Page 1, The New York Times

It was uproariously funny. Stoll, the most famous hacker- catcher in the world, had been japed! It was the funniest thing Erik had heard in weeks.

But it was not nearly so amusing as what Erik told Phoenix later about the *New York Times*. The paper had published an article on 19 March suggesting a hacker had written some sort of virus or worm which was breaking into dozens of computers.

‘Listen to this,’ Erik had said, reading Phoenix the lead para- graph, “‘A computer intruder has written a program that has entered dozens of computers in a nationwide network in recent weeks, automatically stealing electronic documents containing users’ passwords and erasing files to help conceal itself.”’

Phoenix was falling off his chair he was laughing so hard. A program? Which was automatically doing this? No. It wasn’t an automated program, it was the Australians! It was the Realm hackers! God, this was funny.

‘Wait – there’s more! It says, “Another rogue program shows a widespread vulnerability”. I laughed my ass off,’ Erik said, struggling to get the words out.

‘A rogue program! Who wrote the article?’

‘A John Markoff,’ Erik answered, wiping his eyes. ‘I called him up.’

‘You did? What did you say?’ Phoenix tried to gather himself together.

‘“John,” I said, “You know that article you wrote on page 12 of the *Times*? It’s wrong! There’s no rogue program attacking the Internet.” He goes, “What is it then?” “It’s not a virus or a worm,” I said. “It’s PEOPLE.”’

Erik started laughing uncontrollably again.

‘Then Markoff sounds really stunned, and he goes, “People?” And I said, “Yeah, people.” Then he said, “How do you know?” And I said, “Because, John, I KNOW.”’

Phoenix erupted in laughter again. The *Times* reporter obvi- ously had worms on his mind, since the author of the famous Internet worm, Robert T. Morris Jr, had just been tried and convicted in the US. He was due to be sentenced in May.