episode 006 — The Unintended Devastation of the ILOVEYOU Virus

We've all experienced situations where we do something out of good intentions for what we think is right, but it ends up actually hurting someone or ourselves due to the unforeseen consequences of our actions. It's genuinely foggy, most frustrating thing in the entire world, hands down. But imagine what if someone did something like that. But on a global scale where it's not just one person or a few people who are impacted, but millions all around the world. Well, that's exactly what happened in this week's story. So without further ado, settle down, make yourself comfortable, grab yourself a snack because you're in for a wild ride. Welcome back, guys. My name is Andy J. And this is Hidden Stories. In February 2000, a young Filipino student at the AMA Computer College in the Philippines named Onel de Guzman, was in his final year of college. But before he and all the other students in his class could graduate, they had to finish a thesis. An extremely long and detailed research paper on a topic related to the student's field of study. For another de Guzman, this field was obviously computer science, and he immediately had an idea just right off the bat for what he wanted his to be about, an idea that for him he was particularly passionate about. For context, back then, the Internet was still this relatively new thing. It was not entirely as mainstream as it is today, but because it was so new back then, a lot of countries would actually charge by the hour for Internet use for people to actually just use the Internet, something we take for granted. In the Philippines, Internet access could cost up to $3 an hour, which was an extremely unfair price considering that the average weekly income for people in the country was less than $20. Interestingly, though, De Guzman was on the poorer end of the spectrum where he had difficulty even affording Internet access to just completed studies. He had always felt that the Internet was almost like a human right. It should be completely and utterly free for everyone, which back then was actually a view that was seen as very, very controversial. But still, deep down, he felt this view was 100% right. And as such, he decided to title his thesis email password Sender Trojan, which outlined a plan for a software that he had written that could actually script password. It could steal passwords from people who had paid for Internet access and then give it to people who hadn't paid who could not afford Internet access. In his eyes, he did not view this as stealing, though he argued that the person who had the password and had paid for the password would be receiving no less of a service if they actually share that password with someone who cannot afford it. In his thesis, he stated that his software would, quote, be helpful to a lot of people, especially Internet users, to get passwords. We spend a lot of money to pay for Internet accounts for only using a couple of hours. So this program is the main solution. Use it to steal and retrieve Internet accounts from a victim's computer. But once he had submitted this thesis to his SOC, it was unanimously rejected by the board of the AMA Computer College. The dean of his school was particularly furious, stating This is illegal, we do not produce burglars. And as a result of this decision, only Guzman, who had failed the thesis assignment, would not be allowed to graduate with the other members of his class, which understandably made him extremely frustrated and upset. He felt that his teachers were being extremely close minded and unfair and decided he was going to prove them wrong. He was going to sue them once and for all, that his thesis did work, that it could be done. But little could he ever have imagined what was going to happen next. Over the next few months, he refined the software, making it even more practical, and he began to actually test it out. He wanted to know whether people would actually click on the virus links that he would send them. He began to experiment with strangers in online chat rooms located in the Philippines, capital of Manila. He would just strike up casual conversations before sending people the Internet password scraping infected file disguised as a photo of himself. It actually worked out really well. He was able to get people's passwords without any of them even noticing. But even though he had already proved that his thesis was viable and he himself no longer had to worry about affording Internet access because he had all of these mountains of passwords like any other motivated young kid hackers, especially he wanted to just see how far he could push the limits, just how far his virus could go. Although by that point, he had only been individually targeting people one by one in the Philippines area to send this virus to. He might have wanted to maybe expand the service globally to help not only him, but everyone everywhere where people couldn't afford these internet passwords get free internet access. As such, he began further revising and building upon the original code, making two big changes. The first change was that he reprogramed the virus so that once it had actually successfully infected a victim's computer, it would send a copy of itself to every single person in that victim's email address book. By doing so, he created what's known as a worm virus, a self spreading virus with no off switch that could rapidly disseminate across the population. In theory, once it was actually out there into the web, another Guzman would have no control over where it ended up. His second big change was inspired by a need to create a much better way to entice people to click on the infected virus file. After all, random strangers online are probably not too likely to click on some random photo of a person's face as such. Another Guzman came up with an absolutely genius idea, a tactic that was not only universally applicable and globally applicable, but was nearly irresistible, impossible to resist. You see, he sent his infected female in an email titled I Love You with the Message. Kindly check the attached love letter coming from me. And oh no, they Guzman's mind. He figured that a lot of people were extremely lonely and wanted a boyfriend or girlfriend or significant other. So if he recorded this, they they would kind of have to click on it. There was I mean, they couldn't not click on it. But instead of including the love letter that he had promised in that file, he had included his password scraping, self-replicating Trojan virus, which was disguised as a text file. Now, although this idea had been formed and it was very complete, he still had no idea whether it would actually work. So again, he wanted to try to find a way to experiment in these sort of online chat rooms to see whether whether anyone would actually click on it. He wanted to see what would actually happen. And at 1 a.m. on May 4th, 2000, another Guzman sent the very first copy of his enhanced virus out to a single individual located in Singapore. He really didn't think much of it. He probably thought like before, in the first time he had used with this less refined virus, he would get a few passwords, you know, a few people would click on it, a few people wouldn't. Then no one would even realize that this virus was infecting the computer. So he just decided to take the night off and went out drinking with a friend. I don't think anyone could have ever anticipated what was going to happen next. Aaron A day later, his mum casually mentioned him that police were hunting a hacker in Manila, Philippines. Turns out some global dilemma involving some sort of virus had sparked while he was sleeping off his hangover the previous night. And in just one day it had already infected millions of people around the world and had already costed over 2 billion USD in damages. Apparently the investigators had traced the email that the script passwords had been sent to to an area very nearby to where another Guzman and his mom were living. And since his mom knew that he would occasionally dabble in viruses and hacking, she just wanted to casually check to make sure it wasn't him. She probably didn't actually think it was. But imagine the look on her face when another Guzman sort of looking through all the online articles covering the story and realized it was. Turns out after he had sent his virus to just one person in Singapore, it had been open. And we sent it open and we sent it open and we sent until it ended up in Hong Kong and then East Asia and then Europe and then America. People everywhere either thought the virus was some strange, weird joke from a friend or an actual serious declaration of love, which either way, they immediately clicked on the virus. I mean, be honest, you would click on it too. I mean, I would click on it as a result, since everyone was just clicking on and was just curious to see what this file was about. It started spreading at an insane rate. In fact, the speed of this virus spread was just entirely unprecedented, unlike anything anyone had ever seen before. To give you context, at the time, a virus named Melissa had just appeared around a year ago and was considered the fastest spreading virus ever. Melissa generated 200 copies of the virus in its first day. The ILOVEYOU virus managed to infect 8200 people in just the first 3 hours and millions of people after it dead in just 5 hours. I love you had spread across Asia, Europe and North America around 15 times faster than Melissa virus ever did, infecting over a million computers. But if the virus had just been a harmless password scraper, this wouldn't have been a problem at all. The problem was it turned out to be a whole lot worse than just a password scraper. Although we know that Guzman had intended his virus to be completely harmless as it was spreading, it was unintentionally overwriting many of its users files with copies of the virus. So basically, at the same time as it was replicating itself, the I Love You virus was simultaneously deleting large parts of a victim's hard drive, permanently altering and changing the name of thousands of potentially very important files in Asia. The virus had decimated the file systems of investment banks, public relations firms and the Dow Jones Newswire in Europe. It infected Belgium's banking system, as well as numerous companies in the Baltics, Denmark, Italy, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland. The U.K. had been hit particularly hard. The British Parliament had to shut down its entire e-mail network after the virus had infected the house of Commons entire internal communication system. The car manufacturer, Ford, was faced with a similar dilemma and had to shut down its entire e-mail system. World what? And although the virus hit, the U.S. lost and people had literally already been warned that there was this virus infecting people's emails, apparently just no one could resist against opening their love letter because the virus spread just as quickly there. At least 2000 files A.O. were either damaged or lost. A similar story unfolded at the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Veterans Health Administration, and the U.S. Social Security Administration. McAfee dot com. The makers of a best selling antivirus security software said that 60 to 80% of its Fortune 100 clients had been infected by the virus. And the virus reached almost every major military base in the country, completely crippling their communications network. The virus also hit large corporations like CWA and AT&T. It hit media outlets like Washington Post, Dow Jones and ABC News. It had state governments, school systems, credit unions and practically almost every other type of organization, forcing many of them to just take their e-mail systems offline. Even the US Pentagon headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense was hit hard by the virus and had to shut down their email systems within 24 hours. 3 million computers had been infected, but as antivirus companies were scrambling to try to immediately roll out patches, the FBI began to actually turn their attention to who was actually responsible for the entire mess. This will actually turn out to not be to heart for how extremely destructive and fast the I Love You virus was. It actually had extremely clumsy and simple code. Believe it or not, it even included the blueprint for how the virus itself could be defeated, but more importantly, included two email addresses that all of the script passwords would ultimately be sent to Spider at Super Dot Net and Mail me at Super Darknet, that which both of which were based in the Philippines. They eventually tracked these emails to a rundown public housing apartment in Manila or now their Guzman's apartment. But when police came to search and read it, they only found a couple of computer diskettes, telephones and accessories, not an actual, tangible computer itself that could without a doubt prove that there was a virus on it and that, oh, no, that Guzman was responsible. Even worse for the police. Another Guzman himself was nowhere to be found. So they just arrested his roommate, a guy named Reynold Ramona's who was actually dating another ghost, my sister Irene. It actually seemed very, very unlikely that this guy was actually responsible since he had zero programing background, but they had no one else. So they had to get someone. The police would release them just a day later because of insufficient evidence. Turns out what had happened was after his mom had told him about the police investigation in his hometown, another Guzman to his incredible shock and horror, realized this was his virus. Somehow his virus had gone from being sent to a single person to this global monster. As such, he began panicking and he immediately took his laptop and went into hiding. But when police couldn't find him, that immediately made them even more suspicious, and he immediately became their number one suspect. They were made even more certain that Uno de Guzman was their guy by the fact that the administrators at the Aimé Computer College had realized just how similar another Guzman's rejected thesis proposal was to the ILOVEYOU virus and had contacted investigators about it. These investigators begin to believe that or know that Guzman had unleashed the virus in revenge for not being allowed to graduate. But although this sort of dedicating a lot of resources to try to track him down, they simply couldn't. On May 11th, 2000, exactly one week after the ILOVEYOU virus had been unleashed into the world, only Guzman was finally felt. He had actually just willingly appeared in public to talk to the press and clarify things. After apparently hiring a lawyer who told him that was the best thing to do. But at the news conference, another Guzman having always been very shy and introverted, did not say much of anything at all. I mean, just think about it. The entire past week had been a complete nightmare for him. He had gone from being a normal kid. He was about to graduate it and start the rest of his life to just being a wanted fugitive and having to go on the run. He was extremely terrified. All he had wanted to do was what he thought was the right thing. Make the Internet free for everyone. He had never anticipated causing all this chaos and damage. And now there are people saying he should deserve life in prison or worse. Throughout the entire news conference, he was wearing dark sunglasses and was covering his mouth with a handkerchief. To mask is fear and anxiety while speaking to the reporters. But still, his most common answer. The questions were simply no comment and his only real answer was when someone asked him whether he might have been responsible for the virus, which he replied. It is possible. But after just 30 minutes and little progress having been made, his lawyer called the news conference to an end, explaining that his client had a weak heart and that his head was aching. His lawyer also said, quote, He's not really aware that the act imputed to him, was done by him. He did not even know that the actions on his part would really come to the results which have been reported. Shortly after the conference, another Guzman was summoned by police and investigators for questioning. Turns out they actually couldn't even arrest him because back then the Philippines actually had no specific laws that prohibited the spread of computer viruses. And since another Guzman had taken his computer from his apartment, investigators and police officers actually had zero hard evidence linking him to the actual crime. There was nothing they could do but just taken the court and hope for the best. As the trial went on to spend, a lot of people rooting for another Guzman to be convicted and hoping he would be punished for his actions. For many other people around the world, the poor working class especially. He was a hero for his fellow students at a computer college. He was an absolute legend. Can you imagine they were able to penetrate the Pentagon? One student said. Another said, This has made us proud. We didn't imagine that an email student would be able to do that. But in the end, the Philippines Department of Justice found that the charges brought upon by the prosecutors were not sufficiently backed up with evidence, and there was also no law to even charge them now they could summon under. As such, the investigators dismissed all the charges and he was allowed to go as a free man. Throughout the entire trial, he had only confessed that he had been the one to write the code for the virus, but not the one who had actually sent it out and started its spread. But despite his victory, life after the trial was tougher. Now that Guzman. Four months after the events unfolded, he couldn't even sit at a computer without experiencing severe anxiety. For someone who is quite a reserved as he was the international media coverage and everyone recognizing him everywhere he went even after the trial, made life almost like a living hell for him. He was incredibly scared and traumatized by it. And some of this trauma plus, even now, to this day, once all of the hype and news coverage surrounding the I Love You virus had finally died down, only Guzman had apparently just disappeared off the face of the earth. Despite numerous journalists and media corporations trying to locate him and find out the truth about the story, every lead was a dud. He had truly gone off the radar, and eventually they all give up. But in April 2019, almost 20 years later, a British author named Jeff Waite became determined to uncover the real story. After more than a year of researching on online forums and visiting the Philippines area, he was finally able to actually locate Uno de Guzman, who was now working as a phone technician and repairman at his own tiny stall at a shopping mall in Manila. Although he had received several job offers, both at home and abroad following the I Love You virus disaster, including at least one Silicon Valley company. Apparently none of those had actually worked out. But to just surprise another Guzman, who was now 44, was apparently very open to finally sharing his side of the story. In fact, just interview with him is the only reason that we now know the full story that if outlined in this video, well, now that Guzman admitted for the first time ever that he and him alone had been the one to at least I love you virus into the world. He said he never intended for it to have spread globally and that he regrets even reading the virus as well as the damage it could has caused to both others and himself. When asked about the I Love You idea and the title for his emails, another Guzman said, quote, I figured out that many people want a boyfriend. They want each other and they want love. So I called it that. As Jeff White puts it, his attack succeeded and became a global menace because he hit upon the one thing sought by everyone on the planet. Love. Even today, the I Love You virus remains one of the most damaging, rapidly spreading and furthest reaching viruses of all time. Over 50 million computers were infected in total up to 10% of all Internet and connected computers around the world at the time. And in the end, more than 10 billion U.S. dollars in total were needed to remove the virus everywhere and repair everything. All because we humans are apparently a lot more lonely than we think we are. With that being said, I hope you found this week's story interesting. If you're new here, my name is Andy Jiang and I tell very bizarre, true stories that are often completely unreal. I personally guarantee you that every single story I cover from here on out will be just as fascinating as this week's. So stick with me. I'll see you guys soon.