T„L”N: Has been a virus writer for years, here's his background, in his ~~~~~ own words: "Hi there, I am typing to you from the Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. I am not new to the virus scene, in fact I was a member of the puppet group [PuKE]. Just a quick background on PuKE: it was set up about a year ago by Harry McBungus (who wrote X-Fungus, No Frills 2.0 and No Frills 3.0, all unremarkable) simply as a stuff-around, paying out on NuKE. Harry saw NuKE getting large egos over large, non-resident direct-action viruses: in other words he though they were idiots. Hence, PuKE endeavoured to write things which compared to NuKE WareZ but on a far smaller code scale. The fruits of Harry's labours were 'stolen' by myself, however, and that is how they grew in the wild; otherwise they would not be around. Although PuKE disliked NuKE, everything grows in stages, people mature, and since then NuKE has evolved into the best Power Virus Group in the world. (As a side note, Harry left the scene in around June 1992, as a result of something called a Fraud squad. Good luck to Harry in whatever he is now doing.) I, T„L”N, defected to NuKE shortly after writing the Dudly virus (also known as No Frills 4.0 and V2P6Z Mark 2, which was stolen off me by someone hacking into my board. I had no intention of releasing it into the wild. It's unremarkable besides its lame polymorphism, which is similar to V2P6 in end result, not generation) I have not added anything to the virus scene since the writing of Dudley-1, but grew active a month ago with the creation of another, yet-to-be-named virus, namely a 3k COM/EXE/SYS/BIN/OVL/MBR/BS infecting, polymorphic stealth virus. It hides partition infection; it hides file size increase on directory; it infects boot sectors of ANY floppy format, current or future, on read/write access; it infects hard disk partition on infected disk boot or infected file execution on virgin system, and so on. One mother of a virus. However, I have taken great care not to make it destructive in anyway, so no stupid AV researcher can point the finger spin the typical anti-virus rhetoric, 'Bad virus, bad virus, didn't you know every virus will destroy precious hours of work.' My opinions on AV researchers in general is very low. I take great pride in totally debunking their theories and stereotypes. I am NOT a social recluse. I do not have a sunken chest, nor am I fat or a cowardly insignificance. I possess a fair degree of common sense. I do not go out of my way to trash boards or computers; in fact I steer away from such things. Furthermore, I do not view virus writing or the discussion of viruses a taboo subject. Most of all I do not try to keep the public in the dark about what viruses can and cannot do. Harry McBungus shared basically the same views but when he tried to speak out and 'educate' the public, he instead got nailed by the press. (The media is another of my pet hates.) Anyway I have lost patience with hierarchy and bureaucracy... and the media, the government and the public can basically suck John McAfee's dick while he laughs all the way to the bank. We have provided and income for John for long enough, it's time to make SCAN look like the total crock of shit that it has always been. Before I leave, just a few quick hi's, ho's and 'thanks' to: John McAfee: Fuck You Patricia 'It is unknown what this virus does besides replicate' Hoffman: How about you get a clue before you make out you're the big-wig virus analyzer. VSUM is the biggest farce since ViruScan itself. Sara Gordon: for all the laughs your ridiculous psychological theories about virus writers gave me. Try a bit harder. Matt: for all the cool times we had. The legend of the 50-cent piss-up will never leave my memory banks. Pantera, Metallica: for providing an awesome soundtrack for virus development! and to NuKE for making everything possible. T„L”N/NuKE"