Terminal Compromise

by by Winn Schwartau

  "Joan, I don't bug you much, right?" Angela said hesitantly.

  "Angela, how about a good morning girl?" They were good friends outside of work but had very little business contact.

  "Sorry, mornin'. Joan, I gotta problem."

  "What's troubling ya hon." Joan Texas spoke with a distinct Texas twang.

  "A little bird just ate my computer."

  "Well, then I guess I'd be lookin' out for Big Bird's data dump." Joan laughed in appreciation of the comedy.

  "No really. A little bird flew all over my computer and ate up all the letters and words on the screen. Seriously."

  "Y'all are putting me on, right?" Maggie's voice lilted.

  "No. No, I'm serious. It was like a simple video game, Pac-Man or something, ate up the screen. I couldn't get it to come back so I turned my computer off and now it won't do anything. All it says is COMMAND.COM cannot be found. Now, what the hell does that mean."

  Joan Appleby now took Angela seriously. "It may mean that we have some mighty sick computers. I'll be right there."

  By the end of work, the Treadline Oil Company was essentially at a standstill. Over 4,000 of their internal microcomputers, mainly IBM and Compaq's were out of commission. The virus had successfully struck.

  Angela Steinem and her technicians shut down the more than 50 local area networks and gateways that connected the various business units. They contacted the National Computer Virus Association in San Mateo, California, NIST's National Computer Center Laboratories and a dozen or so other watchdog groups who monitor computer viruses.

  This was a new virus. No one had seen it before. Sorry, they said. If you can send us you hard disk, we may be able find out what's going on . . .otherwise, your best bet is to dismantle the entire computer system, all 4,000 plus of them, and start from scratch.

  Angela informed the Vice President of Information Systems that it would be at least a week, maybe ten days before Treadline would be fully operational again.

  Mary Wallstone, secretary to Larry Gompers, Junior democratic representative from South Carolina was stymied.

  Every morning between 7:30 and 8:00 AM she opened her boss's office and made coffee. Most mornings she brought in Dunkin' Donuts. It was the only way she knew to insure that her weight would never ebb below 200 pounds. Her pleasant silken skin did not match the plumpness below. At 28 she should have known that meeting Washington's best and brightest required a more slender physique.

  This morning she jovially sat down at her Apple Macintosh comput- er with 3 creme filled donuts and a mug of black coffee with 4 sugars. She turned on the power switch and waited as the hour- glass icon indicated that the computer was booting. It was going through its self diagnostics as it did every time power was applied.

  Normally, after a few seconds, the Mac would come alive and the screen would display a wide range of options from which she could select. Mary would watch the procedure carefully each time she was an efficient secretary.

  This time, however, the screen displayed a new message, one she had not seen in the nine months she had worked as Congressman Gompers' front line.

  RAM OPTIMIZER TEST PROCEDURE....

  INITIALIZING...

  THIS PROGRAM IS DESIGNED TO TAKE MAXIMUM ADVANTAGE OF SYSTEM STORAGE CAPABILITIES. THE TEST WILL ONLY TAKE A FEW SECONDS...

  WAITING....

  WARNING: DO NOT TURN OFF COMPUTER DURING SELF TEST!

  As she was trained, she heeded her computer's instructions. She watched and waited as the computer's hard disk whirred and buzzed. She wasn't familiar with the message, but it sounded quite official, and after all, the computer is always right.

  And she waited. Some few seconds, she thought, as she dove into her second donut. And she waited through the third donut and another mug of too sweet coffee.

  She waited nearly a half an hour, trying to oblige the instruc- tions from the technocratic box on her desk. The Mac continued to work, so she thought, but the screen didn't budge from it's warning message.

  What the hell, this has taken long enough. What harm can it cause if . . .

  She turned the power switch off and then back on. Nothing.

  The computer did absolutely nothing. The power light was on, the disk light was on, but the screen was as blank as a dead televi- sion set.

  Mary called Violet Beecham, a co worker in another office down the hall.

  "'Morning Vi. Mary."

  Violet sounded agitated. "Yeah, Mare, what is it?"

  "I'm being a dumb bunny and need a hand with my computer. Got a sec?" Mary's sweetness oozed over the phone.

  "You, too? You're having trouble? My computer's as dead as a doornail. Won't do anything. I mean nothing." Violet was frustrated as all get out and the concern communicated to Mary.

  "Dead? Vi, mine is dead too. What happened to yours?"

  "Damned if I know. It was doing some self check or something, seemed to take forever and then . . .nothing. What about yours?"

  "Same thing. Have you called MIS yet?"

  "Not yet, but I'm getting ready to. I never did trust these things. Give me a typewriter any day."

  "Sure Vi. I'll call you right back."

  Mary looked up the number for MIS Services, the technical magi- cians in the basement who keep the 3100 Congressional computers alive.

  "Dave here, can I help you?" The voice spoke quickly and indif- ferently.

  "Mary Wallstone, in Gompers office. My computer seems to be having a little problem . . ." Mary tried to treat the problem lightly.

  "You and half of Congress. Listen . . .is it Mary? This morning is going to be a slow one. My best guess is that over 2500 com- puters died a quick death. And you know what that mean."

  "No, I don't..." Mary said hesitantly.

  "It means a Big Mac Attack."

  "A what?"

  "Big Mac, it's a computer virus. We thought that Virus-Stop software would stop it, but I guess there's a new strain out there. Congress is going to be ordering a lot of typewriters and legal pads for a while."

  "You mean you can't fix it? This virus?"

  "Listen, it's like getting the flu. Once you got it, you got it. You can't pretend you aren't sick. Somebody took a good shot at Congress and well . . .they won. We're gonna be down for a while. Couple of weeks at least. Look, good luck, but I gotta go." Dave hung up.

  Mary ate the other three donuts intended for her boss as she sat idle at her desk wondering if she would have a job now that there were no more computers on Capitol Hill.

  * * * * *

  CONGRESS CATCHES FLU LOSES FAT IN PROCESS

  by Scott Mason, New York City Times

  The Congressional Budget Office announced late yesterday that it was requesting over $1 Million in emergency funding to counter a devastating failure of Congress's computers.

  Most of the computers used by both Senators and Representatives are Apple Macintosh, but Apple Computer issued a quick statement denying any connection between the massive failures and any production problems in their machines.

  The CBO said that until the problems were corrected, estimates to take up to four weeks, that certain normal Congressional activi- ties would be halted or severely curtailed. Electronic mail, E Mail that has saved taxpayers millions, will be unavailable for communications until October at a minimum. Inter-office communi- cations, those that address legislative issues, proposed bills, and amendments have been destroyed and will require ". . .weeks and weeks and weeks of data entry just to get back where we started. This is a disaster."

  The culprit is, of course, a computer virus. The question on everyone's mind is, was this virus directed at Congress, or were they merely an anonymous and unfortunate victim?

  I have an IBM PC clone at home. Technically it's an AT with a hard disk, so I'm not sure if that's an XT, and AXT, an XAT, an ATX or . . .well whatever. I use it to write a lot of my stories and then I can send the story to the computer at work for an overdiligent editor to make it fit within my allotted space. />
  It never occurred to me that a computer could get sick.

  I am, as we all are, used to our 'TV going on the Fritz', or 'Blowing a Fuse'. It seems like a lot of things blow: a gasket blows, a light bulb blows, a tire blows or blows out, the wind blows. I am sure that Thomas W. Crapper, the 19th century inven- tor of the flush toilet would not be pleased that in 1988 man has toasters and other cooking devices that 'crap out'. The Phone Company 'screws up', the stock market 'goes to hell in a handbas- ket' and VCR's 'work for s__t'.

  It never occurred to me that a computer could get sick.

  Computers are supposed to 'crash'. That means that either Aunt Tillie can't find the ON switch or her cat knocked it on the floor. Computers have 'fatal errors' which obviously means that they died and deserve a proper burial.

  It never occurred to me that a computer could get sick.

  In the last few weeks there have been a lot of stories about computers across the country getting ill. Sick, having the flu, breathing difficulty, getting rashes, itching, scratching them- selves . . .otherwise having a miserable time.

  Let's look at the medical analogy to the dreaded computer virus that indiscriminately attacks and destroys any computer with which it comes in contact.

  Somewhere in the depths of the countryside of the People's Republic of China, a naturally mutated submicroscopic microbe has the nerve to be aerodynamically transferred to the smoggy air of Taiwan. Upon landing in Taipei, the microbe attaches itself to an impoverished octogenarian who lives in an overpopulated 1 room apartment over a fish store.

  The microbe works its way into this guy's blood stream, unbek- nownst to him, and in a few days, he's sicker than a dog. But this microbe is smart, real smart. It has heard of antibiotics, and in the spirit of true Darwinism, it replicates itself before being killed off with a strengthened immunity. So, the microbe copies itself and when Kimmy Chen shakes hands with his custom- ers, some of them are lucky enough to receive an exact duplicate, clone if you will, of his microbe. Then they too, get ill.

  The microbe thus propagates its species until the entire East Coast of the US has billions and trillions of identical microbes costing our fragile economy untold millions of dollars in sick pay.

  However, the microbe is only so smart. After a while, the mi- crobe mutates itself into a benign chemical compound that no longer can copy itself and the influenza epidemic is over. Until next year when Asian Flu B shows up and the process begins all over again. (The same group of extremists who believe that the Tri-Lateral commission runs the world and Queen Elizabeth and Henry Kissinger are partners in the heroine trade think the AMA is behind all modern flu epidemics. No comment.)

  The point of all of this diatribe is that computers can get sick too. With a virus.

  Don't worry, mom. Your computer can't give you the flu anymore than your fish can get feline leukemia.

  It all started years ago, before Wozniak and Apple and the PC.

  Before personal computers there were mainframes; huge room sized computers to crunch on numbers. One day, years ago, Joe, (that's not a real name, it's changed to protect him) decided it would be great fun to play a prank on Bill, another programmer who worked at a big university. Joe wrote a little program that he put into Bill's big computer. Every time Bill typed the word 'ME' on his keyboard, the computer would take over. His video screen would fill up with the word 'YOU', repeating itself hundreds and thou- sands of times. Bill's computer would become useless.

  That was called a practical joke to computer programmers. Joe and Bill both got a laugh out of it, and no harm was done. Then Bill decided to get back at Joe. He put a small program into Joe's big computer. Every day at precisely 3:00 P.M., a message appeared: 'Do Not Pass GO!'.

  It was all good fun and became a personal challenge to Joe and Bill to see how they could annoy each other.

  Word spread about the new game. Other graduate students at the university got involved and soon computer folks at Cal Tech, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford and elsewhere got onto the bandwagon. Thus was born the world's first computer disease, the virus.

  This is Scott Mason. Using a typewriter.

  * * * * *

  November, 3 Years Ago

  Sunnyvale, California.

  When Data Graphics Inc. went public in 1987, President and found- er Pierre Troubleaux, a nationalized American born in Paris momentarily forgot that he had sold his soul to achieve his success. The company, to the financial community known as DGI, was on the road to being in as much favor as Lotus or Microsoft. Annual sales of $300 Million with a pre-tax bottom line of over $55 Million were cause celebre on Wall Street. The first public issues raised over $200 Million for less than 20% of the common stock. With a book value in excess of $1 Billion, preparation for a second offering began immediately after the first sold out in 2 hours.

  The offering made Pierre Troubleaux, at 29, a rich man; a very rich man. He netted almost $20 Million in cash and another $100 Million in options over 5 years. No one objected. He had earned it. DGI was the pearl of the computer industry in a time of shake ups and shake outs. Raging profits, unbridled growth, phenomenal market penetration and superb management.

  Perhaps the most unique feature of DGI, other than its Presi- dent's deal with the devil, was that it was a one product compa- ny. DGI was somewhat like Microsoft in that they both got rich and famous on one product. While Microsoft branched out from DOS into other product areas, DGI elected to remain a 1 product company and merely make flavors of its products available for other companies which then private labeled them under their own names.

  Their software product was dubbed dGraph, a marketing abbreviated term for data-Graphics. Simply put, dGraph let users, especially novices, run their computers with pictures and icons instead of complex commands that must be remembered and typed. dGraph theoretically made IBM computers as easy to use as a Macintosh. Or, the computer could be trained to follow instructions in plain English. It was a significant breakthrough for the industry.

  DGraph was so easy to use, and so powerful in its abilities that it was virtually an instant success. Almost every computer manufacturer offered dGraph as part of its standard fare. Just as a computer needed DOS to function, it was viewed that you needed dGraph before you even loaded the first program. Operat- ing without dGraph was considered archaic. "You don't have dGraph?" "How can you use your computer without dGraph?" "I couldn't live without dGraph." "I'd be lost without dGraph."

  The ubiquitous non-technical secretaries especially loved dGraph. DGraph was taught at schools such as Katherine Gibbs and Secre Temps who insisted that all its girls were fluent in its ad- vanced uses. You just can't run a office without it!

  As much as anything in the computer industry is, dGraph was a standard. Pierre Troubleaux was unfortunately under the misim- pression that the success for DGI was his and his alone and that he too was a standard . . .a fixture. The press and computers experts portrayed to the public that he was the company's singu- lar genius, with remarkable technical aptitude to see "beyond the problem to the solution . . .".

  The official DGI biography of Pierre Troubleaux, upon close examination, reads like that of an inflated resume by a person applying for a position totally outside his field of expertise. Completely unsuited for the job. But the media hype had rele- gated that minor inconsistency to old news.

  In reality Troubleaux was a musician. He was an accomplished pianist who also played another twenty instruments, very, very well. By the age of ten he was considered something of a prodigy and his parents decided that they would move from Paris to New York, the United States, for proper schooling. Pierre's scholar- ships at Julliard made the decision even easier.

  Over the years Pierre excelled in performances and was critically acclaimed as having a magnificent future where he could call the shots. As a performer or composer. But Pierre had other ideas. He was rapt in the study of the theory of music. How notes related to each other. How scales related to each other. What made cert
ain atonalities subjectively pleasing yet others com- pletely offensive. He explored the relationships between Eastern polyphonic scales and the Western twelve note scale. Discord, harmony, melody, emotional responses; these were the true loves of Pierre Troubleaux.

  Upon graduation from Julliard he announced, that contrary to his family's belief and desire, he would not seek advanced train- ing. Rather, he would continue his study of musical relationships which by now had become an obsession. There was little expertise in this specific area, so he pursued it alone. He wrote and arranged music only to provide him with enough funds to exist in his pallid Soho loft in downtown Manhattan.

  He believed that there was an inherent underlying Natural Law that guided music and musical appreciation. If he could find that Law, he would have the formula for making perfect music every time. With the Law at the crux of all music, and with control over the Law, he ruminated, one could write a musical piece to suit the specific goals of the writer and create the desired effect on the listener. By formula.

  In 1980 Pierre struggled to organize the unwieldy amount of data he had accumulated. His collections of interpretive musical analysis filled file cabinets and countless shelves. He relied on his memory to find anything in the reams of paper, and the situation was getting out of control. He needed a solution.

  Max Jones was a casual acquaintance that Pierre had met at the Lone Star Cafe on the corner of 13th and 5th Avenue. The Lone Star was a New York fixture, capped with a 60 foot iguana on the roof. They both enjoyed the live country acts that played there. Max played the roll of an Urban Cowboy who had temporarily given up Acid Rock in favor of shit kickin' Southern Rock. Pierre found the musical phenomenon of Country Crossover Music intrigu- ing, so he rationalized that drinking and partying at the Lone Star was a worthwhile endeavor which contributed to his work. That may have been partially true.