alt.humor.best-of-usenet (moderated) #8124 From: Alexander Prestin Date: Fri Oct 03 14:18:43 MDT 1997 Subject: Bad Times Virus: time to cry From: rhawkins@iastate.edu (Rick Hawkins) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips If you receive an e-mail with a subject line of "Badtimes," delete it immediately WITHOUT reading it. This is the most dangerous E-mail virus yet. It will re-write your hard drive. Not only that, but it will scramble any disks that are even close to your computer. It will recalibrate your refrigerator's coolness setting so all your ice cream melts and your milk curdles. It will demagnetize the strips on all your credit cards, reprogram your ATM access code, screw up the tracking on your VCR and use subspace field harmonics to scratch any CDs you try to play. It will give your ex-boy/girlfriend your new phone number. It will mix antifreeze into your fish tank. It will drink all your beer and leave its dirty socks on the coffee table when there's company coming over. It will hide your car keys when you are late for work and interfere with your car radio so that you hear only static while stuck in traffic. Badtimes will make you fall in love with a hardened pedophile. It will give you nightmares about circus midgets. It will replace your shampoo with Nair and your Nair with Rogaine, all while dating your current boy/girlfriend behind your back and billing their hotel rendezvous to your Visa card. It will seduce your grandmother. It does not matter if she is dead, such is the power of Badtimes. It reaches out beyond the grave to sully those things we hold most dear. Badtimes will give you Dutch Elm disease. It will leave the toilet seat up and leave the hair dryer plugged in dangerously close to a full bathtub. It will not only remove the forbidden tags from your mattresses and pillows, it will refill your skim milk with whole. It is insidious and subtle. It is dangerous and terrifying to behold. It is also a rather interesting shade of mauve. These are just a few signs. Be afraid. Be very, very afraid. ------ Article 2819 of cu.cs.grads: Subject: New computer viruses Beware of the following new computer viruses... Adam and Eve Virus -- Takes a couple of bytes out of your Apple. Federal Bureaucrat Virus -- Divides your hard disk into hundreds of little units, each of which do practically nothing, but all of which claim to be the most important part of the computer. Dan Quayle Virus -- Their is sumthing rong with your compueter, ewe just can't figyour out watt. Gallup Poll Virus -- Sixty percent of the PC's infected will lose 38% of their data 14 percent of the time (plus or minus a 3.5 margin of error) Paul Revere Virus -- Revolutionary virus doesn't horse around. It warns you of impending hard disk attack once if by LAM, twice if by C. Politically Correct Virus -- Never calls itself a "virus" but instead refers to itself as an "electronic micro-organism." Right to Life Virus -- Won't allow you to delete a file regardless of how old it is. If you attempt to erase a file, it requires you to first see a counselor about possible alternatives. Ross Perot Virus -- Activates every component in your system just before the whole thing quits. Mario Cuomo Virus -- It would be a great virus, but it refuses to run. Oprah Winfry Virus -- Your 200 megabyte hard drive suddenly shrinks to 80 MB, then slowly expands back to 200 MB. AT&T Virus -- Every three minutes it tells you what great service you're getting. MCI Virus -- Every three minutes it reminds you that you are paying too much for the AT&T Virus. Ted Turner Virus -- Colorizes your monochrome monitor. Arnold Schwarzennegger Virus -- Terminates and stays resident. It'll be back. Government Economist Virus -- Nothing works, but all your diagnostic software says everything is fine. New World Order Virus -- Probably harmless, but it makes a lot of people really mad just thinking it's fine. Terry Randle Virus -- Ye;;s "Oh no you don't" whenever you choose "Abort" from the "Abort, Retry, Fail" message. Texas Virus -- Makes sure that it's bigger than any other file. Congressional Virus I -- The computer locks up, screen splits erratically, altering a message appearing on each half blaming the other side for the problem. Congressional Virus II -- Runs every program on the hard drive simultaneously, but doesn't allow the user to accomplish anything. Airline Virus -- You're in Dallas, but your data is in Singapore. Freudian Virus -- Your computer becomes obsessed with marrying its own motherboard. PBS Virus -- Your PC stops every few minutes to ask for money. Elvis Virus -- Your computer gets fat, slow and lazy and then self destructs, only to resurface at shopping malls and service stations across rural America. Ollie North Virus -- Turns your printer into a document shredder. Sears Virus -- Your data won't appear unless you buy new cables, power supply, and a set of shocks. Jimmy Hoffa Virus -- Nobody can find it. Kevorkian Virus -- Helps your computer shut down whenever it wants to. Imelda Marcos Virus -- Sings you a song (slightly off key) on boot up, and then subtracts money from your Quicken account and spends it all on expensive shoes it purchases through Prodigy. Star Trek Virus -- Invades your system in places where no virus has gone before. Health Care Virus -- Tests your system for a day, finds nothing wrong, and sends you a bill for $4,500. ---------- -~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~- | Cathleen Wharton | University of Colorado at Boulder | | cwharton@cs.Colorado.EDU | Department of Computer Science | | Phone: (303)492-7514 Fax: x2844 | Campus Box 430 ; Boulder CO 80309 | ----- rec.humor.funny (moderated) #5189 From: sj@aracnet.com (Scott Johnson) Subject: Virus warning Date: Fri Oct 24 01:20:02 MDT 1997 VIRUS WARNING!!! VIRUS WARNING!!! VIRUS WARNING!!! VIRUS WARNING!!! Dear Internet user, It seems that the destructive minds who like to invent computer viruses have struck again. A new virus, popularly known as INTERNET EXPLORER 4.0, has been propogating the Net for several weeks now. MILLIONS of computers have been infected by this insidious virus (mostly PCs, and a few Macintoshes as well.) This virus is one of the MOST DANGEROUS yet unleashed on the computing public! INTERNET EXPLORER 4.0 is known to have the following horrible effects on infected computers: * It WASTES an incredible amount of HARD DISK SPACE, space which could otherwise be used for productive applications * It causes the infected computer's performance to be DRASTICALLY REDUCED--Pentium machines which are stricken are known to slow down to the speed of a 486 * It surreptitiously MODIFIES the underlying operating system, causing the CORE FUNCTIONALITY of the instrument to change RADICALLY * It, through the use of Trojan-like ALTERATIONS to the core Java APIs, may cause Java applets to MALFUNCTION. These effects are so SEVERE that the designers of Java, Sun Microsystems, are taking LEGAL ACTION against the inventors of this terrible virus * It, once installed, is VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE for the average user to remove from the system * It is known to create SECURITY HOLES, which can allow unknown users to DELETE or DESTROY files on your hard drive * It is known to cause many popular and reliable Internet browsers, such as NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR and NETSCAPE COMMUNICATOR, to not function correctly * It is even known to infect NEWLY PURCHASED computers coming from repuatable manufacturers like COMPAQ and DELL. These companies have so far been POWERLESS to prevent this virus from being installed on the computers they sell. * It is known to be UNDETECTABLE by most virus-checking software packages The good news is that the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT is currently investigating the rogue hackers who CONCOCTED this destructive virus. They have been traced to a Seattle suburb, and may face fines of ONE MILLION DOLLARS PER DAY for the pernicious manner in which this virus is being distributed. The bad news is that millions of computers have ALREADY BEEN INFECTED. The inventors of this virus even have the gall to gleefully BOAST about this terrible fact on their web site! Here's what YOU can do: 1) If you see a website with the "Internet Explorer" logo, do **NOT** click on the logo. This can cause this virus to be DOWNLOADED and INSTALLED on your system! 2) If your computer is ALREADY INFECTED, and it's a Windows-based PC, call the technical support hotline at Microsoft (the company which wrote Windows), and ask them for instructions on how to DISABLE and REMOVE this virus. They should have instructions to do so. I apologize for the URGENT TONE of this message, but only if we WORK TOGETHER can the spread of the dreaded INTERNET EXPLORER 4.0 virus be slowed or stopped.