[OG, incredulous: How could they not know there's a virus out there??? How could they open up that stupid message??? Well, they did!]

Virus strikes candidates' computers By PENELOPE DEESE : The Herald-Sun jkl@herald-sun.com Aug 7, 2001 : 10:17 pm ET

DURHAM -- People on Michael Peterson’s e-mail address list got a sneak preview of the City Council candidate’s latest book when a virus attacked his computer this week.

But Peterson didn’t contract the virus through a strange e-mail from an unknown sender or an attachment promising a cash prize for each message he forwarded. Instead, he said he caught the bug Monday afternoon from mayoral candidate Bill Bell.

"I got an e-mail from someone I completely trusted," Peterson said Tuesday afternoon while his son, Clayton, repaired his computer. "So I opened it up, and it was a virus, and that’s all there was to it."

But Bell said he hasn’t e-mailed Peterson since Peterson announced he was filing for council.

"I don’t want to be considered the culprit," Bell said Tuesday night. "I was out of town last week. I was wondering who it was giving me a virus."

The virus that hit Peterson’s and Bell’s computers, the SirCam virus, has infected Windows users throughout the world. The virus is released into a computer when the user opens an e-mail attachment that usually has a title such as "Could you please review this?" or "Here is the file you needed."

Once the attachment is opened, the virus copies into the computer’s My Documents folder, selects various files and sends them to anyone in the user’s address book. So, the 73 people listed in Peterson’s address book received files from his computer, including chapters from his next book. SirCam began sending out e-mails even as he was looking at his inbox.

"It was just pumping them up by the tons," he said. "People started calling me and saying, ‘Oh yeah, I liked the chapter.’ "

Amin Vahdat, a computer science professor at Duke University, said the virus has been around for a while.

"It has been quite damaging," he said. "I have seen one report where some Ukrainian government documents were circulated from the SirCam virus. The best bet is to not open any attachments from anyone you don’t know."

Unlike Peterson, Mayor Nick Tennyson was already aware of the virus when he received a similar e-mail from Bell and others Tuesday morning.

"I had gotten a number of those from different people and recognized it, so I deleted it," he said. "I had been warned about it through the general media."

But Peterson wasn’t so lucky.

His frustration mounted Monday as his computer continued to send e-mails and people kept calling or e-mailing him with questions about the attachments. He quickly warned Police Chief Teresa Chambers, who was at a conference in Orlando, Fla., when she e-mailed to say she couldn’t open the attachment.

"For the love of God, don’t try again," he said he wrote her. "God knows what people were getting. I would be staring at my machine and ready to throw it in the swimming pool."

Tuesday, Peterson’s son, Clayton, a computer engineer in Chapel Hill, came to his father’s rescue and was able to reverse the damage. He said he received information about the virus about a week ago from an e-mail at work, so he was suspicious when he kept getting strange e-mails from his father.

"I’ve gotten 15 e-mails from my father from just today and yesterday," he said while trying to locate and delete the virus on Michael Peterson’s computer. "It was a very strange e-mail."

Clayton Peterson said the e-mail message would include different information in the body, but would always begin with "Hi, how are you?" and end with "See you later, thanks."

Clayton Peterson repaired his father’s computer with software he purchased for about $40 from a local computer store, but he said anyone affected could also get assistance from the Internet.

"Companies are definitely aware of it now," he said. "It’s been identified and there are some solutions to it. So, if you can download them, you can probably fix it."

Bell said an administrator fixed his computer at UDI Community Development Corp. on Tuesday and any future e-mails he sends should be virus-free. "I think it’s cleaned up," he said. "I would hope so."

Vahdat said it is important to update computers with the latest version of virus-protection software.

"If you don’t have the latest version and you’re afraid that you’re going to open up attachments and get infected, you may not want to store sensitive documents in your My Documents folder," he said.

[OG Sarcasm: Hey, you guys--did you know the Beatles broke up???]

-- Anonymous, August 08, 2001

Answers

But OG, this is just showing the level of the candidates today. Idiots.

-- Anonymous, August 08, 2001

OG, are any of these the folks you are working for or agin'?

-- Anonymous, August 08, 2001

Nick is the one we're helping :)

-- Anonymous, August 08, 2001

Glad to see you're supporting the one that has a clue! LOL

-- Anonymous, August 08, 2001