Interview with Virtual Daemon
by Cicatrix
[August 1997]

How did you start out in computers?

Hmm... Let's see... Oh yeah, I think that my first computer experience was in the 4th grade. There was a club in our town that had a computer class, so I went there. There were only HC-85 and CHIP computers (all Sinclair Spectrum). If I remember well, I think that the best computer was a Schneider with 128 KB of RAM and a floppy of god knows what capacity... :) The computer also had a printer. Damn! I used to print stuff every day there... ;)
Well, that was the first real "computer" (if I can call it that way :) I saw. The rest of them (HCs and CHIPs) had 64K memory and BASIC installed in ROM. Of course, there were a lot of games on tapes, and we used to load them with our tape recorders. Actually, that's the first thing that atracted me on computers: games.
Later, there were some expositions with computers in my town, so I went there with my father. My father worked on some old computers when he was younger, so he liked computers too. There I saw for the first time a PC (Personal Computer). Wow! It was something magic... From the minute I saw it, I knew that I'm gonna like it. The guys from the exposition were playing some games. I think that the ones I liked more were "Tom & Jerry" and "F29-Retal". The colors and the sounds were way too cool in comparation with our HC computers. So, I asked my father if he could buy me one.
After 2 years, when I was in the 7th grade, my father made me a HUGE surprise and buyed me a 8086 XT for Christmas. It was the greatest gift I could ever receive. I was so happy... :) The computer had 20 MB hard drive, 640 KB base memory (+128 KB EMS) and a Hercules monochrome display. The only things stored on it, were "Prince of Persia" and Norton Commander. So, I ended up all day playing Prince, hopeing that one day I will rescue the princess... :)
After that, I started learning DOS commands, and then later Turbo Pascal and I started programming. After makeing progresses with Pascal, I started to learn Assembler too.
After quite some time, my father buyed me a decent 586 133Mhz computer.So, I started to code in asm a lot (pascal too)... I made some kewl applications in Pascal, demos, and I even made a MOD player... After that, virii! :)

How and when did you start out in the virus scene?

Wow! Well, this is a bit more complicated then it looks... I started to collect computer viruses in the old XT dayz... :) My collection went bigger and bigger and after learning ASM, I started to do some hacks on other virii.
Anywayz, I liked the concept of a computer virus from the beginning. I guess I always wanted to write one myself. But, the true *love* for virii came when I got infected with HI-460. :) Damn! Those were some scarry times...hehehe. I had a friend who told me that a virus can blow ur computer, and I was really scared when I got infected too. I thaught that my computer is somehow dead and that my father will kill me. :) But, everything went just fine when I reached to a copy of the old traditional McAfee SCAN, who "assured" me that he removed the virus from my system. Thx fo this one John! :)) hehheheeh I guess I owe ya one! :P
Well, time passed and my collection was getting way too big for me. I was happy. And a wonderfull thing happened: I wasn't scared of virii anymore. I had quite some kewl virii in my collection including "BadSectors" (see SLAM #2) who made my life misserable for 3 weeks. The virus was makeing bad sectors on my hard drive, so I thaught that the hard drive is physically bad. :-/ heheh
Anywayz, like I said, after a while I started to do hacks with virii from my collection. Then, new ideeas poped up out of my head, and I started to make my own virii.
After quite some time, we finally got Internet access.The first thing that I searched for on Internet was "virus" on AltaVista. There I found a link to ilf. So, I went to ILF and I started to download all kind of things. When I saw how many virii/tutorials were there, I went nuts. I was kind of mad and sad then because I had to learn COM and EXE infections all by myself, by dissasembling HI and stuff like that. I didn't knew back then that there were tutorials on virus programming or other kewl stuff like virus generators...
On ILF I saw a couple of magazines and other stuff and I realised that there were other guys in the world that write viruses. I wasn't alone... So I downloaded more virii, then I dissasembled them, and then I tryed to learn something from the code.
After quite some time, one of my viruses (DownTown) spreaded like crazy through a couple of high schools in my country. The virus had a payload that said something like this: "I was born on the 4th day of the month, so wish me happy aniversary. You have been infected with DownTown (c) by Virtual Daemon". And after that the payload wiped the MBR... Well, some ppl started to know about "Virtual Daemon" and started to fear me. There were people who didn't turned on their computer in the 4th day of the month because they were scared that DownTown is gonna blow their Hard drive. Damn... ppl can be so lame. That reminds me of the old days when our computers were infected by Michelangelo and we were scared to turn them on. :)
After DownTown, I started to write more virii and I started to upload them to local BBS systems and to Internet. Anyway, my real entrance in the virus scene came up with SLAM.

Have you written viruses? If so which would you like to take credit for?

I wrote over 50 viruses, but I only released 10 or so... The rest of them were just for learning purposes. Hrmpf... credit? Neah... I don't need credit for my virii. I'm not writting them for my EGO. It's fun to write viruses so I don't need anything back.

How do you name your viruses?

Well, I don't! :) I mean, I don't use any book or algorithm to do it... :) My first 2 (real) viruses were named after 2 levels of DOOM ][. I liked the game so much, so I had to do something about it... "Downtown" and "Suburbs"
The rest of the names are from different stuff like "Paranoid" comes from Green Day's song Basket Case, "SkyWalker" from StarWars... etc, etc
Actually, I write the virus first and then I choose a name... Sometimes, I'm "inspired" from movies, songs, old stories, SF... etc

Which programming languages do you know?

Well, I know a bit from all the languages, but the langugages I know best are Assembler and Pascal. I'm also trying to learn C, but till now I don't like that much it's syntax. I may end up with Delphi soon... dunno...

What programming language do you like using the most?

Asm, aSm, asM, ASM, asm, aSM, ASm, AsM.... :)
Hehehe... neah, seriously I like to code in Assembler and in Pascal. I use Assembler for virii, and Borland Pascal for applications.

Are you a member of a VX group?

Yep. I am curently a leader of SLAM Virus Team.

Which AV software do you like/respect the most? Which the least?

Hrmpf... Well, my favourite remains F-Prot! (Go for it, Fridirik! :)
I also like to use AVP and TBAV. The rest of them are shit... I also like RAV (Romanian Anti Virus). It's an AV made by a guy from my country. It's not a mega kewl product yet but it is ok. Has some kewl heuristic stuff...

What are your goals (VX wise)?

Uhhhh.... goals? Hrmpf... well, I'm not gonna write computer viruses for all my life. I'm doing it now because it's fun and I enjoy it. Well, I have a little "dream" that concerns virii: to write a multi OS virii that can work on DOS/Win311/Win95/OS2/Linux... Could be fun! :) Well, maybe I'll do it someday.

What is your view on the continuous 'war' between VX and AV.

Well, I would like to tell ya in the first place that there is no such thing as a WAR. AV ppl are screaming all day long that they hate virus researchers because we make their life misserable. That's bullshit! If we don't exist neither do they! They earn money from our viruses, so I think they should be greatfull because we're still writting virii. If we're gonna stop writting, McAffee is gonna end up in a club washing dirty floors all day... ;) And we don't want that to happen, do we? ;-)

Where did you get you handle? What does it mean?

My handle? Oh boy... I have ABSOLUTELY no ideea! :))) It just poped up out of my head one day, so I used it. Actually, I first wanted to use "Pretorian" or something like that. I saw "The Net" with Sandra Bullock, and I loved the movie. But then, this "thing" with VD happened, so... :)
More or less, I was inspired from DOOM. There are some monsters there that are called "daemons". So, I stucked Virtual with a monster and voila! :) I wanted ppl to fear me when they heard about me, but that will never happen. I'm too kind to be a daemon... :)))

What is your view on Virus Creation software (eg. VCL, PS-MPC etc.)?

I consider that virus generators can be good and bad also. It depends on the person that is using them. If you really want to learn, then a virus generator can help you very much. I personally received about 20 e-mails from ppl who thanked me for creating OVCT. And OVCT is a OVERWRITTING VIRUS GENERATOR!!! So, what I'm tryin to say is that a good virus generator can help a lot beginners.
On the other side, virus generators are "bad". Look at all those VCL or PS-MPC variants. Geee... that sucks! There are ppl out there who practically aren't smart enough to code a shit. They are called lamers! They don't do anything else except spreading stupid virii created by virus generators.

What is your view on macro viruses vs. assembly or HLL viruses?

Well, I'm an asm guru, so I like assembly viruses. Anyway, that doesn't mean that I hate High Level Language viruses or macro ones. HLL viruses are ok, but the true power of a DOS/W95 virus lies in assembler. Anyway, look at RustBug (aka Casio) with his ASIC virii. Damn! ASIC is a version of basic or something. The guy is great! Virii in basic? Who could ever imagine that? ;)

Macro virii are just another way of makeing viruses... Many ppl say that wordbasic virii sucks, and that the coders behind them are just a bunch of lamers who just want a piece of the pie called virus scene. Actually it isn't that way. If we think a little, we can see that even the BIGGEST virus writters have tryed in the last 2 years to write at least a DOC virus. Look at Talon (RIP man!)... he was one of the best! He wrote COM/SYS/EXE/MBR/BS/stealth/poly/tunneling infectors, and he still tryed (and succeded) to discover new technics beyond DOC infections (see SLAM #2 for his article). It's true that macro virii are a lot easier to code, but that doesn't mean that macro virii sucks. Hell, macro virii are spreading even better then a COM/EXE virus, bcoz DOC's are all over the net.
So, in conclusion, I think that macro virii are as good as asm or as HLL. The ideea and the coding style is all that matters...

Have you ever confirmed one of your viruses 'in-the-wild'?

Hehehehe... Yep! 5 of my virii are out there somewhere... :) DownTown has made some high schools pretty angry, and Paranoid also. I'm now expecting any day to see them in AVP database or F-Prot's. :)
Also Suburbs and SkyWalker infected my school several times...
Anyway, you have to wait a little more, because only from now on you will see some real codes from me. :P

Which VX E-zine do you like to most? Which the least?

Well, I like our zine (damn, I made the viewer! :)... Besides that, I like all VLAD zines, old IR zines and 40Hex. Also, this year there were some new groups popping up with kewl zines like 29A's zine or Xine from IkX.
The zines I don't like are the ones that are written in another language. I mean damn, the zines are probably very good but I can't understand a shit. I know, I know... asm is an international language but when I first get a zine, I read the editorial. If I don't understand it, I will probably erase the zine... :-/

Which individual or what group do you like/respect in the VX world?

Hmm... It's hard to say... I respect a lot of ppl for their work, people like: Dark Avenger, Dark Angel, StormBringer, Talon, QuantumG, Qark, Nightmare Joker, The Unforgiven, Rajaat, Cicatrix (that's right... u! :), Mnemonix, Black Baron and many others.. . It will take a whole page to write them all. I respect everyone that diserves respect, everyone that worked hard in order to discover new virus technics, everyone that kept the scene alive during all these years.
I also respect some groups like: Phalcon/Skism, VLAD and Nuke for their work. They were the first, they invented a lot of kewl things, so we should all respect them.
People I like? Damn... I like a lot of ppl for their writting style or just for being kewl. I wont give you any names because I may forget some of them...:)

In the AV world?

Well, I respect Fridirik Skulason bcoz I like his work, and Eugene Kaspersky for his AVP.

Which individual or what group do you like/respect outside the VX or the AV world?

Wow, wow, wow! :) Puzzled question, man... damn... I like all my friends, my mom, my dad, my cousins, damn I like my whole familly... :)

What is your view on destructive payloads in viruses?

I *absolutely* disagree with destructive payloads in viruses. I admit that one of my first virii (DownTown) was messing up with the boot sector, but after that nothing! Every lamer can write a 20 lines asm code that can fuck up an computer, but not everone can write a decent COM/EXE infector!

Do you think there is such a thing as a 'good' virus?

Well, depends on how you see it... For me, all the viruses are good, bcoz I learn something new every day... something about the OS I work on (here goes a BIG FUCK to Microsoft for hidding their undocumented interrupts for so long), something about my computer, etc...
For other ppl, all the viruses are bad bcoz they infect their systems... People usually fear viruses... Biological or computer, none wants to have them! So, it's pretty hard to explain to someone that a virus can be 'good' in some way...

What do you do in 'real' life?

Well, I'm just an ordinary student (math-physics profile) with a lot of friends. I like to play basketball and football a lot. I like to watch SF or action movies, comedies, horror.... etc. I listen music a lot. I'm a techno raver rapper maniac, but I also like punk music (Green Day, OffSpring, H-Blocks etc). I also have a great familly who loves me and some kewl neighbours. :) When I'm not hanging out with my friends, I stay home and I code virii or other stuff. I play a lot Quake (ID Software RULZ!) and Nintendo Games (I have the Nintendo emulator from RustBug :).
I also like to hang out with girls, but since I broke up with my last girlfriend (4 months now) I didn't do it that much. Well, anyway school beggins in september, so I'm gonna chase girls again! :)
When I'm not doing all the things above, I'm "trying" to learn for school. I wanna go to a university, so I have to learn for my exams (there's so less time to do it :()...

Do people outside the VX scene know what you do (parents,girlfriend etc.)?

Well, my father knows that I'm writting computer viruses and my mother doesn't care about computers so much... Also there are some of my friends who know that I write virii. Some of them are ... let's say happy... bcoz whenever they need something, they know that I can help them. :)
The thing is that we don't have any laws concering virus writting here in Romania, so I don't have to worry about anything. Anyway, I think that virus spreading is a crime (if we can call it that way) not virus writting.

Do you do other computer stuff outside VX (Hacking, phreaking,warez etc.)?

Well, I was pretty much involved in hacking and cracking, but know I don't have time for that anymore. I used to hack Novell and Linux... but after I became Network SysAdm I didn't cared that much about hacking. Anywayz, I still have some hacker skills, so whatch out! :))) hehehe

Should viruses be illegal? Is there a difference between creation and spreading?

I already replayed to this question above... Viruses can't be illegal! Writting viruses is like writting games or applications. Viruses are computer programs not real biological ones. Anyway, counting that there are a lot of destructive viruses out there, there had to be a law concering them. BUT, the main point is that only by spreading virii you get infected. So, if we write them and putting them into a mag on the net it's NO CRIME! The user takes all the responsability when he or she downloads the zine. And we're also keep saying that in the editorial, so if (s)he gets infected it's NOT our fault! The virii are just some inofensive asm sources... So, if there has to be any laws about this, it should be about spreading virii not about writting them!

Describe the perfect virus.

There is no such thing and never will be! A perfect virus can't exist, there's no reason for it to exist. All the viruses are good in their own ways. Anywayz, if we have to think to something perfect, it should be a DOS/OS2/Linux/Win95/WinNT/etc virus that can infects EXE/COM/BAT/SYS/MBR/BS/etc... filles! But since that will never happen... :)

What is your view on Windows (95)

Windoze sucks! All the people are buying it just because Bill is selling them lies. "The perfect OS", "the best solution to your problems", etc... that sucks! Someone has to stop this! Bill is one of the richest man on the earth! And besides that, all Microsoft programs are buggy...

What is your advice for people just starting out?

Get more tuts (hell, get my tuts :) as possible, and use virus generators. Start with overwritters, then COM, then EXE... and soon you will be able to write your own virus.

Where can you be reached if at all?

Via e-mail at virtual_daemon@hotmail.com, or on undernet IRC channels #virus and #slam.

Any greets?

Yeah.. I'd like to greet the following guys (in no order):

- Nightmare Joker: thx for being my friend... SLAM rulz! :)
- RustBug: thx for hanging around all day with me on IRC! :)
- all the ppl from SLAM: lurve ya all!
- IndianOwl (meth): Where's my little little indian? ;)))
- Int13h: thx for the codes dude... keep sending stuff to me...:)
- Reptile: idem Int13h :))
- Bozo: keep releasing ur Xine! it roqs so far!
- Coke: if u don't release #8 I'M GONNA KILL YA!!! :)
- Unk: ur coding style roqs! Btw... start to comment ur virii or else I wont understand a shit! :->
- LovinGod: wwwwwhhheeeeerrrreeee aaaaarrrreeee yyyoooouuuuu? ;>
- Rajaat: I don't know ya, but I'd like to meet ya
- MrSandman: If you were in vacation here, in Romania, and U didn't tell me, you are dead meat! :)
- 29A crew: keep up the work with ur zine and move ur asses more often on undernet... ;)
- The Unforgiven: idem Rajaat
- and to all others I forgot right now...

Any other comments?

Thx for the interview and good luck with VDAT!

Short responses to the following names or words:

- Dark Avenger

- one of the first (and the best) virus writters. His virus, Eddie was pretty kewl back then!

- Dark Angel

- one of my idols... :) Phalcon/Skism was the best! His tutes helped me a lot in learning SYS infections and MBR/BS. He kicked asses back then...

- Sarah Gordon

- a wannabe reporter

- Fridrik Skulason

- main coder of F-Prot AntiVirus, one of the best AV programs out there.

- Alan Solomon

- main coder of Dr.Solomon's Toolkit, an antivirus product

- WordBasic/VBA

- ask NJ about that... :)

- VDAT

- the coolest thing that could ever happen to the virus scene!:)

- VSUM

- a very big database with wrong informations about virii

- Assembler

- my preferate programmin language

- NuKE

- one of the first virus groups, had some kewl members, Nowhere man released the first virus generator VCT

- Phalcon Skism

- one of the BEST virus groups. DA, Hellraiser and StormBringer were very good virus writters.

- VLAD

- also one of the BEST virus groups (if not the BEST)

- Immortal Riot

- kewl virus group, IR zine was very kewl back then

- Trident

- also a very kewl virus group

- Polymorphic

- the best method to hide your code from others eyes

- Stealth

- another kewl way to hide ur code... better then polymorphism for lamers, worst then polymorphism for avers :)

- I hate:

AV people who ruin my code, and make money off my work

- I love:

my life, coding, my familly, my friends

- Internet

- the best place to meet and exchange ideas

- IRC

- Definatly a place to see whats new in the virus scene :)

- Sex

- aehmmm.... what can I say? it surely feels good... :)

- World War 3

- I hope I wont catch it... :)

How did you get into SLAM?

Well, that's a very long story... It all began last year when I signed God@rky's guestbook. Time passed, and I ended up in a morning with a mail from a guy named Cyborg. He told me that he is a virus writter and that he saw my name on God@rky's guestbook. After talkin with Cyborg for a while (a couple of weeks) via e-mail he told me that he was a SLAM member. I heard about SLAM and I read SLAM Special and SLAM #1. It was a macro coding group, but I didn't care that much then. I didn't knew if other groups were "addopting" new members, so I send them a membership form along with my DownTown virus. After 3 or 4 days, NJ e-mailed me and told me that I'm good enough to join SLAM. So... I did... :)

How is SLAM organized?

Curently, SLAM has 2 leaders: me and Nightmare Joker. We're running things in the group and we're organizing the zine. I'm a asm coder and NJ is a wordmacro coder. The rest of the members are: asm coders (Dark Chakal, L0ne_Rider, Stealth Warrior, Death Knight, Cyborg), wordmacro coders (DarkSide1, Aurodreph, HyperLock, CyberYoda), pascal coder (Lord of nAvAn) and the BEST ASIC (asic=cross between basic/asm) coder (RustBug).

What part of the world do you come from?

Romania, Eastern Europe...

Will you release any other virus creators like OVCT?

I am curently workin on VCT (Virus Construction Toolkit), but I'm not sure if I'll ever finish it or release it. Anywayz if I'll ever do it, VCT will be the best virus generator in the world. It will make COM/EXE/SYS/BAT/MBR/BS virii stealth/poly/tunneling... Aehm...Well, till then... :)

What is in your future and the future of SLAM?

Well I will continue to code virii till I will get bored... and many time will pass till that will happen... :)
Future of SLAM? We will continue to write computer viruses and we will keep releasing our zine till our readers will get sick of it... :)

Will SLAM increase the number of members?

We're 13 now... black number... :) we received about 10 membership forms after Slam #3 from ppl that wanna join us. Hrmpf... dunno if we're still gonna receive new members. Too many members can be the end of a group. I guess we'll just have to wait and see...

Will SLAM go into other scenes except VX? (hacking, etc.)

There was a moment when a group of hackers (they were pretty elites) wanted to join us under the name SLAM, but we didn't "make the link". Till now, we're just virus oriented... Except me, dunno if there are any other hackers in SLAM... So, if we're gonna go into hacking, we will have to accept new members. And like I said, too many members could mean the end of a group!