I'm afraid Wayne Weber's message about the "I LOVE YOU" virus is not
correct. This virus (in professional network security circles the term
"virus" is most often used as a general term for maliciously intrusive
software designed to enter and run on other people's computer systems, of
which a "worm" is just one of many varieties) does exactly what it's
described as doing on the ZDNet alert page, for example:

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/17/ns-15176.html

It doesn't do its damage by overwriting the hard drive's boot sector, like
some, and crippling the system. It's designed to cripple businesses and
organizations, and particularly those that are Web-based, so aside from
attempting to replicate and distribute itself in several ways, it finds and
overwrites files with the suffixes .vbs, .vbe, .js, .jse, .css, .wsh, .sct,
..hta, .jpg, .jpeg, .mp2 or .mp3, and will do this on both local and
networked drives. I spent part of my working day helping to restore the
systems of a couple of web-developer colleagues who had carelessly opened
the attachment. One colleague clicked on the attachment icon reflexively,
realised that she shouldn't have, and immediately hit the power switch, but
on today's fast machines the Virtual Basic Script of 'I LOVE YOU' executes
faster than human reflexes -- just in that half-second she lost every .jpg
image file on her (500mhz) machine, and many other web-page components.
Those Tweeters who collect and post digital images would definitely perceive
this as damage.... I got four copies myself, and was very glad I hadn't
treated them as lightly as Wayne suggests.

JW


----- Original Message -----
From: WAYNE WEBER <WAYNE_WEBER at bc.sympatico.ca>
To: TWEETERS <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2000 1:09 PM
Subject: Fw: [bcvanbirds] "I LOVE YOU" VIRUS


Tweeters,

Here is some more detailed information about the "I LOVE YOU"
virus that Marissa mentioned a short time ago-- forwarded from Dan
Bastaja in Vancouver.
Like most E-mail viruses (more accurately, a "worm"), this one
does NOT cause damage to anyone's hard drive. However, it will
duplicate itself and send it to everyone in your "Address Book" if you
open it. It has the capacity to seriously clog the Internet. Just
delete the message containing the "I LOVE YOU" attachment, and you
will help to control its spread.

Wayne C. Weber
Kamloops, B.C.
wayne_weber at bc.sympatico.ca



-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Bastaja <dbastaja at pi-securities.com>
To: 'birds interior' <bcintbird at egroups.com>; 'birds van'
<bcvanbirds at egroups.com>
Date: Thursday, May 04, 2000 7:42 AM
Subject: [bcvanbirds] Virus


>Hi. I received notification this morning from our IT department about
a new
>virus so I thought I'd let everyone know. Here's the message I
received.....
>
>There is a virus circulating by e-mail right now called the "I Love
You"
>virus. Although our e-mail servers scan for viruses automatically
and the
>virus scanner is up to date as of this morning, the servers were not
able to
>detect the "I Love You" virus before approximately 7:00 am this
morning.
>Several local companies have been affected by this virus already, so
there
>is a good chance e-mail will be sent to our office that contains this
virus.
>This virus is spreading extremely rapidly and care must be taken not
to open
>any e-mail that matches the following description.
>
>The subject line will either be "ILOVEYOU" or "kindly check the
attached
>LOVELETTER coming from me." The e-mail will contain an attachment
entitled
>"LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs".
>
>Do not open or double click on the attachment. If you have received
an
>e-mail that matches this description, please delete it.
>
>
>---------------------------------------
>Due to the security risks involved in sending information over the
Internet,
>Pacific International Securities Inc. cannot be held responsible for
>ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of this e-mail message.
This
>message is only intended for the use of the addressee and any other
use is
>strictly unauthorized. Any opinions or recommendations expressed
herein do
>not necessarily reflect those of Pacific International Securities.
>
>
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