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VOO_doo
9-12-95. NYPaper:
"Bulletin Board Is Virtual; Hacker Arrests Are Real."
It was a classic sting operation, the kind of undercover
gambit that has nabbed bad guys for decades. But the
meeting place for this subterfuge was not some grimy
storefront. It was a computer bulletin board that the
United States Secret Service had rigged together to
troll for people who are illegally trafficking in the
codes that program cellular phones.
" 'Innocent' Files Can Carry a Virus."
A new kind of computer virus has descended upon the
world. How easy is it to create one? Fifteen minutes
after opening a Microsoft Word reference manual, I had
cranked out a one-line program that could eliminate
crucial system files from a hard drive. By bedtime I had
figured out how to get this file to transmogrify Word
itself so it would embed my trick program in any
document it opened. In an evening, I had created a virus
of my very own. This is scary stuff. Scarier still is
that if I can do it, millions of others can too.
Henceforth virtually every document on the information
highway must be considered suspect.
2: VOO_doo