- Police in the US have arrested and charged
a man they say created the Melissa computer virus, which swamped thousands
of company e-mail networks last week.
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- David L. Smith, 30, a network programmer,
developed the virus in his apartment in Aberdeen, New Jersey, according
to the state's attorney general's office.
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- Melissa, one of whose effects is to display
a message from Bart Simpson of The Simpsons cartoon, was named after a
topless dancer from Florida.
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- The virus appeared last Friday and spread
rapidly around the world like a chain letter, causing affected computers
to fire off dozens of infected messages, and crashing e-mail systems.
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- Mr Smith now faces several charges, including
interruption of public communications and third-degree theft of computer
services.
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- In all, the charges carry a maximum penalty
of 40 years in prison and a $480,000 fine.
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- Mr Smith has been released on bail.
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- AOL help
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- Melissa disrupted the operations of thousands
of companies and government agencies.
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- Several major US companies were forced
to shut down mail servers, according to the New York Times.
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- Mr Smith was tracked down with the help
of America Online technicians, and a computer task force composed of federal
and state agents.
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- Authorities would not elaborate on the
methods used to trace the virus, saying the investigation was ongoing.
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- E-mail attachment
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- Melissa infects computers when users
receive a particular e-mail and open a Microsoft Word document attached
to it.
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- The e-mail is headed: "Important
Message From" and contains the sentence: "Here is that document
you asked for...don't show anyone else ;-)."
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- If a user opens the attachment, usually
called list.doc, a programme sends the e-mail to the first 50 addresses
in the Global Address Book of anyone running Microsoft's Outlook personal
organiser.
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- In large companies, massive volumes of
e-mail have been generated, with serious implications for Web servers.
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- As the macro virus code is easily changed,
variants have emerged, notably the Papa virus, which affects Excel spreadsheets.
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- The UK company WH Smith is offering a
free solution to the Melissa virus. It can be downloaded at the company's
Website.
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- Kwyjibo Simpsons link
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- The virus contains comments that identify
the author only as "Kwyjibo".
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- The word Kwyjibo was made up by Bart
from The Simpsons cartoon show, who coined it as a term of abuse for his
father Homer in a Scrabble-playing episode.
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- And if the e-mail infects an individual
computer, the following Bart Simpson quote from the episode appears:
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- "Twenty-two points, plus triple-word-score,
plus 50 points for using all my letters. Game's over. I'm outta here."
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- But the message only appears if the computer
is launched when the day equals the minute value...such as 29 minutes past
on the 29th.
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