I laughed my ass off,' Erik said,
struggling to get the words out.
`A rogue program! Who wrote the article?'
`A John Markoff,' Erik answered, wiping his eyes. `I called him up.'
`You did? What did you say?' Phoenix tried to gather himself together.
`"John," I said, "You know that article you wrote on page 12 of the
Times? It's wrong! There's no rogue program attacking the Internet."
He goes, "What is it then?" "It's not a virus or a worm," I said.
"It's PEOPLE."'
Erik started laughing uncontrollably again.
`Then Markoff sounds really stunned, and he goes, "People?" And I
said, "Yeah, people." Then he said, "How do you know?" And I said,
"Because, John, I KNOW."'
Phoenix erupted in laughter again. The Times reporter obviously had
worms on his mind, since the author of the famous Internet worm,
Robert T. Morris Jr, had just been tried and convicted in the US. He
was due to be sentenced in May.
US investigators had tracked the hacker's connections, looping through
site after site in a burrowing manner which they assumed belonged to a
worm. The idea of penetrating so many sites all in such a short time
clearly baffled the investigators, who concluded it must be a program
rather than human beings launching the attacks.
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