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- 1. How did you start out in computers?
-
- Hmm... Let's see... Oh yeah, I think that my first computer experience was
- in the 4th grade. There was a club in our town that had a computer class, so
- I went there. There were only HC-85 and CHIP computers (all Sinclair Spectrum).
- If I remember well, I think that the best computer was a Schneider with 128 KB
- of RAM and a floppy of god knows what capacity... :) The computer also had a
- printer. Damn! I used to print stuff every day there... ;)
- Well, that was the first real "computer" (if I can call it that way :) I saw.
- The rest of them (HCs and CHIPs) had 64K memory and BASIC installed in ROM. Of
- course, there were a lot of games on tapes, and we used to load them with our
- tape recorders. Actually, that's the first thing that atracted me on computers:
- games.
- Later, there were some expositions with computers in my town, so I went there
- with my father. My father worked on some old computers when he was younger, so
- he liked computers too. There I saw for the first time a PC (Personal Computer).
- Wow! It was something magic... From the minute I saw it, I knew that I'm gonna
- like it. The guys from the exposition were playing some games. I think that
- the ones I liked more were "Tom & Jerry" and "F29-Retal". The colors and the
- sounds were way too cool in comparation with our HC computers. So, I asked my
- father if he could buy me one.
- After 2 years, when I was in the 7th grade, my father made me a HUGE surprise
- and buyed me a 8086 XT for Christmas. It was the greatest gift I could ever
- receive. I was so happy... :) The computer had 20 MB hard drive, 640 KB base
- memory (+128 KB EMS) and a Hercules monochrome display. The only things stored
- on it, were "Prince of Persia" and Norton Commander. So, I ended up all day
- playing Prince, hopeing that one day I will rescue the princess... :)
- After that, I started learning DOS commands, and then later Turbo Pascal and
- I started programming. After makeing progresses with Pascal, I started to learn
- Assembler too.
- After quite some time, my father buyed me a decent 586 133Mhz computer.So,
- I started to code in asm a lot (pascal too)... I made some kewl
- applications in Pascal, demos, and I even made a MOD player... After that,
- virii! :)
-
- 2. How and when did you start out in the virus scene?
-
- Wow! Well, this is a bit more complicated then it looks... I started to
- collect computer viruses in the old XT dayz... :) My collection went bigger
- and bigger and after learning ASM, I started to do some hacks on other virii.
- Anywayz, I liked the concept of a computer virus from the beginning. I guess
- I always wanted to write one myself. But, the true *love* for virii came when
- I got infected with HI-460. :) Damn! Those were some scarry times...hehehe. I
- had a friend who told me that a virus can blow ur computer, and I was really
- scared when I got infected too. I thaught that my computer is somehow dead and
- that my father will kill me. :) But, everything went just fine when I reached
- to a copy of the old traditional McAfee SCAN, who "assured" me that he removed
- the virus from my system. Thx fo this one John! :)) hehheheeh I guess I owe
- ya one! :P
- Well, time passed and my collection was getting way too big for me. I was
- happy. And a wonderfull thing happened: I wasn't scared of virii anymore. I
- had quite some kewl virii in my collection including "BadSectors" (see SLAM #2)
- who made my life misserable for 3 weeks. The virus was makeing bad sectors on
- my hard drive, so I thaught that the hard drive is physically bad. :-/ heheh
- Anywayz, like I said, after a while I started to do hacks with virii from my
- collection. Then, new ideeas poped up out of my head, and I started to make
- my own virii.
- After quite some time, we finally got Internet access.The first thing that I
- searched for on Internet was "virus" on AltaVista. There I found a link to
- ilf. So, I went to ILF and I started to download all kind of things. When I saw
- how many virii/tutorials were there, I went nuts. I was kind of mad and sad
- then because I had to learn COM and EXE infections all by myself, by
- dissasembling HI and stuff like that. I didn't knew back then that there were
- tutorials on virus programming or other kewl stuff like virus generators...
- On ILF I saw a couple of magazines and other stuff and I realised that there
- were other guys in the world that write viruses. I wasn't alone... So I
- downloaded more virii, then I dissasembled them, and then I tryed to learn
- something from the code.
- After quite some time, one of my viruses (DownTown) spreaded like crazy
- through a couple of high schools in my country. The virus had a payload that
- said something like this: "I was born on the 4th day of the month, so wish
- me happy aniversary. You have been infected with DownTown (c) by Virtual
- Daemon". And after that the payload wiped the MBR... Well, some ppl started
- to know about "Virtual Daemon" and started to fear me. There were people who
- didn't turned on their computer in the 4th day of the month because they
- were scared that DownTown is gonna blow their Hard drive. Damn... ppl can be
- so lame. That reminds me of the old days when our computers were infected by
- Michelangelo and we were scared to turn them on. :)
- After DownTown, I started to write more virii and I started to upload them
- to local BBS systems and to Internet. Anyway, my real entrance in the virus
- scene came up with SLAM.
-
- 3. Have you written viruses? If so which would you like to take credit for?
-
- I wrote over 50 viruses, but I only released 10 or so... The rest of them
- were just for learning purposes. Hrmpf... credit? Neah... I don't need credit
- for my virii. I'm not writting them for my EGO. It's fun to write viruses so I
- don't need anything back.
-
- 4. How do you name your viruses?
-
- Well, I don't! :) I mean, I don't use any book or algorithm to do it... :)
- My first 2 (real) viruses were named after 2 levels of DOOM ][. I liked the
- game so much, so I had to do something about it... "Downtown" and "Suburbs"
- The rest of the names are from different stuff like "Paranoid" comes from
- Green Day's song Basket Case, "SkyWalker" from StarWars... etc, etc
- Actually, I write the virus first and then I choose a name... Sometimes,
- I'm "inspired" from movies, songs, old stories, SF... etc
-
- 5. Which programming languages do you know?
-
- Well, I know a bit from all the languages, but the langugages I know best
- are Assembler and Pascal. I'm also trying to learn C, but till now I don't
- like that much it's syntax. I may end up with Delphi soon... dunno...
-
- 6. What programming language do you like using the most?
-
- Asm, aSm, asM, ASM, asm, aSM, ASm, AsM.... :)
- Hehehe... neah, seriously I like to code in Assembler and in Pascal. I use
- Assembler for virii, and Borland Pascal for applications.
-
- 7. Are you a member of a VX group?
-
- Yep. I am curently a leader of SLAM Virus Team.
-
- 8. Which AV software do you like/respect the most? Which the least?
-
- Hrmpf... Well, my favourite remains F-Prot! (Go for it, Fridirik! :)
- I also like to use AVP and TBAV. The rest of them are shit... I also like RAV
- (Romanian Anti Virus). It's an AV made by a guy from my country. It's not a
- mega kewl product yet but it is ok. Has some kewl heuristic stuff...
-
- 9. What are your goals (VX wise)?
-
- Uhhhh.... goals? Hrmpf... well, I'm not gonna write computer viruses for
- all my life. I'm doing it now because it's fun and I enjoy it. Well, I have
- a little "dream" that concerns virii: to write a multi OS virii that can
- work on DOS/Win311/Win95/OS2/Linux... Could be fun! :) Well, maybe I'll do
- it someday.
-
- 10. What is your view on the continuous 'war' between VX and AV.
-
- Well, I would like to tell ya in the first place that there is no such
- thing as a WAR. AV ppl are screaming all day long that they hate virus
- researchers because we make their life misserable. That's bullshit! If we
- don't exist neither do they! They earn money from our viruses, so I think
- they should be greatfull because we're still writting virii. If we're gonna
- stop writting, McAffee is gonna end up in a club washing dirty floors all
- day... ;) And we don't want that to happen, do we? ;-)
-
- 11. Where did you get you handle? What does it mean?
-
- My handle? Oh boy... I have ABSOLUTELY no ideea! :))) It just poped up
- out of my head one day, so I used it. Actually, I first wanted to use
- "Pretorian" or something like that. I saw "The Net" with Sandra Bullock, and
- I loved the movie. But then, this "thing" with VD happened, so... :)
- More or less, I was inspired from DOOM. There are some monsters there that
- are called "daemons". So, I stucked Virtual with a monster and voila! :) I
- wanted ppl to fear me when they heard about me, but that will never happen.
- I'm too kind to be a daemon... :)))
-
- 12. What is your view on Virus Creation software (eg. VCL, PS-MPC etc.)?
-
- I consider that virus generators can be good and bad also. It depends on
- the person that is using them. If you really want to learn, then a virus
- generator can help you very much. I personally received about 20 e-mails
- from ppl who thanked me for creating OVCT. And OVCT is a OVERWRITTING VIRUS
- GENERATOR!!! So, what I'm tryin to say is that a good virus generator can
- help a lot beginners.
- On the other side, virus generators are "bad". Look at all those VCL or
- PS-MPC variants. Geee... that sucks! There are ppl out there who practically
- aren't smart enough to code a shit. They are called lamers! They don't do
- anything else except spreading stupid virii created by virus generators.
-
- 13. What is your view on macro viruses vs. assembly or HLL viruses?
-
- Well, I'm an asm guru, so I like assembly viruses. Anyway, that doesn't
- mean that I hate High Level Language viruses or macro ones. HLL viruses are
- ok, but the true power of a DOS/W95 virus lies in assembler. Anyway, look at
- RustBug (aka Casio) with his ASIC virii. Damn! ASIC is a version of basic or
- something. The guy is great! Virii in basic? Who could ever imagine that? ;)
-
- Macro virii are just another way of makeing viruses... Many ppl say that
- wordbasic virii sucks, and that the coders behind them are just a bunch of
- lamers who just want a piece of the pie called virus scene. Actually it
- isn't that way. If we think a little, we can see that even the BIGGEST virus
- writters have tryed in the last 2 years to write at least a DOC virus. Look
- at Talon (RIP man!)... he was one of the best! He wrote
- COM/SYS/EXE/MBR/BS/stealth/poly/tunneling infectors, and he still tryed (and
- succeded) to discover new technics beyond DOC infections (see SLAM #2 for
- his article). It's true that macro virii are a lot easier to code, but that
- doesn't mean that macro virii sucks. Hell, macro virii are spreading even
- better then a COM/EXE virus, bcoz DOC's are all over the net.
- So, in conclusion, I think that macro virii are as good as asm or as HLL.
- The ideea and the coding style is all that matters...
-
- 14. Have you ever confirmed one of your viruses 'in-the-wild'?
-
- Hehehehe... Yep! 5 of my virii are out there somewhere... :) DownTown has
- made some high schools pretty angry, and Paranoid also. I'm now expecting any
- day to see them in AVP database or F-Prot's. :)
- Also Suburbs and SkyWalker infected my school several times...
- Anyway, you have to wait a little more, because only from now on you will
- see some real codes from me. :P
-
- 15. Which VX E-zine do you like to most? Which the least?
-
- Well, I like our zine (damn, I made the viewer! :)... Besides that, I
- like all VLAD zines, old IR zines and 40Hex. Also, this year there were some
- new groups popping up with kewl zines like 29A's zine or Xine from IkX.
- The zines I don't like are the ones that are written in another language.
- I mean damn, the zines are probably very good but I can't understand a shit.
- I know, I know... asm is an international language but when I first get a
- zine, I read the editorial. If I don't understand it, I will probably erase
- the zine... :-/
-
- 16. Which individual or what group do you like/respect in the VX world?
-
- Hmm... It's hard to say... I respect a lot of ppl for their work, people
- like: Dark Avenger, Dark Angel, StormBringer, Talon, QuantumG, Qark,
- Nightmare Joker, The Unforgiven, Rajaat, Cicatrix (that's right... u! :),
- Mnemonix, Black Baron and many others.. . It will take a whole page to write
- them all. I respect everyone that diserves respect, everyone that worked hard
- in order to discover new virus technics, everyone that kept the scene alive
- during all these years.
- I also respect some groups like: Phalcon/Skism, VLAD and Nuke for their work.
- They were the first, they invented a lot of kewl things, so we should all
- respect them.
- People I like? Damn... I like a lot of ppl for their writting style or
- just for being kewl. I wont give you any names because I may forget some of
- them...:)
-
- 17. In the AV world?
-
- Well, I respect Fridirik Skulason bcoz I like his work, and Eugene
- Kaspersky for his AVP.
-
- 18. Which individual or what group do you like/respect outside the VX or
- the AV world?
-
- Wow, wow, wow! :) Puzzled question, man... damn... I like all my friends,
- my mom, my dad, my cousins, damn I like my whole familly... :)
-
- 19. What is your view on destructive payloads in viruses?
-
- I *absolutely* disagree with destructive payloads in viruses. I admit
- that one of my first virii (DownTown) was messing up with the boot sector,
- but after that nothing! Every lamer can write a 20 lines asm code that can
- fuck up an computer, but not everone can write a decent COM/EXE infector!
-
- 20. Do you think there is such a thing as a 'good' virus?
-
- Well, depends on how you see it... For me, all the viruses are good, bcoz
- I learn something new every day... something about the OS I work on (here
- goes a BIG FUCK to Microsoft for hidding their undocumented interrupts for so
- long), something about my computer, etc...
- For other ppl, all the viruses are bad bcoz they infect their systems...
- People usually fear viruses... Biological or computer, none wants to have
- them! So, it's pretty hard to explain to someone that a virus can be 'good'
- in some way...
-
- 21. What do you do in 'real' life?
-
- Well, I'm just an ordinary student (math-physics profile) with a lot of
- friends. I like to play basketball and football a lot. I like to watch SF or
- action movies, comedies, horror.... etc. I listen music a lot. I'm a techno
- raver rapper maniac, but I also like punk music (Green Day, OffSpring,
- H-Blocks etc). I also have a great familly who loves me and some kewl
- neighbours. :) When I'm not hanging out with my friends, I stay home and I
- code virii or other stuff. I play a lot Quake (ID Software RULZ!) and
- Nintendo Games (I have the Nintendo emulator from RustBug :).
- I also like to hang out with girls, but since I broke up with my last
- girlfriend (4 months now) I didn't do it that much. Well, anyway school
- beggins in september, so I'm gonna chase girls again! :)
- When I'm not doing all the things above, I'm "trying" to learn for
- school. I wanna go to a university, so I have to learn for my exams (there's
- so less time to do it :()...
-
- 22. Do people outside the VX scene know what you do (parents,girlfriend etc.)?
-
- Well, my father knows that I'm writting computer viruses and my mother
- doesn't care about computers so much... Also there are some of my friends
- who know that I write virii. Some of them are ... let's say happy... bcoz
- whenever they need something, they know that I can help them. :)
- The thing is that we don't have any laws concering virus writting here in
- Romania, so I don't have to worry about anything. Anyway, I think that virus
- spreading is a crime (if we can call it that way) not virus writting.
-
- 23. Do you do other computer stuff outside VX (Hacking, phreaking,warez etc.)?
-
- Well, I was pretty much involved in hacking and cracking, but know I
- don't have time for that anymore. I used to hack Novell and Linux... but
- after I became Network SysAdm I didn't cared that much about hacking.
- Anywayz, I still have some hacker skills, so whatch out! :))) hehehe
-
- 24. Should viruses be illegal? Is there a difference between creation and
- spreading?
-
- I already replayed to this question above... Viruses can't be illegal!
- Writting viruses is like writting games or applications. Viruses are
- computer programs not real biological ones. Anyway, counting that there are
- a lot of destructive viruses out there, there had to be a law concering
- them. BUT, the main point is that only by spreading virii you get infected.
- So, if we write them and putting them into a mag on the net it's NO CRIME!
- The user takes all the responsability when he or she downloads the zine.
- And we're also keep saying that in the editorial, so if (s)he gets infected
- it's NOT our fault! The virii are just some inofensive asm sources...
- So, if there has to be any laws about this, it should be about spreading
- virii not about writting them!
-
- 25. Describe the perfect virus.
-
- There is no such thing and never will be! A perfect virus can't exist,
- there's no reason for it to exist. All the viruses are good in their own
- ways. Anywayz, if we have to think to something perfect, it should be a
- DOS/OS2/Linux/Win95/WinNT/etc virus that can infects
- EXE/COM/BAT/SYS/MBR/BS/etc... filles! But since that will never happen... :)
-
- 26. What is your view on Windows (95)
-
- Windoze sucks! All the people are buying it just because Bill is selling
- them lies. "The perfect OS", "the best solution to your problems", etc...
- that sucks! Someone has to stop this! Bill is one of the richest man on the
- earth! And besides that, all Microsoft programs are buggy...
-
- 27. What is your advice for people just starting out?
-
- Get more tuts (hell, get my tuts :) as possible, and use virus
- generators. Start with overwritters, then COM, then EXE... and soon you will
- be able to write your own virus.
-
- 28. Where can you be reached if at all?
-
- Via e-mail at virtual_daemon@hotmail.com, or on undernet IRC channels
- #virus and #slam.
-
- 29. Any greets?
-
- Yeah.. I'd like to greet the following guys (in no order):
-
- - Nightmare Joker: thx for being my friend... SLAM rulz! :)
- - RustBug: thx for hanging around all day with me on IRC! :)
- - all the ppl from SLAM: lurve ya all!
- - IndianOwl (meth): Where's my little little indian? ;)))
- - Int13h: thx for the codes dude... keep sending stuff to me...:)
- - Reptile: idem Int13h :))
- - Bozo: keep releasing ur Xine! it roqs so far!
- - Coke: if u don't release #8 I'M GONNA KILL YA!!! :)
- - Unk: ur coding style roqs! Btw... start to comment ur virii or else I wont
- understand a shit! :->
- - LovinGod: wwwwwhhheeeeerrrreeee aaaaarrrreeee yyyoooouuuuu? ;>
- - Rajaat: I don't know ya, but I'd like to meet ya
- - MrSandman: If you were in vacation here, in Romania, and U didn't tell me,
- you are dead meat! :)
- - 29A crew: keep up the work with ur zine and move ur asses more often on
- undernet... ;)
- - The Unforgiven: idem Rajaat
- - and to all others I forgot right now...
-
- 30. Any other comments?
-
- Thx for the interview and good luck with VDAT!
-
- 31. Short responses to the following names or words:
-
- - Dark Avenger=one of the first (and the best) virus writters. His
- virus, Eddie was pretty kewl back then!
- - Dark Angel=one of my idols... :) Phalcon/Skism was the best! His
- tutes helped me a lot in learning SYS infections and MBR/BS. He
- kicked asses back then...
- - Sarah Gordon=a wannabe reporter
- - Fridrik Skulason=main coder of F-Prot AntiVirus, one of the best
- AV programs out there.
- - Alan Solomon=main coder of Dr.Solomon's Toolkit, an antivirus
- product
- - WordBasic/VBA=ask NJ about that... :)
- - VDAT=the coolest thing that could ever happen to the virus scene!:)
- - VSUM=a very big database with wrong informations about virii
- - Assembler=my preferate programmin language
- - NuKE=one of the first virus groups, had some kewl members, Nowhere
- man released the first virus generator VCT
- - Phalcon Skism=one of the BEST virus groups. DA, Hellraiser and
- StormBringer were very good virus writters.
- - VLAD=also one of the BEST virus groups (if not the BEST)
- - Immortal Riot=kewl virus group, IR zine was very kewl back then
- - Trident=also a very kewl virus group
- - Polymorphic=the best method to hide your code from others eyes
- - Stealth=another kewl way to hide ur code... better then
- polymorphism for lamers, worst then polymorphism for avers :)
- - I hate: AV people who ruin my code, and make money off my work
- - I love: my life, coding, my familly, my friends
- - Internet=the best place to meet and exchange ideas
- - IRC=Definatly a place to see whats new in the virus scene :)
- - Sex=aehmmm.... what can I say? it surely feels good... :)
- - World War 3=I hope I wont catch it... :)
-
- 32. How did you get into SLAM?
-
- Well, that's a very long story... It all began last year when I signed
- God@rky's guestbook. Time passed, and I ended up in a morning with a mail
- from a guy named Cyborg. He told me that he is a virus writter and that he
- saw my name on God@rky's guestbook. After talkin with Cyborg for a while (a
- couple of weeks) via e-mail he told me that he was a SLAM member. I heard
- about SLAM and I read SLAM Special and SLAM #1. It was a macro coding group,
- but I didn't care that much then. I didn't knew if other groups were
- "addopting" new members, so I send them a membership form along with my
- DownTown virus. After 3 or 4 days, NJ e-mailed me and told me that I'm good
- enough to join SLAM. So... I did... :)
-
- 33. How is SLAM organized?
-
- Curently, SLAM has 2 leaders: me and Nightmare Joker. We're running
- things in the group and we're organizing the zine. I'm a asm coder and NJ
- is a wordmacro coder. The rest of the members are: asm coders (Dark Chakal,
- L0ne_Rider, Stealth Warrior, Death Knight, Cyborg), wordmacro coders
- (DarkSide1, Aurodreph, HyperLock, CyberYoda), pascal coder (Lord of nAvAn)
- and the BEST ASIC (asic=cross between basic/asm) coder (RustBug).
-
- 34. What part of the world do you come from?
-
- Romania, Eastern Europe...
-
- 35. Will you release any other virus creators like OVCT?
-
- I am curently workin on VCT (Virus Construction Toolkit), but I'm not
- sure if I'll ever finish it or release it. Anywayz if I'll ever do it, VCT
- will be the best virus generator in the world. It will make
- COM/EXE/SYS/BAT/MBR/BS virii stealth/poly/tunneling... Aehm...Well, till
- then... :)
-
- 36. What is in your future and the future of SLAM?
-
- Well I will continue to code virii till I will get bored... and many time
- will pass till that will happen... :)
- Future of SLAM? We will continue to write computer viruses and we will
- keep releasing our zine till our readers will get sick of it... :)
-
- 37. Will SLAM increase the number of members?
-
- We're 13 now... black number... :) we received about 10 membership forms
- after Slam #3 from ppl that wanna join us. Hrmpf... dunno if we're still
- gonna receive new members. Too many members can be the end of a group. I
- guess we'll just have to wait and see...
-
- 38. Will SLAM go into other scenes except VX? (hacking, etc.)
-
- There was a moment when a group of hackers (they were pretty elites)
- wanted to join us under the name SLAM, but we didn't "make the link". Till
- now, we're just virus oriented... Except me, dunno if there are any other
- hackers in SLAM... So, if we're gonna go into hacking, we will have to
- accept new members. And like I said, too many members could mean the end of
- a group!
-