The Unsorted BBS Collection/thegreatunsorted.tar/thegreatunsorted/bbs_file_lists/viraut2.txt

Text File | 1997-07-27 | 12KB | 431 lines

Ex-virus-writer Clint Haines dies of heroin overdose



Long-time readers of Crypt Newsletter will be astonished to hear

death -- due to heroin overdose -- came to the famous Australian

virus-writer Clint Haines on his twenty-first birthday, April

10.  He was from Brisbane.



Writing in the Usenet comp.virus newsgroup On April 19, Rod Fewster, a

moderator of one of the Fidonet's virus information newsfeeds and

one who knew Haines, said:



"Clinton Haines, who earned his place in virus-writing history at the age

of fifteen as Harry McBungus, became a household name in the virus world

by the time he was eighteen as Terminator-Z and TaLoN . . . [Haines]

gained widespread fame a couple of years ago with front-page newspaper

headlines yelling about how his No Frills virus had stopped the

Australian Taxation Office dead in its tracks for two days, and was

regarded by his peers as one of the "best" virus writers of all

time . . . [He] will be cremated tomorrow morning.



"Clint quit virus writing two years ago to concentrate on his university

studies and he had the intelligence to go a long way in his chosen field

of microbiology, but unfortunately being intelligent doesn't always give

you street smarts.



"Clinton Haines/Harry McBungus/Terminator-Z/TaLoN died from an overdose

of heroin . . . on his twenty-first birthday."



Haines' interest in controlled substances could be seen in frequent

posts to the Usenet where the University of Queensland student waxed

enthusiastically on topics ranging from the synthesis of LSD and

methamphetamines to his own experiences with Prozac.



For example, on the date-rape drug, rohypnol: ". . . a friend of mine

had 10 rohypnols and a 6-pack, woke up in the lockup with 25 stitches in his

head and a broken arm, and couldn't remember a single thing from the last

12 hours . . . turns out he was vandalizing a train seat and the security

guards beat the shit out of him . . . then he got off at the next station

only to try skateboarding and broke his arm."



On speed and LSD: ". . . I assure you people that LSD

and amphetamines are a rather wondrous combination, the ceaseless and

energetic progression of thought along a myriad gossamer threads of

abstract reality . . . throw nitrous on top of that and you have God mode

happening . . . thinking is simply a matter of choosing where you want

to go inside your mind and insight/thought rushes abound to the point of

not having enough time in which to follow every branch point . . . to

the point where your individual thought threads meld themselves into

higher denominations . . ."



Haines rambled wildly on his thrill at sniffing laughing

gas: ". . . nitrousing out in this state of mind can be wicked

because you go so far out on a mental limb . . . sometimes you get to

this point where everything becomes completely fluid, not in the physical

sense, but one can see, perceive, visualize, etc., every ramification of

everything that goes on in the particular mental environment you

construct . . . including, say, the passage of a tennis ball under the

influence of gravity, or the evolution of an argument and the interplay

of multiple factors, even your own thought reasoning . . . when one

nitrouses out to a point of total thought fusion, and the concurrent

realization/visualization of an extended range of thought capabilities

occurs, one gets the rare chance to 'refit' aspects of one's mind, much

like getting into newly-washed clothes or something."



And, sadly, on heroin synthesis in a post on September 20, 1996:

"WARNING ---- MAKE SURE you cut the rock so produced down to NO

MORE than 30% purity -- otherwise you'll end up killing a whole

bunch of people . . street-grade heroin is usually in the range of

10-20%, maximum."



The Australian VLAD virus-writing group promptly published a

memorial virus to Haines, called "RIP Terminator Z," according to a

story by technology writer Julie Robotham in a piece published in the

April 29 edition of the Sydney Morning Herald.



Fewster commented to Crypt Newsletter, "[Clint Haines] had a bright

future ahead of him, and in my opinion could have done some good in the

world if he'd just kept his head together."





----------------



Older material on Clint Haines, taken from Crypt Newsletter.





ANOTHER VERY BRIEF TALE OF MYSTERY AND INTRIGUE



Crypt Newsletter, April 1995



Virus-programmer Clinton Haines, a science student at the

        University of Queensland and native of Brisbane, Australia,

        makes it into the newsletter this month for making

        himself the Dark Avenger of Oz. [For those unfamiliar

        with the name "Dark Avenger," consult glossary at end of

        piece.]



Over the past three years, "Confusion to your enemies" could

        have been Haines' motto. Originally known as Harry McBungus,

        later as Terminator-Z and Talon in Oz-cyberspace, Haines

        busied himself over a series of viruses which came to be

        known as the NoFrills/Dudley family.



Around 1991, one of the first of the NoFrills viruses,

        X-Fungus/PuKE, heavily infected SunCorp, a government-operated

        insurance company which has since been privatized. SunCorp,

        which employs quite a bit of Novell software, found its networks

        blasted off-line by NoFrills and the event splashed into

        Australian newspapers.



According to members of virus-writing groups with which

        Haines was associated, he took the opportunity to contact

        local newsmen who subsequently turned over his identity to

        just about anyone who wanted it.  Following the SunCorp

        incident, Haines was interviewed by Australian federal agents.

        During the free-for-all, according to other virus writers, the

        inventive Haines attempted to stymie the investigation by

        informing his interrogators that Terminator-Z and Harry McBungus

        were the names of different computer hackers who had written

        viruses mistakenly attributed to him.



Around the same time, Haines applied for membership in the

        predominantly North American virus-writing group, NuKE .

        Paradoxically, Haines had written the original

        X-Fungus/PuKE/NoFrills virus which struck SunCorp with an

        eye toward satirizing the same band of hackers.



Another of the NoFrills viruses - named Dudley - then found

        its way into PC networks operated by Australian Telecom,

        sufficiently incommoding the company so that the Australian

        federales were again summoned. This led to squabbling,

        recriminations and an eventual falling out with

        Haines' North American cybercolleagues who evidently

        became suspicious the Australian was trying to thrust the

        notoriety for the Dudley debacle onto them. The complete

        source code to a Dudley variant, the Daeman virus, was

        immediately released into the public domain of cyberspace in

        the electronic publication, NuKE Infojournal, edited by the

        North American group. Since then Haines has advertised an

        on-again-off-again relationship with the same group of virus

        programmers he pretends to make fun of.



In early March of this year, the Dudley virus again fritzed

        Australian networks, this time those belonging to the

        Australian Taxation Office.  This was seen as tactically

        unfortunate, since Haines had claimed retirement from

        virus-writing.  The Australian Taxation Office is regarded

        as balefully as the IRS in the United States.



However, Haines reputation as a virus-writer in international

        cyberspatial circles remains solid, even gaining in stature.

        Rod Fewster, an Australian representative of the Dutch

        Thunderbyte anti-virus software company, had befriended

        Haines, recognized Harry McBungus' technical brilliance as

        a virus writer and publicly mused on the Fidonet

        on the consequences of infecting the Australian Taxation

        Office and it getting in the way of a good programming career.

        Recently, Qark, another Australian virus-writer, informally

        commented that it was his opinion Haines was, in all respects,

        a world-class virus programmer and that it was Harry McBungus'

        original appearance in the Australian press at the time of the

        SunCorp/X-Fungus incident which inspired him to take up his

        present hobby as a programmer of software of the same nature.



------------------





YOUNG, FAST & SCIENTIFIC: AUSTRALIAN VIRUS WRITER NO NERD -- ENJOYS

        RUGBY, DAD A TENNIS PRO COACH



Crypt Newsletter, April 1995



by Peter Young



--------------



Old Clint Haines blew his cover in February after the Dudley

        virus hit so my [original] promise to keep his ID to myself is

        null and void.



Clint wrote a virus called K-Mart [sometimes refered to as

        X-Fungus] under the name of Harry McBungus in late 1991

        and in February 1992 it infected the largest financial

        institution in Queensland, Suncorp, forcing the organization

        to quarantine 100 workstations and 12 servers while it purged

        the virus. The virus escaped into the wild because Haines had

        a habit of giving diskettes containing it to schoolmates he

        didn't like. He later refined it and in its next incarnation it

        was tagged No Frills. A version of No Frills hit Australian

        Telecom's International Business Offices almost a year to the day

        after the Suncorp infection. Telecom had to isolate and rebuild

        1000 PCs on Novell networks.



Coincidentally or otherwise, the No Frills/Dudley attack on the

        Australian Tax Office this year again took place in February.



Haines was 15 when he wrote the original Suncorp virus,

        referred to on this piece as K-Mart. He's well over six feet

        tall, plays the Aussie version of gridiron - that's rugby - and

        bears no resemblance to the skinny nerd of stereotypic

        virus writer legend. He's come up through private schools and

        is the child of separated or divorced parents. His dad is a

        tennis pro coach. Haines doesn't regret writing the NoFrills

        viruses but does rue that his association with them may cost

        him the option of a career in computing. He told me his first

        reaction when a new No Frills hit is reported is a surge of

        delight that it's still out there working its magic and hasn't

        been retired to a virus museum or old folk's home. On the heels

        of the thrill comes an anxiety attack while he wonders whether

        some hammer is about to fall on him. He's 19 and an undergraduate

        taking a science degree at the University of Queensland. He's

        majoring in biochemistry and . . . here's a scary thought . . .

        thinks biological viruses are fascinating.



["Thanks to Rod Fewster, Roger Thompson of Thompson Network Software

and Peter Young who provided timely material for this

set of articles."]