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THE BULGARIAN THREAT

inside a year from the relatively harmless Yankee Doodle to the more destructive Eddie and then to Nomenklatura – which was deadly.

Nomenklatura's attack on the House of Commons library had zapped data in the statistical section. Some of this information was irrecoverable. From the House of Commons, Nomenklatura began its journey through other sectors of the British government carried – or so it's thought – on diskettes from the library. The virus travelled slowly, popping up first in one department, then spreading to another. If it was wiped out in one office, it would soon reappear elsewhere. It has not been completely eradicated to this day.

Alan Solomon, the computer security specialist, is convinced he knows who wrote Nomenklatura. It was the Dark Avenger, he says.

In November 1988 stories about Robert Morris, Jr., and the Internet virus (or worm) were published in Bulgaria. The news, already exaggerated in the American press, became even more fanciful by the time it was retold in Bulgarian newspapers.

The worm excited the curiosity of two young men, Teodor Prevalsky and Vesselin (Vesko) Bontchev. They had been close friends for many years: they had been at university together and had served side-by-side as officers in the Bulgarian army. Aged twenty-seven, they were both engineering graduates and were both from professional families, which made them part of the privileged class in Bulgaria at the time.

The Bulgarian computer industry was in full swing by then, but the country had few uses for the new machines. In response, a magazine was started to show readers how to do something constructive on their largely redundant computers. Called Komputar za vas ('Computer for You'), the magazine needed technical writers who could explain how the machines worked. Vesko, provided with desk space at the magazine's offices, found that he could double his income of £30 a month by writing articles. By Bulgarian standards his salary was already high; with the additional income from the magazine, he was comparatively wealthy.

When news of the Internet worm broke, Vesko and his friend Teodor discussed it at length. For Vesko, it would be the inspiration

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