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Word: viruses (lookup in dictionary) (lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
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Usage:

NAME'S THE SAME The Melissa computer virus made headlines last week, crippling e-mail systems around the nation. At the same time, other famous Melissas were engaged in more constructive endeavors. Actress Melissa Gilbert was shooting a CBS movie called Soul Collector, while rocker Melissa Etheridge performed at an event to raise awareness about the plight of women in Afghanistan. E! hostess Melissa Rivers, fresh from her marathon coverage of the Oscars, was at a clinic on horse jumping with her husband. No word on Melissa Manchester...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Still @ Large | 4/12/1999 | See Source »

Like so much in life, it began with sex. Alt.sex, to be precise, a Usenet newsgroup devoted to erotica. This is where the computer virus called Melissa was, in geek terminology, released "in the wild." Named after a topless dancer in Florida, where "her" alleged author once lived, the virus was unremarkable except for her speed. Experts had never seen anything spread so fast. People trusted Melissa; she arrived disguised as an e-mail from a friend or colleague. In a matter of days, she was replicating herself all over cyberspace--from Berlin to Beijing, from the U.S. Marine Corps...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: How They Caught Him | 4/12/1999 | See Source »

...manhunt was launched for her creator, an investigation that came to a climax with the arrest of David L. Smith, 30, in Eatontown, N.J. Smith had been tracked down in about as many hours as it took Melissa to make it around the world. The fact that a suspected virus writer got caught was unusual enough. Even stranger were the bedfellows who beat a path to his door: a Boston software entrepreneur, a Swedish student, a deputy state attorney general, the nation's largest Internet service provider, a whole passel of antivirus experts and the FBI. What these sleuths found...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: How They Caught Him | 4/12/1999 | See Source »

...like this. Just after 7 a.m. on the last Friday of March, a file called "Passcodes 3-26-99" appeared on alt.sex. On the surface, it seemed to be nothing more than a list of passwords for porn sites. But within hours, alarm bells began to ring. An automatic virus detector spotted Melissa, noting that she entered via e-mail from skyroket@aol.com The FBI enlisted America Online techies and scrambled their cybersabotage squads. Meanwhile, patrons of alt.comp.virus a newsgroup where virus writers and hunters hang out, morphed into virtual Baker Street irregulars...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: How They Caught Him | 4/12/1999 | See Source »

...tech sleuthing, Smith is also supposed to have left his name in the source code of a file available on the Source of Kaos web site that was seized this week in Orlando, Florida. Smith's name appeared three separate times in the revision logs of files found in virus toolkits: As David L. Smith, DLS and DA Smith. TIME Digital has learned that the FBI is keeping the investigation open on the possibility that it was a two-man operation. Smith is said to be VicodinES; a suspected accomplice, Alt-F11, has yet to be identified...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Melissa Suspect Nabbed in New Jersey | 4/2/1999 | See Source »

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