NewsBiscuit

Shockwaves were sent through the IT world yesterday when it was revealed that the lone creator of an incredibly destructive and ingenious computer virus was in fact ‘a pretty normal bloke’ who was in a fulfilling and loving relationship with a girl his own age.

The highly destructive ‘I Love It’ virus which caused billions of pounds worth of damage around the globe bringing much of the Internet to its knees was eventually traced back to a suburban house in Surrey, the home of Jonathan Shackleton where a police raid expecting to find a socially disfunctional recluse burst into a scene of domestic bliss where a couple were enjoying a quiet dinner with some friends.

‘I don’t believe it, period’ posted BigSword99 on the ‘DoomBoyz’ forum. ‘This so-called ‘persona’ is obviously a brilliant simulated alter-ego that this computer genius has created by hacking into government hard drives and changing identity files, thereby tricking the AUTHORITIES into believing that there is this normal happy fulfilled middle-aged man who has a healthy sense of self-worth, the respect of his peers and a girlfriend…’ claimed the blogger. ‘Nope, that’s just who he really is’ explained the police.

Professor Roderick Samaras who chairs Oxford Universities ‘Black Hat’ Security Experts Group which advises the Government on international IT Terrorism threats claimed there was precedent. In 1997 a 21 year old Taiwanese hacker had also claimed he was ‘out with friends’ on a Wednesday night instead of playing Doom until he fell asleep at the keyboard as should have been the case. However by Friday he had also claimed to have a girlfriend and by Sunday was boasting of also having slept with Pamela Anderson and two Former Miss Worlds at which point he admitted he had never even spoken to someone of the opposite sex let alone kissed them.

But it would appear that Jonathan Shackleton is genuinely the first socially well-adjusted person ever to release a destructive virus onto the internet. ‘Which begs the question, if he is so normal why would he want to reap so much pointless damage?’ posed the detective heading the enquiry. ‘It turns out he created it by accident’ explained Professor Samaras. ‘A complex software error in Microsoft was triggered when this man did something no-one had ever done before. He was unhappy about a clause he had read in the software license agreement and he clicked on ‘Don’t Accept’.’

RichT

Posted: Nov 21st, 2007 by NewsBiscuit