of damage and clogged up networks worldwide (see denial of service) More than likely written by a German exchange student living in Australia. I thing the chat dialog between the two culprits would have looked something like this (please note that the name Mick is used for no real reason):

Phillipino Man: Hey, im trying to get free internet access from this isp in the phillipines, got any ideas.

Mick: Yeah, I made this script that can be used to spread itself in the isp by email and steal passwords. It will email you the passwords. Just don't post it until Mother's day of Valentine's day.

Phillipino Man: Kewl, can you give me a copy?

Mick: Yeah sure.

I'm still wondering about the damage caused if this was released on Valentine's Day :).