10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 7

Wanked? Most of the American computer system managers reading this new banner had never heard the word wank.

Who would want to invade NASA's computer systems? And who exactly were the Worms Against Nuclear Killers? Were they some loony fringe group? Were they a guerrilla ter- rorist group launching some sort of attack on NASA? And why 'worms'? A worm was a strange choice of animal mascot for a revolutionary group. Worms were the bottom of the rung. As in 'as lowly as a worm'. Who would chose a worm as a symbol of power?

As for the nuclear killers, well, that was even stranger. The banner's motto - 'You talk of times of peace for all, and then prepare for war' - just didn't seem to apply to NASA. The agency didn't make nuclear missiles, it sent people to the moon. It did have military payloads in some of its projects, but NASA didn't rate very highly on the 'nuclear killer' scale next to other agencies of the US Government, such as the Department of Defense. So the question remained: why NASA?

And that word, 'WANKED'. It did not make sense. What did it mean when a system was 'wanked'?

It meant NASA had lost control over its computer systems.

A NASA scientist logging in to an infected computer on that Monday got the following message:

deleted file

deleted file

deleted file

deleted file

deleted file

deleted file

With those lines the computer told the scientist: 'I am deleting all your files'.

The line looked exactly as if the scientist typed in the command:

delete/log *.*