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THE BULGARIAN THREAT

meeting. Vesko published his comments in the magazine Komputar za vas. ‘The author of the Eddie virus is writing to you,’ the Dark Avenger began. ‘I have been reading your pieces of stupidity for quite a long time but what I heard in your lecture was, to put it boldly, the tops.’ The virus writer went on to complain about Vesko’s critique of his programming skills. Then he added: ‘I will tell you that my viruses really destroy information but, on the other hand, I don’t turn other people’s misfortunes into money. Since you [get paid to] write articles that mention my programs, do you not think I should get something?’

Virus writing is not a lucrative field. The Dark Avenger had once before alluded to getting paid for his skills, in a message to a local bulletin board operator, when he had suggested, none too hopefully, that ‘maybe someone can buy viruses’. So far as is known, he has never sold any of his bugs.

In 1990 Vesko put together a psychological profile of the Dark Avenger, a compilation of all the known facts about him: his taste in music, his favourite groups, his supposed interest in the Princess of Wales, his need for money and so on. From his letter Vesko gleaned he had been a student at Sofia University and, from sarcastic remarks he had made about Vesko’s engineering degree, that he was either a mathematics or science student (there is a traditional rivalry between engineering and the other two faculties). He sent the profile to seven former students at the University, asking if they knew anyone who fitted the criteria. All seven replied, Vesko says, and all seven mentioned the same name – that of a young man, then twenty-three, a programmer in a small, private software house in Sofia.

Vesko didn’t turn him in. Even had he wanted to, there was little point: writing viruses is not illegal in Bulgaria.

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