Someone is clueless about viruses? Send them a clue

And now for something completely different

Funny stuff!
Internet Underground magazine called it "the biggest computer virus myth of all time" (so big, it spawned a humorous advisory)

I don't exactly know why so many people want the Computer Virus Myths home page to include humor. What the heck, let's go for it! (Notice the brick-wall background? Wall. Graffiti. Get it? ...Oh, never mind.)

Rob Rosenberger, DNRC
Courageous Divisitor of the Sacred Zero

Misguided websites

Please note: these links tend to go away without notice when the webmaster gets embarrassed enough... You can read about the latest computing über-threats here (a newsletter) and here and here and here and here (a features writer) and here and here (an Australian ISP) and here and here.

eeek! Beware these filenames & user names

Did you ever receive an alert telling you to beware of a specific filename or user name? Theoretically, you will eventually receive 2.8 trillion different alerts -- one for each possible filename and user name. Well, I say let's go for broke. If someone sends you an email, tell them to read the most comprehensive list of possibly infected filenames and the most comprehensive list of possibly malicious user names currently available!

FAS in action

Joe O'Shea writes:

Here's an illustrated version of FAS, brought to me by a friend. This friend used to work at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Festival. One day, he was walking around with one of the actors, a fairly large man with a very commanding voice. The actor, watching the crowd of visitors go along one of the streets, suddenly yelled, "Stop!!" Most of the crowd stopped, turned to see who yelled, and seeing that it was one of the actors (in costume), waited to see what was next. The actor then pointed over their heads and yelled, "Turn around!" The crowd turned around to see what he was pointing at. After a few seconds, the actor said "You're all bloody sheep," and walked off.

Jokes & anecdotes

Is Windows95 itself a virus?
It's easy to write/upload viruses in the movies
Gullibility virus spreading over Net
Virus Hoax Creation Lab: a new information warfare tool (from "Frangible Bullet")

Comic strips
Kevin & Kell
Nukees
Double Click
User Friendly

Have fun with ironic virus warnings

Suppose a friend or colleague sends you an email about the Good Times urban legend or any one of its many hoax variants. Inspect the subject line of the warning message you received. Does it ironically include the very phrase you shouldn't read?

If so, you can have a little fun at your colleague's expense. Write back to him or her -- make sure to change the subject line -- and scream at your colleague for spreading the virus. "I read the warning message you sent, and it contained the phrase '[good times, deeyenda, etc.]' in the subject line, and now my computer is infected!"

(submitted by Rob Rosenberger, who got the idea a long time ago from a virus expert who probably still wishes to remain anonymous)

Ergo, the need for Symantec Awareness Month

PR Newswire / Pasadena, CA -- Today the Crypt Newsletter demonstrated a potentially dangerous ActiveX control designed to transfer cash money from a users bank account to the bank account of Symantec, Inc.

"This insidious ActiveX control facilitates the electronic message transfer of Symantec/PR Newswire data releases to the remote computer," said George Smith, vice manager of the Crypt Newsletter's secure consumer software development bureau. "This ActiveX control can only be detected by scanning incoming data for the following binary signatures," added Smith.

"Symantec Corporation, the world's leading supplier of utilities and anti-virus software products . . ."
"SARC is comprised of a dedicated team of virus experts whose sole mission is to provide swift, global responses . . ." "There are certain important factors that could cause Symantec's future development efforts to differ materially from those anticipated by some of the statements made above . . ."

"Internet users need to protect themselves with information products such as Crypt For Your Eyes Only. At a minimum, they should get started with a free trial of Crypt Secret Stuff," said George Smith, Crypt Newsletter's vice-Kaiser of Secret Stuff For Your Eyes Only.

CR OX 12-L
PR Newswire (c) 1997 All Rights Reserved.

The ultimate chain letter

This is not a virus. It is not a chain letter, if you don't forward it. Please read this carefully before responding or forwarding...

Craig Shergold is a 10 year old boy who is dying of cancer. Before he dies, he would like to set the world record for receiving the most Neiman-Marcus Cookie Recipes. You can help Craig by sending an irate fax to LEXIS-NEXIS demanding that they remove all traces of your mother's maiden name from their executive washroom wall. They will respond by sending e-mail labeled "goodtimes" to the computer controlling Craig's life support equipment. When Felippe Linz, the technician operating the computer opens this mail, his hard drive will be overwritten with thousands of credit card invoices for $250.00, erasing the last bit of evidence that Hillary was seen on the grassy knoll when JFK was shot, thus allowing world domination by Bill Gates and his trilateral commission cronies who are eating fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches in the black helicopters with Elvis.

--contributor unknown

The ultimate (non-virus) urban legend

The KKK is endorsed by Procter and Gamble, who also supports the satanists, and who sold Mrs. Field's cookie recipe to Neiman Marcus for $2,000 after the kiddie tattoos laced with LSD that were supposed to be used for satanic ritual abuse at that day care center in Beaufort were mistakenly eaten by the choking doberman who was bitten by the snake that came out of the fur coat that was worn by the escaped homicidal maniac whose hook prosthesis was found hanging from the door of the car of the teenagers who high-tailed it out of a lover's lane when they heard that he had escaped and then went to the pot party where the kids who were supposed to be babysitting got high on marijuana and were so stoned they accidentally put the baby in the oven instead of the turkey that makes you sleepy because it contains tryptophan because the microwave was ruined by the exploding poodle that the girl with the beehive hairdo that turned out to contain roaches who had gotten an automatic "A" at college because her roommate had committed suicide had put in to dry after it had gotten wet chasing the vanishing hitchhiker who had tried to warn the girl that her insides were cooked because she had stayed too long under the sun lamp at the local tanning salon while her dad poured a load of concrete into a new convertible parked outside of the house because he thought it belonged to a guy who was having sex with his wife but was really a prize he had won in a contest at that radio station that played rock records that contained hidden commands and subliminal messages planted by the Jews, international bankers, the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Illuminati, the New World Order, multinational corporations, right wing militias, Jerry Falwell, the Christian Coalition, Planned Parenthood, and the spooks at Hanger 18 of Area 51 in Dreamland who performed the autopsies on the aliens who crashed at Roswell, New Mexico while on a mission to abduct people and conduct weird sexual and reproductive experiments on them because they knew we use only ten percent of our brains and that engineers had "proven" that bumblebees can't fly and that sugar wakes you up even if you're a CIA agent who has recovered memories about conspiring with organized crime and anti-Castro extremists to kill JFK with a magic bullet, and then killed dozens of other people whose odds of all dying within the period in which they did are infinitesimal even if you don't count their near-death experiences in which an angel guided them to the light before they were called back because it wasn't time for them to die like Mikey from the Life cereal commercials did after eating Pop Rocks(R) candy when his friend Alice Cooper who was Eddie Haskell on Leave it to Beaver woke up after a one night stand in a hotel only to find that the girl he was with was gone and had written "Welcome to the world of AIDS" in lipstick on the bathroom mirror which terrified him because he knew that it is just as easy to get AIDS from heterosexual intercourse as it is from homosexual sodomy with an IV drug user because when the US government created AIDS to commit genocide against blacks who aren't adversely affected by the minimum wage with the aid of Korean grocers who don't give anything back to the community they knew that Anne Klein had said on the Donahue show that she didn't want blacks buying her clothes because when the poison they put in that fried chicken at Church's so The Rich could keep the poor down because they can't be rich if nobody is poor there would be a massive coverup like the Philadelphia Experiment or the carburetor that can allow a car to get 100 mpg in perpetual motion just like Nikola Tesla had done a hundred years ago using the same principal that Uri Geller uses to bend spoons and psychic friends use to give you valuable insights that improve your life for amusement purposes only while smoking a cigarette that has no more been proven to give you cancer than evolution has been proven to occur because it's only a theory and there are no transitional fossils and it violates the second law of thermodynamics unlike creation science which is not religious and fear of irradiated food which is rational because we know it's bad just like the assault weapons that are more dangerous than other semi-automatic weapons because they look scary and ugly and they're ok to ban because the second amendment wasn't meant to preserve the rights of individuals against the state like the other nine amendments in the Bill of Rights but instead is the only amendment designed to protect the state against individuals because if there is no effective way to keep guns out of the hands of criminals the next best thing is to keep them out of the hands of law abiding citizens and make sure only the state has them because countries where the state doesn't permit its citizens to own guns are never oppressive and the government doesn't become arrogant and intractable and corrupt because the government can improve our lives by suspending the laws of supply and demand to make prices fair and deciding how many people of each race and sex should be in colleges and jobs which is good because when control of everyday life is centralized in the state, the people who get to make the decisions are never capricious or highhanded or make decisions favoring their friends and family and people who pay them money because if only we can get the right people into positions of control it will be safe to let them run things because smart people can figure out how to allocate resources and what fair prices are for goods and services and labor and who should be allowed to do what much more efficiently and constructively than just letting millions of people make their own decisions about what they should eat or drink or smoke or for whom they should work for under what conditions for how much money on what schedule based on their own perceptions concerns and plans in accordance with their best interests.

--contributor unknown

Perhaps this virus does exist after all

Note on the Good Times computer virus: it turns out that this so-called hoax virus is very dangerous after all. Good Times will re-write your hard drive. Not only that, it will scramble any disks that are even close to your computer. It will recalibrate your refrigerator's coolness setting so all your ice cream goes melty. It will demagnetize the strips on all your credit cards, screw up the tracking on your VCR and use subspace field harmonics to scratch any CDs you try to play.

It will give your ex-girlfriend your new phone number. It will mix Kool-aid into your fishtank. It will drink all your beer and leave dirty socks on the coffee table when company comes over. It will put a dead kitten in the back pocket of your good suit pants and hide your car keys when you are late for work.

Good Times will make you fall in love with a penguin. It will give you nightmares about circus midgets. It will pour sugar in your gas tank and shave off both your eyebrows while dating your girlfriend behind your back and billing the dinner and hotel room to your Discover card. It will seduce your grandmother. It does not matter if she is dead, such is the power of Good Times, it reaches out beyond the grave to sully those things we hold most dear.

It moves your car randomly around parking lots so you can't find it. Good Times will kick your dog. It will leave libidinous messages on your boss's voice mail in your voice! It is insidious and subtle. It is dangerous and terrifying to behold. It is also a rather interesting shade of mauve.

Good Times will give you Dutch Elm disease. It will leave the toilet seat up. It will make a batch of Methamphetamine in your bathtub and then leave bacon cooking on the stove while it goes out to chase gradeschoolers with your new snowblower.

--contributor unknown

Viruses with an attitude

Adam & Eve virus -- takes a couple of bytes out of your Apple computer (submitted by Darren Vallance)
Airline virus -- diverts your data to Singapore whenever you fly to Dallas (submitted by Darren Vallance)
AOL tech virus -- keeps hanging on, and on, and on... (submitted by Jeannie Brownlee)
AOL/Time Warner virus -- leaves your computer completely Looney for all Time -- that's the Case Study (submitted by Jeannie Brownlee)
AT&T virus -- every three minutes, it tells you what great service you are getting from the virus (submitted by Darren Vallance)
Buchanan virus -- complains loudly about foreign software on the local system
Clinton virus -- designed to infect programs, but it eradicates itself when it cannot decide which program to infect (from the FBI's Law and Enforcement Bulletin, which got snookered into thinking this was a real virus!)
Clipper chip virus -- scrambles all the data on a hard drive, rendering it useless (from the FBI's Law and Enforcement Bulletin, which got snookered into thinking this was a real virus!)
Colin Powell virus -- makes its presence known but doesn't do anything (although secretly you wish it would)
Congressional virus -- runs every program on the hard drive simultaneously, but doesn't allow the user to accomplish anything (submitted by Darren Vallance)
Federal bureaucrat virus -- divides your hard disk into hundreds of little units, each of which does practically nothing, but all of which claim to be the most important part of your computer
Freudian virus -- your computer becomes obsessed with its own motherboard, or becomes very jealous of the size of your friend's hard drive (submitted by Darren Vallance)
Gallup poll virus -- infects 60% of your PCs with 30% data loss in 14% of the cases (plus or minus a 3.5% margin of error)
Government economist virus -- nothing works, yet all your diagnostic software claims everything is fine (submitted by Rob Rosenberger)
Gingrich virus -- randomly converts word processing files into legalese often found in contracts. Victims can combat this virus by typing their names at the bottom of infected files, thereby signing them, as if signing a contract. (from the FBI's Law and Enforcement Bulletin, which got snookered into thinking this was a real virus!)
Hillary Clinton virus #1 -- instantly turns 1KB of disk space into 1MB (submitted by Darren Vallance)
Hillary Clinton virus #2 -- makes files disappear for a year, then they reappear a year later in a different directory
Jane Fonda virus -- attacks your hard drive's FAT (submitted by Darren Vallance)
Jimmy Hoffa virus -- your programs can never be found again (submitted by Darren Vallance)
Joey Buttafuaco virus -- only attacks minor files (submitted by Darren Vallance)
Ken Starr virus -- slaps a subpoena on all of your files (submitted by Evk d.)
LAPD virus -- claims it feels threatened by the other files on your PC and erases them in "self defense" (submitted by Darren Vallance)
Lecture virus -- deliberately formats the hard drive, destroying all data, then scolds the user for not catching it (from the FBI's Law and Enforcement Bulletin, which got snookered into thinking this was a real virus!)
Limp Bizkit virus -- claims to be a completely original virus, but instead just copies bits from other viruses and mashes them together. Known to be lethally accurate when targetting CD-buying files. (submitted by Marcus Corrin)
MCI virus -- every three minutes, it reminds you that you're paying too much for the AT&T virus (submitted by Darren Vallance)
Michael Jackson virus -- preys on child processes (submitted by Darren Vallance)
Milli Vanilli virus -- changes the author's name on all the documents in your system. Equipped with an auto-remove code: after detection, it disappears forever. (submitted by Zweitze de Vries)
O.J. virus -- claims it did not, could not, and would not delete two of your files, and vows to find the virus that did do it (submitted by Darren Vallance)
Oliver North virus -- plays a patriotic .WAV while it shreds your files (submitted by Darren Vallance)
Oprah virus -- your 200MB hard drive suddenly shrinks to 80MB, then slowly grows to 300MB (submitted by Darren Vallance)
Paul Revere virus -- warns of an impending virus infection: 1 if by LAN, 2 if by C++ (submitted by Darren Vallance)
PBS virus -- your computer stops every few minutes to ask for money (submitted by Darren Vallance)
Politically correct virus -- never calls itself a "virus," but instead refers to itself as an "electronic organism" (submitted by Darren Vallance)
Ross Perot virus -- activates every component in your system, just before the whole darn thing quits (submitted by Darren Vallance)
Schwarzenegger virus -- terminates and stays resident. It'll be back! (submitted by Darren Vallance)
SPA virus -- examines programs on the hard disk to determine whether they are properly licensed. If the virus detects illegally copied software, it seizes the computer's modem, automatically dials 911, and asks for help. (from the FBI's Law and Enforcement Bulletin, which got snookered into thinking this was a real virus!)
Ted Turner virus -- colorizes your monochrome monitor
Tonya Harding virus -- turns your .BAT files into lethal weapons (submitted by Darren Vallance)
Virus virus -- infects all infected sectors, which in turn become infected, then which become infected, and in turn those become infected...
Woody Allen virus -- bypasses the motherboard and turns on a daughter card (submitted by Darren Vallance)
Air Force viruses --
- F-4 virus -- Outdated virus that was once the most tenacious and capable, but leaves an obvious trail and is therefore easily detected.
- F-16 virus -- Extremely small virus that's highly overrated. Seldom makes it all the way to your files. But if it somehow does, it usually can't do any real damage anyway.
- F-15C virus -- Makes lots of claims about what it can do, but usually shows up after you've already shutdown your computer. Sometimes destroys the wrong files.
- F-15E virus -- Most capable virus of all. Works quickly and accurately. Causes tremendous damage to targeted files. Can defend itself well against anti-viral programs.
- F-18 virus -- Another virus that seldom makes it all the way to your files. Spends 90% of its time just trying to get aboard.
- EF-111 virus -- Extremely fast, deadly accurate virus that has now been replaced by less capable viruses.
- F-117 virus -- Works only at night. Targets very specific files stored towards the center of the hard drive. Can only be used once a night due to long boot-up time.
- B-1 virus -- Very expensive virus that is easily erased because it's so easy to find, and has no known defensive capabilities.
- B-2 virus -- Most expensive virus ever. Costs far more than the computer it infects. Hard to detect. Works only at night. Must have access to external modem to find targeted files.
- E-3 virus -- Large virus with large sensory organ. Blind, dumb, and inept at times. Continually misidentifies the hard drive files during its search for victims. Sometimes directs the destruction of the wrong files. Not a worry ... just a nuisance.
- C-130 virus -- Most lethal virus of all because it can carry all types of additional viruses, anywhere, anytime. Shows up in more foreign versions than the flu bug. Can find its way into even the smallest of computers (on land or sea). Limited only by the amount of additional viruses it can carry and distance covered (overcomes this limitation by staging itself from an unlimited variety of other locations within systems). Quite benign after delivering other viruses because it settles down to a binge of eating and drinking.

Submit one of your own!

For further reading