Pravda

A deadly computer virus is sweeping through the People’s Republic of China, destroying government systems, servers and large companies’ IT systems.

Code Red is the name of the virus which was supposed to have originated in China, a fact which has always been strongly refuted by Peking. Code Red is a worm which creeps around the hard disc, destroying files.

This is the second wave of the virus, which is wreaking havoc in 20 Chinese provinces. Since 5th August, more than

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), August 14, 2001

Answers

This couldn't have happened to a nicer government. Maybe this will slow down their feverish military buildup.

-- Uncle Fred (dogboy45@bigfoot.com), August 14, 2001.

200 large servers have been hit.

(geez, UF, willya let me get the whole thing in before you jump on it?) :))

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), August 14, 2001.

One thing to consider here: China's human/analytical vision of US is less favorable than the US human/analytical vision of China. Afterall, we're the ones that invented gm seeds (that now threaten the entire earth's food supply) and cell cloning (that now threaten's an apolytical backlash).

Think. Consider that we(humanity) are(is) being set up.

-- Ken (n4wind@sonic.net), August 14, 2001.

Wednesday 15th August 2001 12:40pm Code Red II hits Hong Kong government But can the sequel ever be as popular as the original?

The Code Red II variant worm has infected the Hong Kong government's computer system, causing the shut down of its internal IP network.

Government engineers are fighting to have the system up by the end of the day.

A spokeswoman from the information technology services department told Reuters: "The first signs of infection appeared shortly after 18:00 local time on Monday and access to the intranet was suspended soon afterwards."

Every wonder that maybe the IT industry is obsessed with whipping-up hysteria? View the video debatehere. The Code Red II version makes use of a vulnerability in Microsoft's IIS web server running Windows 2000 and NT and slows down systems as it propagates itself, just like its predecessor. However, version II also leaves a back door in the systems it invades, exposing them to further hack attacks. Even though Microsoft has a patch freely available for the IIS vulnerability, Code Red has managed to infect systems across the world.

Earlier this month at least 200 servers were downed in Japan and around 180 servers were infected by the variant in China. Only days later servers in South Korea were hit a Code Red vIII. However, the numbers involved in all these cases were minimal compared to the effects of the original.

http://www.silicon.com/bin/bladerunner? REQUNIQ=997896766&30REQEVENT=&REQINT1=46555&REQINT2=1&REQSTR1=Text% 20News&REQSTR2=Code%20Red%20II%20hits%20Hong%20Kong% 20government&REQSTR3=%7c&REQAUTH=21046&14006REQSUB=

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), August 15, 2001.

Code Red hit closer to home than usual for me: one of its versions wiped-out the hard drive on the home computer of a friend (his daughter opened an attachment), and the fix cost him over $1,000. Yikes!!

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), August 15, 2001.