Excerpted from "The Frangible Bullet," copyright 1998 Crypt
Newsletter (http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~crypt).  Reprinted with
permission at the Computer Virus Myths home page
(http://www.kumite.com/myths).


NEW WEAPON OF INFORMATION WARFARE DEVELOPED: VIRUS HOAX
CREATION LAB

A new tool that threatens to revolutionize the capability of 
information warriors has been released on the Internet.  Called 
the Virus Hoax Creation Lab and written in Visual Basic by a hacker 
calling himself "The Linguist," the kit automates the production of 
Net hoaxes and is designed to amplify the "fog of war."

Using a point and click interface, the user of VHCL can select the 
type of hoax desired from a long list of variants: malicious virus, 
logic bomb, Ponzi scheme, government tax, terminally ill child, 
corporate giveaway, chain letter, lost manuscript of famous author and 
political rumor.

The user can modulate various features of each custom designed hoax 
by choosing from a sophisticated checklist of modifiers including 
the following:

Authorship:
  1. Microsoft official
  2. IBM official
  3. Dept. of Energy - CIAC
  4. Computer Emergency Response Team
  5. Billy 
  6. Nike
  7. Ford
  8. Kurt Vonnegut
  9. Congressman (pseudo-randomly generated)
 10. Current president
 11. Federal agency (selected according to
     variant, e.g., "Ponzi scheme" might
     yield "Louis Freeh, FBI" 

Spelling and grammar:

  1. Standard (may mitigate spread of hoax)
  2. Impeccable (dangerous!)

Use of jargon:

  1. None (dangerous!)
  2. Standard
  3. Impenetrable
  4. Child-like (may mitigate spread of hoax)

Type of virus:

  1. GoodTimes variant (polymorphic, 6 billion possible
     variants, chosen pseudo-randomly)
  2. Toaster virus -- ejects diskette at lethal velocity
  3. Russian 666
  4. Gulf War
  5. Rewritten anti-virus press release with new name
  6. Proto-T: hides in video card
  7. CMOS virus
  8. Hacker trick (500 possible variants defined as
     "revenge for [petty slight]" with "[petty slight]"
     chosen pseudo-randomly.
  9. Combinations of previous (VHCL presents Boolean
     choices)

Target:

   1. Custom (user inputs own data through CGI form)
   2. AOL mailing list
   3. Joint Chiefs of Staff
   4. NASA
   5. Boeing
   6. Lockheed Martin
   7. Usenet news (chosen by appropriate subject)
   8. Media mailing list

Method of delivery:

   1. E-mail box (not recommended)
   2. Someone else's e-mail box (VHCL prompts
      for login and password of selected
      pigeon)
   3. Multi-mail by misuse of an ISP mailer through telnet
   4. PR Newswire (VHCL inputs stolen credit
      card information until card cancellation)
   5. Post to Usenet via Anonymizer and Dejanews
   6. Fax

Type of output:

   1. Hard copy (not recommended)
   2. ASCII
   3. HTML document
   4. Microsoft Word document
   5. Microsoft Word document infected with 
      macro virus (Warning! Unpredictable results may
      mitigate spread of hoax.)

In the documentation to VHCL, The Linguist boasts, "Virus
Hoax Creation Lab has upped the ante in hoax generation.
Now you, the hoaxer, need no longer cut and paste from a
perhaps incomplete collection of old hoaxes, or worse,
waste time hand coding the hoax yourself!

"With VHCL I have furnished even the most technically challenged 
Internet user with powerful software designed to make him or her
a full-fledged information warrior.  Depending on eye/hand 
coordination, it is possible for a user to create as many as 30 
hoaxes an hour with VHCL. The pseudo-randomic databases in VHCL 
guarantee 1 trillion possible unique hoaxes, ensuring that -- even 
working full time -- VHCL abusers will not run out of material in 
their lifetime.

"You are no sissy! So, through judicious use of VHCL you will 
now proceed to further contaminate the information clickstream 
causing terror, recrimination and rending of garments in information
technology departments worldwide."