ALAN PEAT
THE SA freight industry appears to have escaped relatively lightly as the love bug - a computer virus which cost international businesses an estimated US$30-billion in the days immediately following its release on an unsuspecting world - bit cyber-networks worldwide.
While numbers of PCs in freight companies were infected and cost IT experts time to disinfect (some companies were reported to be on crash-down for up to two days) the irritation caused by the bug appears greater than the financial damage.
And FTW was part of one of the cyber-circles in which the bug circulated.
On the afternoon of May 4, senior correspondent Alan Peat received a call at his home office from Arnold Garber, m.d. of Compu-Clearing.
Apologetically, Garber confessed to being the innocent disseminator of a computer virus which had that day infected his personal PC. It had latched onto Garber's Outlook Express address book - And had sent to all the As and some of the Bs before I could stop it, he told FTW.
Checking his incoming e-mail, Peat saw the I Love You caption on the Garber message, and was able to delete it before it wriggled further into the guts of his system.
Less than an hour later, a similar love note arrived from Diane Badenhorst of Birkart International.
Enquiry of Birkart's IT specialist, Chris Venter, revealed that the bug had originally arrived in their system in the Cape Town branch.
Birkart had also contributed its own distribution effort in the chain before Venter - along with his virus killer programmes and re-installation procedures - had managed to clean up the bug's droppings.
FTW editor, Joy Orlek, also had a lover. Awaiting an e-mail from Portnet, she received I Love You from.....you guessed it - Portnet head office.
Fortunately it did no damage, but revealed another part of the bug culture.
It has, Garber told FTW, a preference for Microsoft programmes.
If you didn't use Explorer, you weren't affected.
In the meantime, a virus warning message reached FTW from Kuehne & Nagel.
Yes, said K&N's Ryan Searle, four-or-five of our machines were infected, but we soon got it under control.
However, no reports of catastrophe so far. Why?
A most likely reason, according to Roger Shaw, m.d. of freight system specialists, CSS, was the advance warning the SA freight industry had received before the bug was released on them.
I think it was aimed in such a way that - after its release in the Philippines - it targeted Asia, the US and Europe before it filtered down here.
By the time it fed down here, a lot of us had already been alerted. And, forewarned, anybody who knows about computers would be able to cure it.
But what about anti-virus programmes - shouldn't they stop these bugs before they get into PC systems?, asked FTW.
It's impossible to prevent a virus that isn't already known, said Garber.
But - if it cost billions around the globe - doesn't it cast a shadow of doubt on the integrity of the Internet, and the growing business dependence on the system?
The ups-and-downs of the Internet are much more up than down, said Garber. And it has, after all, brought technology to the masses - and at a cost they can afford.
What we are going to see in the future is the computer fundis devising something which is even cleverer - and more resistant to the virus problems that it currently faces.
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