European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 8, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Magazine defusing computer time bombs by Sid Moody associated press he bad news is that computers gel diseases. Tho worse news is thai when they do inc illness can spread at the Speed of Light leaving everything trom household accounts to business Dala to Power plants to defense systems fatally stricken. Apocalypse now i s no just a movie there s a potential fish that matches the destruct ivaness by a nuclear attack warns Donn Parker an authority on computer crime of sri International in Menlo Park Calif. In Only a Lew snort years computers have become the Bedrock of How the United Stales and. Increasingly the developed world operate computers handle halt a trillion dollars in .  a Day they guide pianos through he air and Bach to land they Monitor Hospital patients predict weather run phone systems Plant crops and Check the results out of supermarkets store any Dala imaginable your Bank balance. The National debt. When a computer gels soil ills a whole system can catch pneumonia. Computer technology advances almost daily. So do the techniques of computer Security. So do the throats of someone Witting or unwilling Monk of wrenching whole systems. Computers gel sick or inc same reasons humans catch flu or cd. They interconnect. The illnesses Bear the same familiar names that attack people Worms bugs viruses. They work the same Way invading a system and replicating or infiltrating until inc body is overwrite  worm broadly believed to have been planted last november by Cornell Grad student Robert Morris within hours fouled up some 5,000 interconnected computers in a re tense Liniver Sily network. Estimates of the damage done and the Man hours spent to repair ii run from $20 Mitton to $95 million. The origins of computer disease vary begin Volfi to Hacker the computer Junkie who spends every waking minute bopping around in computer land exploring its Laski nations. Then come the mischievous then inc malicious and then the outright criminal the embezzler the corporate spy what Parker Lears is Tho arrival eventually by the ice Aorist. Some Case histories of computer illness Ben does damage to computer data in California has he violated Calif Ornia criminal Laws against unauthorized Access la s like a Guy upstream dumping pollutants in a Creek says Ingraham the Guy downstream who Walers his Slock in the Creek has a Case. But our National Laws arc inadequate " computer technology moves go fast the Laws lag behind it s like  Days of the old West. Cattlemen moved in and grazed their herds on open Range  hackers used to  in computer land. Then the sheep men arrived and put up fences Range wars resulted until the Law could set guidelines. We Don t teach breaking and entering Iri architectural Schoof  f Leach aspects of cracking in Grade  says Ingraham. It s the same thing " Parker believes schoolchildren should be Laughl computer ethics us As they Aie Laughl computer use we  education because there is a obligation to Leli kids what the Law is before we Send them out on the  for the criminal to whom ethics Are immaterial the computer has been a Bonanza today you can commit a crime in Berkeley from Oslo if you wanted Ingraham says Jesse and Frank James had to have horses and Coll a end a bag for the swag to Rob a Bank today you Don t even have to be present at Iho Bank the loot s on tape. The technology has exploded to the Point. Parker continued on Page 14 the stars and stripes Page 13