The next day, after his friend in Kentucky had picked up the $687, Fry Guy carried out a second successful transaction, this time worth $432. He would perform the trick again and again that summer, as often as he needed to buy more computer equipment and chemicals. He didn't steal huge amounts of money-- indeed, the sums he took were almost insignificant, just enough for his own needs. But Fry Guy is only one of many, just one of a legion of adolescent computer wizards worldwide, whose ability to crash through high-tech security systems, to circumvent access controls, and to penetrate files holding sensitive information, is endangering our computer-dependent societies. These technology-obsessed electronic renegades form a distinct subculture. Some steal--though most don't; some look for information; some just like to play with computer systems. Together they probably represent the future of our computer-dependent society. Welcome to the computer underworld--a metaphysical place that exists only in the web of international data communications networks, peopled by electronics wizards who have made it their recreation center, meeting ground, and home. The members of the underworld are mostly adolescents like Fry Guy who prowl through computer systems looking for information, data, links to other webs, and credit card numbers. They are often extraordinarily clever, with an intuitive feel for electronics and telecommunications, and a shared antipathy for ordinary rules and regulations.
The electronics networks were designed to speed communications around the world, to link companies and research centers, and to transfer data from computer to computer. Because they must be accessible to a large number of users, they have been targeted by computer addicts like Fry Guy--sometimes for exploration, sometimes for theft.
Almost every computer system of note has been hacked: the Pentagon, NATO, NASA, universities, military and industrial research laboratories. The cost of the depradations attributed to computer fraud has been estimated at $4 billion each year in the United States alone. And an estimated 85 percent of computer crime is not even reported.
The computer underworld can also be vindictive. In the past five years the number of malicious programs--popularly known as viruses--has increased exponentially. Viruses usually serve no useful purpose: they simply cripple computer systems and destroy data. And yet the underworld that produces them continues to flourish. In a very short time it has become a major threat to the technology-dependent societies of the Western industrial world.
Computer viruses began to spread in 1987, though most of the early bugs were jokes with playful messages, or relatively harmless programs that caused computers to play tunes. They were essentially schoolboyish tricks. But eventually some of the jokes became malicious: later viruses could delete or modify information held on computers, simulate hardware faults, or even wipe data off machines completely.
The most publicized virus of all appeared in 1992. Its arrival was heralded by the FBI, by Britain's New Scotland Yard and by Japan's International Trade Ministry, all of which issued warnings about the bug's potential for damage. It had been programmed to wipe out all data on infected computers on March 6th-- the anniversary of Michelangelo's birth. The virus became known, naturally, as Michelangelo.
It was thought that the bug may have infected as many as 5 million computers worldwide, and that data worth billions of dollars was at risk. This may have been true, but the warnings from police and government agencies, and the subsequent press coverage, caused most companies to take precautions. Computer systems were cleaned out; back-up copies of data were made; the cleverer (or perhaps lazier) users simply reprogrammed their machines so that their internal calendars jumped from March 5th to March 7th, missing the dreaded 6th completely. (It was a perfectly reasonable precaution: Michelangelo will normally only strike when the computer's own calendar registers March 6.) Still, Michelangelo hasn't been eradicated. There are certainly copies of the virus still at large, probably being passed on innocently from computer user to computer user. And of course March 6th still comes once a year.
