MAN CATCHES COMPUTER VIRUS!
Bizarre illness jamming up his brain waves!
Caption: SICK COMPUTER passed on a bizarre virus to programmer John
Stevens, above, after it became ill from an infected software program.
By Michael Todd, Special Correspondent, {Weekly World News}, 18 June 1991
John Stevens has a lot in common with his home computer: Both think
logically, both like numbers and both are sick with a virus - the same virus!
Stevens, a computer programmer who works out of his home in a Philadelphia
suburb, is convinced his lingering and debilitating illness is something he got
from his sick computer. And the victim's doctor agrees. "I've run every test
I can think of to trace the origin of his illness," said Dr. Mark Fordland. "He
has a virus, but it's not like any virus I've ever seen."
Stevens, 32, said his computer began to show signs of a virus - a software
program designed to eat up an destroy other software data - about a week before
he got sick. "I was careless about borrowing software programs from other people
I didn't know well," Stevens admits.
Dr. Fordland, himself a computer expert, agrees. "Borrowing software programs
from friends and strangers is like having sex with someone you don't know well.
When you sleep with someone, you sleep with everyone they've ever slept with.
When you borrow someone's software program, you're connected to everyone who's
ever used that program." Dr. Fordland concludes that Stevens' symptoms are
identical to that of a software virus' attack on a computer. "Stevens has become
forgetful, like something is eating up his memory, his data. He has less and
less energy. He can't hold onto thoughts. Even an EEG (electroencephalogram) of
his brain waves keeps changing. It's becoming more and more erratic. "This virus
could just eat him up until his mind is a blank and he's like a vegetable," the
doctor said.
Here's an easy game to play.Here's an easy thing to say
If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,and the bus is
interrupted as a very last resort,and the address of the memory makes your
floppy disk abortthen the socket packet pocket has an error to report!
If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,and the
double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash,and your data is
corrupted cause the index doesn't hash,then your situation's hopeless, and
your system's gunna crash.
You can't say this? What a shame, sir!We'll find you another game, sir.
If the label on the cable on the table at your housesays the network is
connected to the button on your mouse,but your packets want to tunnel on
another protocol,that's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the
hall,and your screen is all distorted by the side-effects of gauss,so
your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse,then you may as well reboot
and go out with a bang,cause as sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gunna hang!
When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy on the disk,and the
microcode instructions cause unnecessary risc,then you have to flash your
memory and you'll want to RAM your ROM.quickly turn of your computer and be
sure to tell your mom! .
PAUL REVERE VIRUS: This revolutionary virus does not horse around. It
warns you of impending hard disk attack -- once if by LAN, twice if by C.
POLITICALLY CORRECT VIRUS: Never calls itself a "virus", but instead
refers to itself as an "electonic microorganism."
OPRAH WINFREY VIRUS: Your 200MB hard drive suddenly shrinks to 80MB,
and then slowly expands back to 200MB.
ATT VIRUS: Every three minutes it tells you what great service
you are getting.
THE MCI VIRUS: Every three minutes it reminds you that you are
overpaying for the ATT virus.
TED TURNER VIRUS: Colorizes your monochrome monitor.
ARNOLD SWARZENEGGER VIRUS: Terminates and stays resident. It'll be
back.
GOVERNMENT ECONOMIST VIRUS: Nothing works, but all your diagnostic
software says everything is fine.
FEDERAL BUREAUCRAT VIRUS: Divides your hard disk into
hundreds of little units, each of which does practically nothing, but all of
which claim to be the most important part of the computer.
GALLUP VIRUS: Sixty percent of the PCs infected will lose 38 percent
of their data 14 percent of the time (plus or minus a 3.5 percent margin of
error).
RANDALL TERRY VIRUS: Print "Oh no you don't" whenever you choose
"Abort" from the "Abort, Retry, Fail" message.
TEXAS VIRUS: Makes sure it's bigger than any other file.
ADAM AND EVE VIRUS: Takes a couple of bytes out of your Apple.
MICHAEL JACKSON VIRUS: Hard to identify because it is constantly
altering its appearance. The virus won't harm your PC, but it will trash your
car.
CONGRESSIONAL VIRUS: The computer locks up, screen splits erratically
with a message appearing on each half blaming the other side for the problem.
AIRLINE VIRUS: You're in Dallas, but your data is in Singapore.
FREUDIAN VIRUS: Your computer becomes obsessed with marrying its own
motherboard.
PBS
