Clinton Haines

Clinton 'Clint' Haines (born 10 April 1976 - died 10 April 1997 in St Lucia, Queensland, Australia) was an Australian computer hacker. He was also known as Harry McBungus, TaLoN and Terminator-Z.^[1]

Haines attended Ipswich Grammar School. He wrote his first computer virus in assembly language using the A86 assembler in the early 1990s.

Haines was responsible for the viruses NoFrills, Dudley,^[2] X-Fungus/PuKE, Daemaen and 1984. NoFrills infected the Australian Tax Office (ATO).^[3] It was described by anti-virus company manager Len Grooves as "totally unimpressive". Grooves added: "This is a very average virus...It could have been written by any first-year computer student. In fact, it had serious design faults and programming bugs. I would not hire the writer."^[3] Nevertheless the ATO decided to turn off all of its 15,000 computers until the virus was eradicated, to avoid the infection spreading.^[4]

His virus Dudley also infected the computers of Telstra (then called Telecom Australia), shutting down their system in two hours.^[4] The Dudley virus was a variant of the No Frills code with the text [Oi Dudley!][PuKE].

Haines died from a heroin overdose in 1997,^[5][6] in St Lucia, Brisbane,^[4] celebrating his 21st birthday. At the time of his death he was completing an undergraduate science degree in microbiology at the University of Queensland.^[4] A computer virus was written in his honour (RIP Terminator-Z by VLAD).^[1] The virus, named 'Memorial', pays acknowledgement to Haines by placing a message on an infected user's screen.^[7]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} April 28, 1997 The hacker who burned too bright Robotham, Julie. The Sydney Morning Herald
2. ^ May 28, 1995 Computer underground Digest Volume 7 : Issue 43. ISSN 1004-042X
3. ^ ^{a b} March 07, 1995 Take a pill and don't call us in the morning The Sydney Morning Herald
4. ^ ^{a b c d} May 05, 1997 Death of the virus king Robotham, Julie. The Sydney Morning Herald
5. ^ October 27, 1998 The hacking hall of fame Lowe, Sue. The Sydney Morning Herald
6. ^ Julie Robotham (1997-05-06). "Live fast, die young: Obsessed by viruses and heroin". Sydney Morning Herald. 
7. ^ F-Secure Virus Descriptions : Memorial

Persondata
Name	Haines, Clinton
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Short description
Date of birth	10 April 1976
Place of birth
Date of death	10 April 1997
Place of death