The San Diego Union was an awful paper, Steve thought, and the evening paper was even worse. So he got copies of the New York City Times when possible, either at a newsstand, borrowed from yesterday's Times reader or from the library. Nice to get a real perspective on the world. This Sunday he spent the $4.00 to get his own new, uncrumpled and unread copy of his revered paper, all thirty four pounds of it. Alone. Peace. Reading by the condo pool an article caught his eye. Steve remembered a story he had heard about a hacker who had invaded and single handedly stopped INTERNET, a computer network that connected together tens of thousands of computers around the country. * * * * * Government Defense Network Halted by Hacker by Scott Mason, New York City Times Vaughn Chase, a 17 year old high school student Galbraith High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan was indicted today on charges that he infected the nationwide INTERNET network with a computer virus. This latest attack upon INTERNET is reminiscent of a similar incident launched by Robert Morris of Cornell University in November, 1988. According to the Computer Emergency Response Team, a DARPA spon- sored group, if Mr. Chase had not left his name in the source code of his virus, there would have been no way to track down the culprit. A computer virus is a small software program that is secretly put into a computer, generally designed to cause damage. A virus attaches itself to other computer programs secretively. At some time after the parasite virus program is 'glued' into the comput- er, it is reawakened on a specific date or by a particular se- quence of events. Chase, though, actually infected INTERNET with a Worm. A Worm is a program that copies itself, over and over and over, either filling the computer's memory to capacity or slowing down its operation to a snail's pace. In either case, the results are devastating - effectively, the computer stops working. Chase, a math wizard according to his high school officials, released the Worm into Internet in early August with a detonation date of September 1, which brought thousands of computers to a grinding halt. INTERNET ties together tens of thousands of computers from the Government, private industry, universities and defense contrac- tors all over the country. Chase said he learned how to access the unclassified computer network from passwords and keys dis- tributed on computer Bulletin Boards.