Interview with Coke
by *-Zine

Coke, try to introduce yourselves ....

Hehe.. Well My handle is CoKe, comes from Coca Cola, not from cocaine.. :) It's my first and only handle. Good enough ? :)

So, the next question, really difficult one: When did you start to do somethin' with computerz ?

Phew.. I was 10 or so when I got my first PC.. 8088 XT with Hercules graphics card... Since most of the games were CGA only I started to code in BasicA and GwBasic to write my own games... :) That makes 13 years now

The coder was born.... but, in my humble opinion, the gamez and virii 're kinda different,or am I not right ?

Of course. But I wrote my first "virus" in QuickBasic 4.0 some years later... On execution it got the current EXE name from commandline, did a shell "dir >file.txt", opened that, and overwrote the EXE's in current directory with a copy of itself..heh

Soundz like good start, but to go resident in HLL is right difficult task. So you have to switch to the right language - to the assembler...

Yeah.. I was too limited in Basic, so after a while, I switched to C... And to make some small routines faster, I used a bit of assembler to speed things up...

So your destiny was about become assebler xpert and viruz coderz after all the switching ....

Yeah... I always found viruses quite fascinating.. Biological AND computer viruses.. So I grabbed some interrupt list (Not Ralphies), TASM, and started writing a non-ow com infector.. That actually took me 2 weeks of non-stop (night)work.. Another week later, I wrote a re mover for it, since my friends playing and copying everything from my system got all infected.. hehe

I know that situation. Non-ow com infectorz are good start for a coder, but you didn't stop at this level of code i know... And that nice story with remover ... Didn't you think of launching some kind of AV biz ?

My first EXE infector was months later.. I first had to get Internet.. There I found an IR mag, called up their HQ, and got in touch with The Unforgiven and Metal Militia.. So I got more and more info, and got into work for my first EXE infector.. :) At that time I sent all my sources to Metal Milita, to discuss them over.. He was an idol at that time.. I thought about becoming AV for a time, but quickly realized that the AV was a commercial thingy, and directed by a few ppl. So I dropped the idea again... Especially after I got in touch with qark

Qark is (was?) really very productive coder, and of course, VLAD member. And to code alone, without beeing in any group is not such a big fun....

Exactly.. From the IR HQ I polled NukeNet, and posted some mails there... One day I had an email from qark inviting me to visit #virus, which I did.. He immediately put me on the Bot (LamerBot)... I coded some more stuff, and I gave one of them to VLAD because I wanted to join.. The votes were in my favour... fortunately.. :) hehe.. The funny thing is that the virus I gave them was buggy... But that's an old VLAD tradition.. hehe

[...I always use to say "It is not actually bug, but only some minor compactibility problem with hardware... :)"...]

So you landed in VLAD. How was the feeling of being member of such elite bunch of geekz

I was VERY surprised... Because I became a VLAD member some weeks after I applied for IR membership.. I got refused because I was non-Swede (No kiddin').. That depressed me alot.. :) Becoming a VLAD member was something I didn't even dare to dream about.. :) I remember the day when votes were finished, and Metabolis said on #virus : "CoKe is now a VLAD member"... Guess that was one of my happiest days.. :)

And can you say, why is the true reason of vlad's dead ?

First of all VLAD is _NOT_ dead...

??? all the people 're saying "VLAD is dead and issue #7 was goodbye issue...

That's not correct. There will be a VLAD #8... 100%...

That means ....????

Well it means there will be a VLAD #8... :)

And who is continuing in the tradition ?

Darkman, me and [XXX] heheh... Qark and Quantum left VLAD because they were in the biz for too long I guess... hey both did a remarkable work, so I guess they earned that pause. :-)

Let's back to the main topic, the viruses. What's your best virus, what's your most favourite virus ... And what virus ,in your opinion, was somewhat innovative in the last time ?

I like all my viruses, and have absolutely no favourites.. Each virus is a mirror of my knowledge at that time, so I like them all.. I think my most innovative is Obscurum which is a COM/EXE stealth/res/poly that has got some neat tricks to hide..

And some really good viruses by other authorz ?

I think the most impressive virus of all time is BIZATCH, not because it was done by a fellow VLAD member.. Bizatch kicked Bill's ass.. :)

I agree, but all the AV humbug about naming it Boza was really dis gusting.

Yes. I still don't quite understand why that shit.. Probabaly some kinda revenge.. A really LOW level revenge..

BIZATCH has shown, that W95 is piece of shit, but actually, we all knew it for a long time. So now i wolud like to ask you about your planz for the future. As coder and of cos also in general... new OSes, new viruses, new trendz ...

Yes.. I loved OS/2, but due to a lack of software, I almost HAD to switch to WIN95, just like thousands of other users... I hate Bill for that.. OS/2 was much better, and WIN95 only made it because of a HUGE publicity work by Mickeysoft.. My future.. Oh my... I'll do more viruses, and we'll try to get VLAD up again.. :)

Microsoft, how can be something good, if it is produced by someone with small and not hard (e.g dick :)... btw, we have here such a club - M$-haterz and ALT-F4 club

I like that ALT-F4 club.. hehe where can I join ? :)

Would you like to contribute to greetingz section and to fuck you section ?

Greetings to Qark, Metabolis, MMIR, TUIR, Blonde/IR and Skeeve. Fuck them go to : All the lame irc-warriors.. Oh yeah .. and greetings to Sokrates aswell.. :)

Okay , wish you good luck and good in yuor work.

Thanks.. :) And don't forget.. VLAD is not dead... :) I'd be grateful if you could email your mag to me..