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Life in the modern world has a new anxiety these days.
Just as we've become totally dependent on our computers, they are being stalked by saboteurs.
Saboteurs who create computer viruses.
The defense department, universities, and research centers are still recovering tonight
from a computer virus that brought a nationwide network to a standstill.
One of the institutions hardest hit was M.I.T.
David Boeri reports.
It was first spotted at NASA Ames and Rand.
It came from California, maybe.
Traveled by electronic mail.
It spread across America.
How insidious was this virus?
Well, it was - it spread very quickly.
There are reports in newspapers today that it has made its way to Europe and to Australia.
It arrived at M.I.T. in the middle of the night.
Students were safe, their computers weren't.
Just ran, it would enter your machine, it would do its thing, it would go to other machines
At M.I.T. two hundred computers were infected.
Across the country the toll might be six thousand.
It could have been worse.
We believe it was intended to spread more slowly than it did, so that it wouldn't be
noticed as quickly, which would actually have been more insidious, if it spread out to a
large number of machines, and say held the surprise and did something.
Mark Eichin - student, and part time virus hunter.
Once we had it stopped, we were able to take it apart, sort of like dissect it and tear
it apart piece by piece.
It's these three processes right here. These three programs. The SH with the parens around
them, are- are in fact copies of the virus that are running there.
It's not really a virus, it's a code - a set of instructions, an act of sabotage that started
on a floppy disk.
This virus spreads by disk and by telephone; it's just a call away.
And like a virus it replicates like crazy.
Look at this!
And look at this!
And look at this.
And as it replicates, the code, the so-called virus eats up large amounts of memory. It
wipes out stored data or cripples the hardware.
This virus clogged the system linking thousands of computers but apparently did no damage.
It's benign. It's not malicious, it attempts to do no damage besides propagate itself.
And that's why I think it's a warning.
The suspect, somewhere, a dark genius.
I suspect it's an A student. A good A student.
So lost computer time, but no files destroyed. Just a thrill for the virus hunters, and a
warning.
My personal speculation is that this is somebody who is trying to - to warn people, to say
"it can happen to you".
Mr. President, we have not even been able to isolate the cause. The virus, if it is
a virus, it's like the common cold, it is everywhere, it is nowhere.
For the 10 o'clock news, I'm David Boeri.