It was early spring 1999. The Nasdaq was soaring. Three sentences on a cocktail napkin could nab $30 million in venture capital. And Melissa became an overnight sensation, an Internet starlet and pioneer. Melissa brought the underground virus scene to the mainstream. She brashly took any old Word file and forwarded it to 50 people in your Outlook address book, appending her viral payload.
But Melissa's stay at the top of the virus charts was brief. Within six months of making it onto CNN and Page One of The New York Times, Melissa found herself out of the spotlight and out of work. A new generation of viruses, tantalizing the public with Anna Kournikova and J.Lo, won the hearts and hard drives of the masses. Meanwhile, Melissa went from starlet to has-been.
Though Melissa is mostly forgotten by a world long since immunized against her charms, CSO tracked her down, residing on a 6-year-old PC, sold on eBay for $11 last year to a man who gave it to his 81-year-old granny who uses it as a calculator. When we found her, Melissa was still trying to forward infected Word files, but without much success
They owe all their success to me. You write that down. There's been what, 80,000 or so viruses since then? But [points at herself defiantly] they remember my name. Who'll remember Kakworm in five years? No one!
[Pulls paper bag off bottle, breathes into it.] But you know what? It's better this way. Melissa? She never sold out. Melissa stayed true to her artistic integrity. Melissa is an original. She'll be in the history books
Do you feel responsible for the computer virus epidemic, which has periodically disabled massive numbers of computers worldwide, affected human productivity and caused billions of dollars in untold damage?
Uh, hello! Ever heard of a patch, you morons?