ILOVEYOU

FTLComm - Tisdale - May 5, 2000

Hong Kong
By now everyone on the planet has heard the news about the pervasive and destructive nature of the ILOVEYOU virus that dashed out of the Philippines just as the new day began, May 4th 2000. It began its run in Hong Kong then across Asia into Europe as dawn arrived there with out missing a beat it was there for those waking up and opening their E-mail on North America's East coast.

similar to the Melissa
I was eating a bagel and enjoying my coffee at 8:30 yesterday morning when Darcy, my sales rep for Canada's Apple wholesaler called me telling me not to open mail that came from her this morning with the subject header "ILOVEYOU". Her brief explanation indicated something similar to the Melissa virus and I was immediately on the phone to my Winnipeg associates to see that our server was secure. Both fellows had already had contact with the virus and we concluded on the phone that our server was secure and we could ride it out.

90%
By mid morning here in Saskatchewan, the ILOVEYOU virus was tearing its way through most computer systems on this continent. 90% of the world's corporate and private computer systems were effected in some way. Many government and business systems simply had their e-mail shut down to prevent propagation, which was our concern about our server. This meant that even though these systems were not contaminated they were put out of action as a preventative measure.

billion dollars
Experts on various television networks last night were describing the losses in terms of 700 million to a billion dollars in damages and lost revenue. I think that these estimates are remarkable low because those systems infected will require extensive work on each computer, hard drive and server in their system and in many cases that will mean wiping the drives clean, reformatting and reinstalling all software then restoring backed up data. This kind of operation is enormously costly and the data lost will be staggering.

rough summary
If you have not heard or read the list of little tricks this virus pulls here is a rough summary. The file came to me as an e-mail message called "ILOVEYOU" with an attachment. I simply threw it out because of Darcy's call, but had I been using a Windows based computer and double clicked that attachment, it would have collected all the names in my email address book and sent itself to everyone on the list. It would also run through my hard drive finding all files that are "jpg" and "mp3" files and replaced them with itself. As a web page developer I normally have just under a gigabyte of picture files in "jpg" format. The virus checks to see what network I am on and invades all connected systems as well as all hard drives on my system. It watches for my connection to secure web sites, copies the passwords and e-mails the passwords to a Manilla e-mail address.

Microsoft
Pretty nifty virus, created using Microsoft's Visual Basic, and though it would work from other e-mail applications it was designed to function on Microsoft's Outlook Express. Microsoft's various software applications can communicate with each other because the operating system is also Microsoft Windows and the applications make use of a background application called "OLE" which is notorious for its willingness to swap information without regard to security of any kind.

Microsoft vulnerability
The sinister nature of the ILOVEYOU virus is bad, but its affect is the result of bad computer systems running Microsoft software. If you watched the various experts discussing this issue you will have noticed that they did everything they could to defend Microsoft, explaining that with its high level of features so comes vulnerability When you realise the huge majority of those experts owe their living to that Microsoft vulnerability, you realise that without Microsoft most of them would be out of work.

MAC OS
The ILOVEYOU virus got most government agencies, and most businesses but it is worth considering who was spared. Regina Leader Post, The Star Phoenix, HQ of the RCMP, National Defense headquarters, TransCanada Pipe Lines, NASA to name only a few. They and Faster Than Light Communications all use Apple Macintosh computers. These systems are not dependent on a single company for their software and operating system, even though many use Microsoft's Outlook Express for e-mail, the operating system is MAC OS.

diversity and innovation
If ever there was a convincing argument to clinch the decision for the US Justice Department to enforce the breaking up of Microsoft this virus attack is proof of the dangers of a monolithic corporation controlling an industry and technology. The world economy is radically altered and will continue to depend ever more heavily upon the fast flow of information and interaction that we know as the Internet. This virus attack that could have been perpetrated by a teenager with basic skills, brought the world's economy and methods of operation to its knees yesterday and the way to protect it is get diversity and innovation in place of Microsoft.

By: Timothy W. Shire


*FTLComm - Tisdale - May 5, 2000*

Hong Kong	By now everyone on the planet has heard the news about the pervasive and destructive nature of the ILOVEYOU virus that dashed out of the Philippines just as the new day began, May 4th 2000. It began its run in Hong Kong then across Asia into Europe as dawn arrived there with out missing a beat it was there for those waking up and opening their E-mail on North America's East coast.

similar to the Melissa	I was eating a bagel and enjoying my coffee at 8:30 yesterday morning when Darcy, my sales rep for Canada's Apple wholesaler called me telling me not to open mail that came from her this morning with the subject header "ILOVEYOU". Her brief explanation indicated something similar to the Melissa virus and I was immediately on the phone to my Winnipeg associates to see that our server was secure. Both fellows had already had contact with the virus and we concluded on the phone that our server was secure and we could ride it out.

90%	By mid morning here in Saskatchewan, the ILOVEYOU virus was tearing its way through most computer systems on this continent. 90% of the world's corporate and private computer systems were effected in some way. Many government and business systems simply had their e-mail shut down to prevent propagation, which was our concern about our server. This meant that even though these systems were not contaminated they were put out of action as a preventative measure.

billion dollars	Experts on various television networks last night were describing the losses in terms of 700 million to a billion dollars in damages and lost revenue. I think that these estimates are remarkable low because those systems infected will require extensive work on each computer, hard drive and server in their system and in many cases that will mean wiping the drives clean, reformatting and reinstalling all software then restoring backed up data. This kind of operation is enormously costly and the data lost will be staggering.

rough summary	If you have not heard or read the list of little tricks this virus pulls here is a rough summary. The file came to me as an e-mail message called "ILOVEYOU" with an attachment. I simply threw it out because of Darcy's call, but had I been using a Windows based computer and double clicked that attachment, it would have collected all the names in my email address book and sent itself to everyone on the list. It would also run through my hard drive finding all files that are "jpg" and "mp3" files and replaced them with itself. As a web page developer I normally have just under a gigabyte of picture files in "jpg" format. The virus checks to see what network I am on and invades all connected systems as well as all hard drives on my system. It watches for my connection to secure web sites, copies the passwords and e-mails the passwords to a Manilla e-mail address.

Microsoft	Pretty nifty virus, created using Microsoft's Visual Basic, and though it would work from other e-mail applications it was designed to function on Microsoft's Outlook Express. Microsoft's various software applications can communicate with each other because the operating system is also Microsoft Windows and the applications make use of a background application called "OLE" which is notorious for its willingness to swap information without regard to security of any kind.

Microsoft vulnerability	The sinister nature of the ILOVEYOU virus is bad, but its affect is the result of bad computer systems running Microsoft software. If you watched the various experts discussing this issue you will have noticed that they did everything they could to defend Microsoft, explaining that with its high level of features so comes vulnerability When you realise the huge majority of those experts owe their living to that Microsoft vulnerability, you realise that without Microsoft most of them would be out of work.

MAC OS	The ILOVEYOU virus got most government agencies, and most businesses but it is worth considering who was spared. *Regina Leader Post, The Star Phoenix, HQ of the RCMP, National Defense* headquarters, *TransCanada Pipe Lines, NASA* to name only a few. They and *Faster Than Light Communications* all use *Apple Macintosh* computers. These systems are not dependent on a single company for their software and operating system, even though many use Microsoft's Outlook Express for e-mail, the operating system is *MAC OS*.

diversity and innovation	If ever there was a convincing argument to clinch the decision for the US Justice Department to enforce the breaking up of Microsoft this virus attack is proof of the dangers of a monolithic corporation controlling an industry and technology. The world economy is radically altered and will continue to depend ever more heavily upon the fast flow of information and interaction that we know as the Internet. This virus attack that could have been perpetrated by a teenager with basic skills, brought the world's economy and methods of operation to its knees yesterday and the way to protect it is get diversity and innovation in place of Microsoft.

	By: *Timothy W. Shire*