Clinton Haines
Clinton Haines | |
|---|---|
| Born | 10 April 1976 Brisbane, Australia |
| Died | 10 April 1997 (aged 21) Saint Lucia, Queensland, Australia |
| Other names | Harry McBungus TaLoN Terminator-Z |
| Occupation | Hacker |
Clinton 'Clint' Haines (10 April 1976 – 10 April 1997) was an Australian computer hacker. He was also known as Harry McBungus, TaLoN and Terminator-Z.[1]
Haines attended Ipswich Grammar School. He wrote his first computer virus in assembly language using the A86 assembler in the early 1990s.
Haines was responsible for the viruses NoFrills, Dudley,[2] X-Fungus/PuKE, Daemaen and 1984. NoFrills infected the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).[3] It was described by anti-virus company manager Len Grooves as "totally unimpressive". Grooves added: "This is a very average virus...It could have been written by any first-year computer student. In fact, it had serious design faults and programming bugs. I would not hire the writer."[3] Nevertheless, the ATO decided to turn off all of its 15,000 computers until the virus was eradicated, to avoid the infection spreading.[4]
His virus Dudley also infected the computers of Telecom Australia), shutting down their system in two hours.[4] The Dudley virus was a variant of the No Frills code with the text [Oi Dudley!][PuKE].
Haines died from a heroin overdose in 1997,[5][6] in Saint Lucia, Brisbane,[4] celebrating his 21st birthday. At the time of his death he was completing an undergraduate science degree in microbiology at the University of Queensland.[4] A computer virus was written in his honour (RIP Terminator-Z by VLAD).[1] The virus, named 'Memorial', pays acknowledgement to Haines by placing a message on an infected user's screen.[7]
References
[edit | edit source]- ^ a b Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ 28 May 1995 Computer underground Digest Volume 7 : Issue 43. Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ a b Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ a b c d Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ F-Secure Virus Descriptions : Memorial