Clinton Haines

Clinton 'Clint' Haines (born 10 April 1976 - died 10 April 1997 in St Lucia, Queensland, Australia) 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 Tax 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 Telstra (then called 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 St 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

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 April 28, 1997 The hacker who burned too bright Robotham, Julie. The Sydney Morning Herald
  2. ↑ May 28, 1995 Computer underground Digest Volume 7 : Issue 43. ISSN 1004-042X
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 March 07, 1995 Take a pill and don't call us in the morning The Sydney Morning Herald
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 May 05, 1997 Death of the virus king Robotham, Julie. The Sydney Morning Herald
  5. ↑ October 27, 1998 The hacking hall of fame Lowe, Sue. The Sydney Morning Herald
  6. ↑ Julie Robotham (1997-05-06). "Live fast, die young: Obsessed by viruses and heroin". Sydney Morning Herald.
  7. ↑ F-Secure Virus Descriptions : Memorial